Plagiarism and duplication might involve the same act — the misuse of text and/or data — but they are different species. Take it from Eldon Smith, who as editor of the Canadian Journal of Cardiology defined the two acts of misconduct for his readers: Plagiarism is the appropriation of another person’s ideas, processes, results or … Continue reading Retraction Watch, Noah Webster style, cardiology edition
Once again, the headline has written itself. The journal Animal has retracted a 2010 paper on cloning pig embryos after it became clear that there were “close similarities” between it and a 2009 paper by some of the same authors. Here’s the notice:
Given the subject of Retraction Watch, readers often email us with papers they’d like us to look into, whether for alleged image manipulation, potential plagiarism or duplication, or other issues. As we explain in question five of our FAQ, we don’t have the resources to do such investigations, unfortunately; we can’t even keep up with … Continue reading How to report allegations of scientific misconduct
There’s a new retraction in the journal Carbon. The case didn’t involve a Carbon copy — say, plagiarism or duplication — but rather an instance of fraud in a Japanese university, part of a larger case we covered last August. Here’s the retraction notice for the paper, “The role of Fe species in the pyrolysis … Continue reading “False data” forces retraction of Carbon paper co-authored by postdoc who led to PI’s suspension
Last year, an audit by the U.S. Government Accountability Office found “a potential for unnecessary duplication” among the billions of dollars in research grants funded by national agencies. Some researchers, it seemed, could be winning more than one grant to do the same research. Prompted by that report, Virginia Tech’s Skip Garner and his colleagues … Continue reading Has “double-dipping” cost U.S. science funding agencies tens of millions of dollars?
A group of surgeons in Cairo, Egypt have retracted their 2012 paper in the International Journal of Women’s Health for plagiarism, although that’s not quite what they’re calling it. Here’s the notice:
Renewable Energy may cover conservation, but that doesn’t mean it expects its authors to recycle their own words. The Elsevier journal is retracting a biodiesel paper it published in February 2012 by a group of Chinese researchers who published much the same work in another title a month later. That periodical, the Journal of the … Continue reading Hey authors, “Renewable Energy” doesn’t mean you can recycle words
If you’re a journal editor or publisher, there’s a good chance your email inbox has seen its share of emails from “Clare Francis,” who has been crusading against text and image duplication in papers for some years now. Some editors have grown quite weary of those emails, sometimes because they don’t want to deal with … Continue reading Clare Francis scores a bullseye: Journal of Cell Biology paper retracted for image manipulation
We’ve heard about a lot of barriers to retraction — author and editor stubbornness being the most frequent. But now there’s a new one: A publisher that wants to charge authors $650 to retract. University of Colorado librarian Jeffrey Beall — who produces a frequently updated list of predatory publishers — first wrote about the … Continue reading Publisher wants $650 to retract duplicated study
An open letter to the Serbian science ministry – coinciding with the new government’s first 100 days in office – and an accompanying petition signed by 850 scientists so far, makes for pretty dim reading on the state of research ethics in Serbia. The systematic and apparently state-endorsed practice of artificially boosting one’s ratings in … Continue reading Serbian scientists decry systematic plagiarism, predatory publishing