Category: plagiarism

Communications researcher loses two book chapters, investigated for plagiarism

BrillA researcher who studies how others communicate is struggling with his own communications: Peter J. Schulz has lost two book chapters for misappropriating the work of others, and is under investigation by his university.

Although the publisher believes the errors were unintentional, the retractions have prompted it to stop selling the books altogether.

Schulz now has a total of three retractions and one erratum for failing to properly cite other works. The University of Lugano in Switzerland, where he is based, told us they’re investigating allegations of plagiarism against him.

Both of the chapters that were recently retracted appear in books published by Brill. The retraction notes say the same thing:

Continue reading Communications researcher loses two book chapters, investigated for plagiarism

Peer reviewer stole text for her own dentistry paper, says journal investigation

Journal of Conservative DentistryFollowing a “thorough investigation,” the Journal of Conservative Dentistry (JCD) has retracted a paper after concluding that the first author stole the text from another paper when peer reviewing it for a different journal. 

The JCD decided that the 2013 paper about white spot lesions and inhibiting the growth of the bacteria Streptococcus mutans in the mouth is a “verbatim copy” of a paper that was rejected by the International Journal of Paediatric Dentistry in 2012 but published by The Journal of Clinical Pediatric Dentistry in 2014.

The first author denied the charges, saying she had finished the paper before reviewing the other, which she suggested rejecting.

Let’s take a look at the retraction note, which tells us more about the journal’s investigation: Continue reading Peer reviewer stole text for her own dentistry paper, says journal investigation

Neuroscientist in Serbia set to notch 7th retraction amid investigation

Lidija Radenović

Amidst an ongoing investigation by the University of Belgrade in Serbia into allegations of duplication by neurobiologist Lidija Radenović, a journal is planning to retract another one of her papers.

Radenović has already racked up six retractions; Elinor Ben-Menachem, the chief editor of the journal, Acta Neurologica Scandinavica, confirmed her journal is planning to retract one paper co-authored by Radenović, but did not specify which one. After digging around on the journal’s website, we found only one paper co-authored by Radenović, which was a 2005 study about the molecular changes that follow stroke. 

Ben-Menachem, who is based the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, said the retraction note for the paper is “not ready” yet, and declined to comment on the case in more detail, including the reason for retraction. Continue reading Neuroscientist in Serbia set to notch 7th retraction amid investigation

Author appeared to use phony Caltech co-authors, up to 8 retractions

ACBEA journal has retracted three articles from a chemist in Portugal with a history of problems with co-authors and data — the exact problems cited by the new notices.

Specifically, it appears as if Rodrigo J.G. Lopes made up the affiliations of multiple co-authors from the California Institute of Technology, causing the journal to “doubt the existence of the authors.”

Lopes first came to our attention in 2013, when he lost a paper in the Chemical Engineering Journal for including data he couldn’t have produced, as the lab lacked the necessary equipment. That had followed a previous retraction, when Lopes added co-authors without their permission. We’ve since found other retractions for Lopes, bringing his total to eight, by our count. Continue reading Author appeared to use phony Caltech co-authors, up to 8 retractions

Journal retracts groundwater pollution paper for plagiarism

ecotoxThe journal Ecotoxicology has retracted a paper that described a way to analyze nitrates in groundwater after discovering the authors had lifted a substantial amount of material from three other papers.

Here is the retraction notice for “Isotopic analysis of N and O in NO3 – by selective bacterial reduction to N2O for groundwater pollution:” Continue reading Journal retracts groundwater pollution paper for plagiarism

Now this is transparent: Retraction for plagiarism earns 4-page editor’s note

The Photogrammetric Record

A journal has retracted a paper about 3D imaging after concluding the authors used equations from another researcher without attribution — and has conveniently included a detailed editorial explaining exactly what happened.

It’s rare for us to see a journal be so transparent in explaining what went wrong with one of its papers, so we’re thanking Stuart Granshaw, from Denbighshire in Wales, UK, the editor of The Photogrammetric Record, for “doing the right thing.”

Even the retraction note is reasonably forthcoming: Continue reading Now this is transparent: Retraction for plagiarism earns 4-page editor’s note

Paper calls water “a gift from God”

renewableA paper about using solar energy to make water potable has been flagged for citing God.

The shout-out isn’t subtle; in fact, it’s the first sentence of the Introduction in “Solar still with condenser – A detailed review:”

Water is a gift from God and it plays a key role in the development of an economy and in turn for the welfare of a nation.

The paper itself contains a few similarities to a 2010 paper on the same topic, “Active solar distillation—A detailed review,” which also appeared in Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews. But that paper phrases the first sentence of the introduction slightly differently: Continue reading Paper calls water “a gift from God”

Mistaken plagiarism? Journal retracts education paper that inadvertently included others’ work

An education journal is pulling a 2014 paper about how US funding partnerships in Africa could alleviate local poverty, after the author admitted to mistakenly lifting sentences from work presented at a 2012 conference.

Author Christopher S. Collins at Azusa Pacific University took full responsibility for the plagiarism, and told us he suggested the journal retract the paper — but also proposed alternatives, such as adding the plagiarized author as a co-author, or publishing “an error sheet” that cites the material in the sentences in question.

If it’s hard to imagine how someone could plagiarize another researcher’s work by mistake, Collins explained what happened in a 900-word statement, in which he also told us how he is moving forward professionally and personally.

Here’s how some plagiarized sentences ended up in “Can funding for university partnerships between Africa and the US contribute to social development and poverty reduction?” in Higher Education, according to Collins:

Continue reading Mistaken plagiarism? Journal retracts education paper that inadvertently included others’ work

Fake email address — for author, not reviewer — fells another paper

Screen Shot 2016-02-22 at 10.19.43 AMWe’ve seen many cases of researchers creating fake email addresses to impersonate reviewers that usher their paper to publication.

But in the latest fake email incident, a journal is retracting a paper on liver cancer after the first author created a phony address for the last and corresponding author. Both are researchers at Zhengzhou University in China.

This isn’t the first time that an author has worked around the corresponding author: there’s a case from a few years ago in which the corresponding author didn’t know that the paper was being published at all. Recently, we also wrote about a doctor who was suspended in the UK after submitting papers without her co-authors’ knowledge, including creating a fake email for one of them.

This latest paper had another problem, too: plagiarism. Here’s the retraction note for “The influence of TLR4 agonist lipopolysaccharides on hepatocellular carcinoma cells and the feasibility of its application in treating liver cancer,” published in OncoTargets and Therapy:

Continue reading Fake email address — for author, not reviewer — fells another paper

“I am really sorry:” Peer reviewer stole text for own paper

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We’re sharing a relatively old retraction notice with you today, because it’s of a nature we don’t often see: A chemist apparently stole text from a manuscript he was reviewing.

In spring of 2009, Yi-Chou Tsai, a chemist at National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan, was reviewing a paper for Nature Chemistry. At the time, he’d asked a colleague to write a review article with him, so forwarded him the Nature Chemistry manuscript for reference. But some of that text ended up in their review paper,”Recent Progress in the Chemistry of Quintuple Bonds,” published in Chemistry Letters. 

Both papers were published in 2009; Chemistry Letters retracted the review the next year.

The retraction includes a statement from Tsai, who puts the blame on his co-author, Chih-Chieh Chang, also listed as affiliated with NTHU (we couldn’t find a webpage for him):

Continue reading “I am really sorry:” Peer reviewer stole text for own paper