Search Results for: plagiarism

Neuroscience journal retracts paper for lack of “scientific soundness”

An unusual article that considered the concept of change from a systems perspective — including change in medicine, economics, and decision-making, for instance — has, well, changed from “published” to “retracted.” After commenters on PubPeer called the 2014 paper “gibberish” and even suggested it might be computer-generated, Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience retracted it, noting it “does not meet the … Continue reading Neuroscience journal retracts paper for lack of “scientific soundness”

Weekend reads: Fraudster rises again as filmmaker; Elsevier, open access publisher?; unethical ethics research

The week at Retraction Watch featured the retraction of a paper on the potential dangers of Wi-Fi, and our 3,000th post. Also, have you taken our survey? Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

Paper calls water “a gift from God”

A paper about using solar energy to make water potable has been flagged for citing God. The shout-out isn’t subtle; in fact, it’s the first sentence of the Introduction in “Solar still with condenser – A detailed review:” Water is a gift from God and it plays a key role in the development of an … Continue reading Paper calls water “a gift from God”

What happens before a retraction? A behind-the-scenes look from COPE

Ever wonder how editors figure out whether a paper should be corrected, retracted, or left as-is? For a window into that crucial decision-making process, the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) publishes a number of anonymized cases per year, in which they weigh in on a dilemma faced by a journal editor. The organization has weighed … Continue reading What happens before a retraction? A behind-the-scenes look from COPE

Fake email address — for author, not reviewer — fells another paper

We’ve seen many cases of researchers creating fake email addresses to impersonate reviewers that usher their paper to publication. But in the latest fake email incident, a journal is retracting a paper on liver cancer after the first author created a phony address for the last and corresponding author. Both are researchers at Zhengzhou University in China. This … Continue reading Fake email address — for author, not reviewer — fells another paper

“I am really sorry:” Peer reviewer stole text for own paper

We’re sharing a relatively old retraction notice with you today, because it’s of a nature we don’t often see: A chemist apparently stole text from a manuscript he was reviewing. In spring of 2009, Yi-Chou Tsai, a chemist at National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan, was reviewing a paper for Nature Chemistry. At the time, he’d … Continue reading “I am really sorry:” Peer reviewer stole text for own paper

Desalination journal let a plagiarized paper — from the same journal — through its filter

The editor of Desalination has retracted a paper that plagiarized from another article published in the same journal six years earlier. The papers describe desalination systems, of course. This retraction happened on a relatively quick timeline: The paper, “An integrated optimization model and application of MEE-TVC desalination system,” was published online in June, and pulled in January. Here’s … Continue reading Desalination journal let a plagiarized paper — from the same journal — through its filter

Ready to geek out on retraction data? Read this new preprint

There’s a new paper about retractions, and it’s chock-full of the kind of data that we love to geek out on. Enjoy. The new paper, “A Multi-dimensional Investigation of the Effects of Publication Retraction on Scholarly Impact,” appears on the preprint server arXiv — meaning it has yet to be peer-reviewed — and is co-authored … Continue reading Ready to geek out on retraction data? Read this new preprint

Weekend reads: Replication debate heats up again; NEJM fooled?; how to boost your alt-metrics

The week at Retraction Watch was dominated by the retraction of “the Creator” paper, but we also reported on a scientist under investigation losing a grant, and a case brewing at a New Jersey university. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

Reporter fired by WIRED had been dismissed by newspaper for missing deadlines

We have learned that Nic Cavell, who was dismissed last week from WIRED for plagiarizing in several stories for the publication’s website, was fired from another publication for missing deadlines. Before Cavell was selected to be a 2016 reporting fellow at WIRED magazine — a paid six-month position for promising young reporters — he wrote on the crime beat for The Riverdale Press, a … Continue reading Reporter fired by WIRED had been dismissed by newspaper for missing deadlines