After a research group submitted two similar papers only days apart to different journals, one journal has retracted the paper — and told the other it should do the same.
The papers, by a group of authors based in Romania, describe a new polymer to stop the formation of biofilms. After a reader flagged the papers — which were submitted within eight days of each other in September, 2015 — as being similar, a journal has retracted one, and recommended the other journal retract the second. Although the second journal told us it planned to flag the paper with a notice alerting readers to the duplication, the notice has not yet appeared online.
The journal that issued the retraction — the International Journal of Polymer Analysis and Characterization (IJPAC) — called it a “a clear case of self-plagiarism,” according to the notice:
Continue reading Researchers submit two similar papers 8 days apart; one is retracted