Search Results for: plagiarism

Weekend reads: Plagiarism and death threats; peer review by robot; a university apologizes for a job ad

Before we present this week’s Weekend Reads, a question: Do you enjoy our weekly roundup? If so, we could really use your help. Would you consider a tax-deductible donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance. Retraction Watch came back online on Wednesday of this week, after a 10-day outage for technical … Continue reading Weekend reads: Plagiarism and death threats; peer review by robot; a university apologizes for a job ad

Critic up to 18 retractions for plagiarism

H. L. Mencken once wrote that “It is impossible to think of a man of any actual force and originality, universally recognized as having those qualities, who spent his whole life appraising and describing the work of other men.” One wonders what linguistic Hell Mencken would have divined for Robert Cardullo.

Up to 19% plagiarism is just fine, journal tells authors

Apparently, you can be a little bit pregnant. We’ll explain. The other day we received an email from a researcher tipping us off to a remarkable admission from a journal in Pakistan about how much (as in, precisely how much) plagiarism it was willing to accept in its pages. The publication, the Punjab University Journal … Continue reading Up to 19% plagiarism is just fine, journal tells authors

“We got scammed:” Authors “sincerely apologize” for plagiarism they blame a ghostwriter for

The journal Cureus is retracting three articles by a mashup of authors from Pakistan and the United States for plagiarism, which the researchers blame on their use of a hired gun to prepare the papers. The articles were published over a roughly one-month stretch in August and September 2018 and covered an impressively polymathic range … Continue reading “We got scammed:” Authors “sincerely apologize” for plagiarism they blame a ghostwriter for

Compression plagiarism: An “under-recognized variety” that software will miss

If you’re interested in plagiarism in the scholarly literature nowadays, you’ve probably come across the name Michael Dougherty. Dougherty’s efforts to root out plagiarism has led to dozens of retractions, including several by a prominent priest. In a new paper in Argumentation, Dougherty, author of the recent book Correcting the Scholarly Record for Research Integrity: … Continue reading Compression plagiarism: An “under-recognized variety” that software will miss

Do wind turbines cause plagiarism? Energy researcher up to 20 retractions

The editors of PLoS ONE have done something that we’re betting Donald Trump will never do: Retract a statement about noisy wind turbines. The journal is pulling a 2014 article, titled “Adaptive neuro-fuzzy methodology for noise assessment of wind turbine,” after concluding that the researchers plagiarized. The corresponding author of the article is Shahaboddin Shamshirban, … Continue reading Do wind turbines cause plagiarism? Energy researcher up to 20 retractions

“A new form of plagiarism:” When researchers fake co-authors’ names

There’s a new publishing trend in town, says Mario Biagioli: Faking co-authors’ names. Biagioli, distinguished professor of law and science and technology studies and director of the Center for Innovation Studies at the University of California, Davis, writes in an article in Trends in Chemistry that it’s “the emergence of a new form of plagiarism … Continue reading “A new form of plagiarism:” When researchers fake co-authors’ names

Weekend reads: Ousted at MD Anderson; an “under-recognized variety of plagiarism;” a data thug rolls again

Before we present this week’s Weekend Reads, a question: Do you enjoy our weekly roundup? If so, we could really use your help. Would you consider a tax-deductible donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance. The week at Retraction Watch featured revelations about a Harvard lab being investigated by federal officials; … Continue reading Weekend reads: Ousted at MD Anderson; an “under-recognized variety of plagiarism;” a data thug rolls again

‘Search for inspiration’ lands too close to plagiarism, forcing retraction of grief paper

A pair of grief scholars in Denmark have lost a 2018 paper on ghostly apparitions after one of the researchers copied text from another article. The study, “How many bereaved people hallucinate about their loved one? A systematic review and meta-analysis of bereavement hallucinations,” appeared in the Journal of Affective Disorders, an Elsevier publication. Authors … Continue reading ‘Search for inspiration’ lands too close to plagiarism, forcing retraction of grief paper

Montenegro just made plagiarism illegal. What does it hope to achieve?

The parliament of Montenegro, a small country in the southeast of Europe, approved a law on academic integrity earlier this month that effectively criminalizes plagiarism, self-plagiarism and donation of authorship. We spoke to Mubera Kurpejović, director of higher education at the country’s Ministry of Education, explains why the law was needed and what they hope it … Continue reading Montenegro just made plagiarism illegal. What does it hope to achieve?