Category: plagiarism

Cost-sharing paper that shared too much with other works earns retraction

hepThe journal Higher Education Policy has retracted an article it published last year by a scholar in Ethiopia whose grasp of publishing policy seems pretty shaky.

The article, “Financing Higher Education in Ethiopia: Analysis of Cost-Sharing Policy and its Implementation,” which appeared online in August 2012, was by Sewale Abate Ayalew, of Bahir Dar University College of Business and Economics.

According to the retraction notice:
Continue reading Cost-sharing paper that shared too much with other works earns retraction

Authors of retracted sex paper won Ig Nobel for MRI study of coitus — and had another retraction

bmj mri
Midsagittal image of the anatomy of sexual intercourse, from BMJ http://bit.ly/v2ZkxQ

Yesterday we reported on the retraction for data misuse and plagiarism of a 21-year-old paper on sex and female cancer patients. Turns out we missed a couple of rather interesting details about the authors of the pulled article.

One tidbit, for example, is that one of them, Willibrord Weijmar Schultz,  is science royalty, having been a member of a team that won the 2000 Ig Nobel prize in medicine. Their heralded study, “Magnetic resonance imaging of male and female genitals during coitus and female sexual arousal,” published in 1999 in the BMJ: An inside-the-MRI look at the human body having sex. Continue reading Authors of retracted sex paper won Ig Nobel for MRI study of coitus — and had another retraction

21-year-old article on the sex lives of women with cancer retracted for data misuse

journal of sex researchHere’s one for the way-back machine.

The Annual Review of Sex Research (which is a supplement to the Journal of Sex Research) has retracted a 1992 paper by a group of researchers who lifted much of their analysis from two even older articles by another scholar. At 21 years post-publication, this is one of the oldest — but not the record-oldest — retractions we’ve covered to date.

The pulled paper, “Sexuality and cancer in women,” came from Willibrord C. M. Weijmar Schultz, Harry B. M. Van de Wiel, Daniela E. E. Hahn, and Mels F. Van Driel. (Weijmar Schultz and Van de Wiel  are co-authors of this rather curious passage about the appropriateness of sexual contact between doctors and patients:

Continue reading 21-year-old article on the sex lives of women with cancer retracted for data misuse

A masterbatch: More polymer retractions, gerontology journal lifts paywall, Microbiology notices appear

masterbatch
Germans and Italians are big masterbatchers. Click to enlarge. via http://bit.ly/100YBKB

Our mothers told us that if we used the masterbatch process, we’d go blind. And what better way to gather some updates to recent posts than to include one that involves said masterbatch process?

First, a retraction John Spevacek noticed when he tried clicking on the link in a Journal of Applied Polymer Science retraction we’d covered: Continue reading A masterbatch: More polymer retractions, gerontology journal lifts paywall, Microbiology notices appear

See one, do one, copy one? E-learning paper retracted for plagiarism

hccisHuman-centric Computing and Information Sciences is retracting a 2012 paper on a “model approach” to e-learning that well, was anything but a model approach to scientific publishing.

The article, “Implications of E-learning systems and self-efficiency on students outcomes: a model approach,” was written by Tanzila Saba, who has been affiliated with institutions in Malaysia and Pakistan.

According to the retraction notice: Continue reading See one, do one, copy one? E-learning paper retracted for plagiarism

Forbidden fruit: apple pomace paper retracted for plagiarism

foodbioprodprocThe journal Food and Bioproducts Processing has retracted a 2012 article on apple pomace — the remnants of a pressed fruit — by a group from India.

The reason? Turns out the paper “Utility of apple pomace as a substrate for various products: A review,” fell a little to close to the tree.

Here’s the retraction notice: Continue reading Forbidden fruit: apple pomace paper retracted for plagiarism

Identity theft: Psych journal retracts paper on gay sex for plagiarism

identityIdentity, which bills itself as “An International Journal of Theory and Research,” has retracted a 2013 article by an Italian researcher who stole the work from another author, then published it twice.

The paper, “Behind the mask: A typology of men cruising for same-sex act,” was ostensibly written by Stefano Ramello, an “independent researcher explores the interactions between space, erotic practices, identity, gender and sexuality.” But as the retraction notice explains, Ramello appears simply to have thrown his own name on top of an earlier paper.

Continue reading Identity theft: Psych journal retracts paper on gay sex for plagiarism

A regretful retraction for plagiarism and duplication in Proteome Science

proteomescilogoApologies, mea culpas, regrets. Kids, let this be a warning to you: Don’t plagiarize. You will get caught, and you’ll have to come clean.

Just ask a group of Spanish researchers who published a 2011 paper in Proteome Science, then lost it this past April because they’d stolen text and a figure from previously published work — some, but not all of it, their own.

The retraction notice for “Clinical and technical phosphoproteomic research” tells the story: Continue reading A regretful retraction for plagiarism and duplication in Proteome Science

Two retractions in polymer journal, including group’s second for “pervasive misattribution of data”

j applied polymer scienceLast November, we wrote about the retraction of a paper from the Journal of Vinyl and Additive Technology for “pervasive misattribution of data” that rendered “the article’s subsequent discussion and conclusions meaningless and misleading.”

The group now has another retraction, for exactly the same reason. The new notice appears in the Journal of Applied Polymer Science, and the language is identical, because the two journals are both published by Wiley: Continue reading Two retractions in polymer journal, including group’s second for “pervasive misattribution of data”

“Missing link” fungus-like organisms still missing as paper is retracted

proteincellThe journal Protein & Cell has retracted a 2012 paper on fungi-like organisms that took a step in the direction of proper citation — but didn’t quite get there.

The article, “Cryptomycota: the missing link,” came from Krishna Bolla and Elizabeth Jane Ashforth, who are affiliated with Key Laboratory of Pathogenic Microbiology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Bejing.

But as the retraction notice explains, Bolla wasn’t careful enough about good publishing hygiene: Continue reading “Missing link” fungus-like organisms still missing as paper is retracted