Category: plagiarism

The tell-tale heart: Cardiovascular surgeons notch two retractions for plagiarism

Sometimes plagiarism can be tricky to catch when an article has to be translated before publication.

That seems to be the case for two papers out of a hospital in Canakkale, Turkey, that discussed results of two different kinds of heart surgery.

Here’s the retraction notice for “The effects of 21 and 23 milimeter aortic valve prosthesis on hemodynamic performance and functional capacity in young adults,” in the Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences: Continue reading The tell-tale heart: Cardiovascular surgeons notch two retractions for plagiarism

“Is Imitation the Sincerest Form of Flattery? Not Without Proper Attribution.”

regional sci policy practiceWe’re going to get a little meta here, so be warned.

Take a look at the headline of this post. For those of you unfamiliar with the symbols to the left and right of the words, those are quotation marks. What that means is that we’ve taken those two sentences from another source. And here is that other source, a blog post from Tahseen Consulting titled — yes, you guessed it, “Is Imitation the Sincerest Form of Flattery? Not Without Proper Attribution.”

Apparently, the last group of authors who liked Tahseen’s words enough to use them did so without that whole attribution thing. Here, let us demonstrate attribution again, this time using the WordPress block-quote function. From the post: Continue reading “Is Imitation the Sincerest Form of Flattery? Not Without Proper Attribution.”

Intellectual property lawyer loses papers for … plagiarism

Dr Angela Adrian
Angela Adrian

Although most of what Alanis Morissette sang about in her hit song “Ironic” wasn’t irony at all, had she included a line or two about Angela Adrian she would have nailed it.

Adrian is an expert in intellectual property law, a former editor of the International Journal of Intellectual Property Management, a legal scholar whose resume boasts more degrees than a protractor. According to this bio:

Dr Angela Adrian is a dual qualified lawyer in Louisiana and the UK. Her specialisms include Intellectual Property, Information Technology, International Trade, and Criminal Law. She has two Masters degrees with distinction in Business & Management (Schiller International University) as well as in Commercial Law (University of Aberdeen). She obtained her Juris Doctorate at Loyola University, New Orleans. Dr Adrian published her PhD from Queen Mary, University of London as a monograph entitled “Law and Order in Virtual Worlds: Exploring Avatars, their Ownership and Rights”. Currently, she is Chief Knowledge Officer of Icondia Ltd, an images rights company, co-author of the 4th edition of “Intellectual Property: Text and Essential Cases” (Australia), and Editor of the International Journal of Intellectual Property Management.

She’s also a serial plagiarist. Continue reading Intellectual property lawyer loses papers for … plagiarism

Holocaust paper yanked for plagiarizing

ejesPro tip: If you’re going to write a paper on giving voice to hidden words, PLEASE try not to plagiarize!

Esther Sánchez-Pardo, of Complutense University in Madrid, was the author of a 2010 article in the European Journal of English Studies titled “Who will carry the word? The threshold between unspeakability and silence in the Holocaust narratives of Charlotte Delbo and Jorge Semprun.”

The problem, it turns out, is that a couple of other authors had their words carried, but Sánchez-Pardo didn’t bother to speak their names.

According to the abstract: Continue reading Holocaust paper yanked for plagiarizing

Bitter rheumatology authorship dispute ends in retraction

rbrA 2012 expression of concern prompted by an authorship dispute has been upgraded to a retraction.

As we reported in 2012, Revista Brasiliera de Reumatologia (aka the Brazilian Journal of Rheumatology) issued an expression of concern about “Anticitrullinated peptide antibodies and rheumatoid factor in Sudanese patients with Leishmania donovani infection” after

a claim from one of the authors, questioning the authorship of the corresponding author, and informed that the article was under submission to another journal.

The journal sought the advice of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), and continued its investigation. That investigation is apparently now complete, and this retraction notice is the result: Continue reading Bitter rheumatology authorship dispute ends in retraction

U.S. senator appears to have plagiarized his master’s thesis

Sen. John Walsh
Sen. John Walsh

A Democratic senator from Montana, John Walsh, is the latest high-profile politician to face plagiarism charges.

The New York Times reports:

…one of the highest-profile credentials of Mr. Walsh’s 33-year military career appears to have been improperly attained. An examination of the final paper required for Mr. Walsh’s master’s degree from the United States Army War College indicates the senator appropriated at least a quarter of his thesis on American Middle East policy from other authors’ works, with no attribution.

In an infographic, the Times lays out the overlapping passages: Continue reading U.S. senator appears to have plagiarized his master’s thesis

Yogurt to be kidding me: Five articles plagiarized in one retracted paper

After typing up 96 citations, researchers from the National Institute for Digestive Diseases, I.R.C.C.S. “S. de Bellis,” in Bari, Italy, apparently ran out of steam for the last five, earning themselves a retraction for plagiarism in a literature review of the effects of probiotics on intestinal cancer.

Here’s the notice for “Intestinal Microbiota, Probiotics and Human Gastrointestinal Cancers,” from the Journal of Gastrointestinal Cancer: Continue reading Yogurt to be kidding me: Five articles plagiarized in one retracted paper

Poetry, politics, plagiarism, and erotics add up to a retraction

Nizar Qabbani, via WikiMedia

Here’s a new category for us: Poetry.

Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, a comparative studies journal, has retracted a paper on gender roles in Middle Eastern poetry due to plagiarism.

Nizar Kabbani was a famed Syrian poet who wrote frankly about feminism, love, and sex. He’s well worth a read, if you have the time – here’s an excerpt from one of his more famous poems, I Have No Power: Continue reading Poetry, politics, plagiarism, and erotics add up to a retraction

Recursive plagiarism? Researchers may have published a duplicate of a study retracted for plagiarism

acta physica sinicaSometimes plagiarism, like an onion, has layers.

That appears to be the case in a paper brought to our attention by sharp-eyed reader Vladimir Baulin, whose work was copied in a 2006 paper that Journal of Biological Physics retracted for plagiarism.

But you can’t keep a good thief down: the plagiarizing authors just popped up in a new journal with a Chinese-language version of their retracted paper, that looks an awful lot like a knock-off. Here’s a note from Baulin: Continue reading Recursive plagiarism? Researchers may have published a duplicate of a study retracted for plagiarism

Author steps in to clarify vague tuberculosis retraction

You’ve got to love when an author is willing to detail the specifics of an unhelpful retraction notice.

This May, a paper came out in Journal of Thoracic Diseases about drug-resistant tuberculosis. It was retracted in June, for “some misconduct in the manuscript.”

Here’s the notice:

The article “Application status of MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry in the identification and drug resistance of Mycobacterium tuberculosis” (doi: 10.3978/j.issn.2072-1439.2014.02.19) that appeared on page 512-516 of the May 2014 issue of the Journal of Thoracic Disease needs to be withdrawn due to some misconduct in the manuscript. We are sorry for the inconvenience caused.

Since that’s pretty vague and unhelpful, we reached out to corresponding author Jiayun Liu, who gave us a thorough rundown:

Continue reading Author steps in to clarify vague tuberculosis retraction