Here’s a suggestion: If you’re going to plagiarize someone else’s work, don’t draw attention to it by including “fiction” in your title.
That lesson was brought home to us by a recent retraction in the Italian Journal of Pediatrics for “Infantile colic, facts and fiction:”
Continue reading Pro tip: Don’t use “facts and fiction” in your title if you plan to plagiarize
The American Journal of Gastroenterology has retracted a 2011 article on colon cancer by a group of Cleveland Clinic researchers after finding “evidence” of plagiarism in the text.
The article, a review, was titled “Molecular Pathways Underlying IBD-Associated Colorectal Neoplasia: Therapeutic Implications,” and has been cited 16 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.
Here’s the retraction notice: Continue reading Reverse peristalsis for gut journal which disgorges Cleveland Clinic paper for plagiarism
Here’s a lesson for would-be authors of papers on power supplies:
Energy = Renewable; Journal articles = Not renewable
Too late for a group of engineers in Iran who borrowed too liberally from previously published work in their 2013 article in Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews.
The paper, “A review of energy storage systems in microgrids with wind turbines,” reported that: Continue reading Plagiarism makes renewable energy paper unsustainable
Here’s a nice case of a journal taking pains to clear the name of an author.
Last summer we wrote about a case of plagiarism involving two authors from India who’d published a paper on biometrics in the Australian Journal of Forensic Sciences.
Now — seven months later, we’ll note — one of those authors has gotten a reprieve. A notice in the journal states that the researcher had nothing to do with the misconduct.
At the time, the notice for the paper, “Multiple facial soft biometrics for person identification system,” read: Continue reading Doing the right thing: Journal clears unknowing author of plagiarism
A suggestion: When you title your paper “Joined at the hip?”, better make sure it’s not too close for comfort to someone else’s work.
Alas, an Idaho anthropologist failed to heed that lesson when she published “Joined at the hip? A paleoepidemiological study of developmental dysplasia of the hip and its relation to swaddling practices among indigenous peoples of North America,” in the American Journal of Human Biology last October.
The article, by Samantha Blatt, of Boise State University, found that: Continue reading Hip disjoint: Dysplasia paper lacks proper attribution, earns retraction
A group of bird researchers in Korea has lost their 2006 paper on DNA barcoding of that country’s avian species because they feathered the article with material from others.
The paper, “DNA barcoding Korean birds,” appeared in Molecules and Cells, published by Springer for the Korean Society for Molecular and Cellular Biology and has been cited 88 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. According to the abstract: Continue reading Clone call for bird gene bar-coding paper
A group of cancer researchers in China has lost their 2013 paper in the International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Pathology after someone tipped off the journal that the data were copied.
The article, “Importance of spondin 1 and cellular retinoic acid binding protein 1 in the clinical diagnosis of ovarian cancer,” came from Ting-Ting Jiao, Ye-Min Zhang, Lin Yao, Yuan Gao, Jian Sun, Dong-Fang Zou, Guo-Ping Wu, Dan Wang, Jun Ou, Ning Hui, who work at various Shanghai hospitals.
Here’s the retraction notice: Continue reading “Knowledgeable informant” topples ovarian cancer paper
A leading chemist at the University of Washington, Larry Dalton, has retracted a 2004 study in Inorganica Chimica Acta, marking his second retraction in the journal in 47 years.
Here’s the new notice: Continue reading Leading chemist notches two retractions in one journal, separated by 47 years
It is often said that science is self-correcting, but it is usually more accurate to add “in the long run” to that statement.
Take, for example, this retraction of a 10-year-old paper in Entropy that had been questioned since 2005. Here’s the notice for “Statistical Convergent Topological Sequence Entropy Maps of the Circle:”
The editors were made aware that a paper published in Entropy in 2004 [1] may have plagiarized an earlier paper by Roman Hric published in 2000 [2]. After checking with specialized plagiarism software, we found that this claim is indeed correct and almost the entire paper is a verbatim copy of the earlier one. After confirmation of this fact, the editors of Entropy have decided to retract the paper immediately.
We would like to apologize to the readers of the journal that it took so many years to notice this error and to retract the paper. Apparently there is a comment on MathSciNet (http://www.ams.org/mathscinet/) since 2005 that points out this case of possible plagiarism [3], however the editorial office was not aware of this until recently. We request readers of the journal to directly get in touch with the editorial office and the editors of the journal for similar cases in the future, so that they can be handled promptly.
References
1. Aydin, B. Statistical Convergent Topological Sequence Entropy Maps of the Circle. Entropy 2004, 6, 257–261.
2. Hric, R. Topological sequence entropy for maps of the circle. Comment. Math. Univ. Carolin. 2000, 41, 53–59.
3. MathSciNet, MR2082710 (2005f:37075), http://www.ams.org/mathscinet getitem?mr=2082710
The paper has yet to be cited, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.
Hat tip: William T.A. Harrison
It’s been a busy month for retractions at the Pan African Medical Journal (PAMJ) — dedicated to “Better health through knowledge sharing and information dissemination.”
The journal has retracted a 2013 article by a group from Bangalore, India, for plagiarism. And unlike the authors, the editors didn’t mince words.
The paper, “Detection of ESBL among ampc producing enterobacteriaceae using inhibitor-based method,” concluded that: Continue reading “Protracted and unresolved authors dispute” and “striking similarities” lead to two retractions