There’s so much publishing news to report, we don’t always get to cover every retraction when it appears. To get the word out more quickly, sometimes we publish a group of papers pulled for similar reasons, such as duplications. Below, we present five recent cases of plagiarism, such as using text or figures that the … Continue reading Plagiarism, plagiarism, plagiarism: Five recent cases
One journal has retracted a paper containing images that recently raised suspicions of obvious duplications, and another journal is planning to do the same. Scientists first leveled accusations against the newly retracted paper in Scientific Reports, along with two others by the same researchers, earlier this month on Twitter. One other journal — PeerJ — has announced … Continue reading Two journals retracting papers from University of Malaya featuring widely criticized figures
The week at Retraction Watch featured revelations of fraud in more than $100 million in government research, and swift findings in a much-discussed case. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
The Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) has asked a journal to retract two papers after revealing a former employee manipulated data. The report does not name the individual nor the journal, but notes that they work in a molecular field, and are currently employed by a university outside The Netherlands. According to a news release about … Continue reading Leiden requests two retractions over misconduct
Many figures in four papers by a research team in Malaysia contain duplication or manipulation, a university committee has found, calling for multiple retractions. We learned about issues with three of the papers, including one in Scientific Reports, earlier this week when they were the talk of Twitter. As journals issued expressions of concern, and an expert wondered how … Continue reading Figures questioned online were manipulated, says Malaysia investigation
Multiple investigations have been launched into allegations of blatant duplications by a research group in Malaysia. Last week, users alleged on Twitter that three papers by the same team included pictures of cells that were copied and pasted. First author Nima Samie, affiliated with University of Malaya in Malaysia, denied the accusations — but both the Malaysian … Continue reading Images that raised eyebrows flagged by another journal; Malaysian gov’t investigates
JAMA and another journal in its network have retracted three 2005 papers about preventing hip fractures, after an admission of scientific misconduct. All papers are being retracted over concerns about data integrity, and “inappropriate assignment of authorship.” Four of the authors — all based in Japan — have co-authored all of the three newly retracted … Continue reading JAMA journals pull 3 papers by same authors for misconduct
Biologists are retracting three papers after the journal concluded they contain reused images, designed to represent different experiments. The authors stand by the conclusions, some of which they say have been “extensively validated.” The Journal of Biological Chemistry used image analysis software to evaluate the images, first published at least a decade ago. Unfortunately, the raw … Continue reading Authors reused images in three papers, concludes journal probe
A mathematician has lost two publications that overlap substantially. In this case, it’s easy to see how editors were duped (as it were). Both journals received the papers within a few months of each other, and then published them in quick succession; both have since been retracted. The papers share a first author, Jin Li, affiliated with Jiujiang University in China. … Continue reading Two math papers are too similar, both retracted
A psychology journal is correcting a paper for reusing data. The editor told us the paper is a “piecemeal publication,” not a duplicate, and is distinct enough from the previous article that it is not “grounds for retraction.” The authors tracked the health and mood of 65 patients over nine weeks. In one paper, they concluded that measures … Continue reading Duplicated data gets corrected — not retracted — by psych journal