How to "out" a self-plagiarist?

December 10, 2008 7:00 AM

What is the best way to "out" a self-plagiarising quack? I found two scientific journal articles with different titles and slightly different author lists (but the first author is the same on both), both published within the last three months, that have nearly identical (word-for-word) text & figures. I've e-mailed the editors of the journals, but is there any way to get more publicity for this?

The paper(s) in question are pseudo-science at best, with major misunderstandings of genetics, embryology and statistics. This is one thing, but the main conclusion of the paper is that the research & work that my lab does is irresponsible and harmful.
Our lab has written a response to a shorter, "letter to the editor" version of these papers before the self-plagiarised papers came out, so I feel that we've somewhat addressed the poor science. But this guy is very prolific (and now I know how) and publishes several reviews and meta-analyses.
Is there any way I can be sure that the editors of these two publications don't hush up the duplicate articles? I want to make sure that other editors are aware of the tactics this guy is using. One of the articles is in a journal that doesn't appear in PubMed, so it might not easily be noticed.
Throwaway e-mail: [e-mail]
(I'll send the articles if you're interested)

posted by anonymous to Science & Nature (18 answers total)

Personally, I would keep a clear distinction between the wrongs you feel are being committed, and not confuse your interest in the one with your need to pursue the other.

You say you have addressed the poor science/false allegations part, and want to turn to self-plagiarism. If this were plagiarism of another, you'd obviously contact the original author -- he or she has a right to know. As it stands, you have done your duty in alerting the two publications; they may in fact be content with knowing about it, and it's not clear to me how any public interest is harmed if they do nothing (apart, again, from the poor science). You might alert the person's institution; if it is a university it may take the matter seriously. But it sounds to me like you risk having your motives be understood as less than pure -- your interest isn't in redressing the self-plagiarism, it's in countering the message.
posted by Clyde Mnestra at 7:24 AM on December 10, 2008 [2 favorites]

Are the entire articles word-for-word? If not, it is not uncommon for researchers who engage in a lot of research on the same topic to recycle portions of literature reviews, summaries of topics, etc. It's not a great system, but it's not rare. I know in the area in which I conduct research there is one "big name" who publishes a lot and often it is difficult to tell the difference between his book chapters and articles.
posted by proj at 7:28 AM on December 10, 2008

Follow-up with the editors and request that they publish a correction from the author.

Contact the Dean's office at his university.
posted by desuetude at 7:42 AM on December 10, 2008

If one of the journals is not published in Pub Med, does that mean the journal is less important, has a much lower impact factor, is less read? I ask because I am in the hard sciences but not in the biological sciences, so I am less familiar with how journals are ranked in the life sciences. But I know that in my field, this situation does happen when one of the journals is much lower than the other, and it seems to be accepted by all involved. I agree with you that it is wrong, and should be outed, but I think that you've done all you can at this point. In my grad student career I have seen amazing ethical breeches much worse than this, and my boss has told me that generally there isn't much we can do, but that the academic community surrounding the researcher already knows that the person does this and thus the person has a lowered reputation. It seems like a weak punishment to me. All I can do is always maintain my own ethical standards, remember events such as this when I'm reviewing and reading the literature (always have a watchful and critical eye), and report things like this when I seem them, like you did.
posted by rio at 7:57 AM on December 10, 2008

I'm not sure there is much you can do past, what you have already done (contact the editors and write a response to the science).

On a related note, it can be common for some publishers to reprint articles in a way that is misleading, leading one to believe that they are different articles. This allows them to make it look like they have more to offer, but is annoying to librarians and the research community.
posted by Gor-ella at 7:58 AM on December 10, 2008

If this person is at a reputable university, they probably have some mechanism for dealing with act of research dishonesty. Trawling the university web site or talking to one of the deans, as recommended above, will lead you to where you can file a complaint.
posted by procrastination at 8:04 AM on December 10, 2008

follow-up from the OP

The two articles are word-for-word identical for over 10 pages of published text, and all the figures and tables are identical. One version has an abstract, the other doesn't. The introduction of one version has two additional short paragraphs that don't appear in the other version. On the whole it is the same article published twice.

It seems very suspicious, because although it is the same article, each version has a different title and slightly different author list. This to me looks like an attempt at covering-up the duplicates. On his CV these will look like two publications.
I'd like to contact the head of his department at the university he's affiliated with, but I'm wary of it being seen in the way that Clyde Mnestra alludes to, as a personal attack, because I'm an author on a rebuttal to his earlier publication.
This is a very big deal, because multiple publications affect the scientific record. By beefing up his CV, he increases his chances for grants, promotions & tenure. It also makes it appear as if there is more support for his opinion than there really is. For additional information on this issue, there was a great article in Nature, http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v421/n6920/full/421209a.html which said, "Duplicate publications are unethical. They waste the time of unpaid, busy peer reviewers and of editors; inflate further the already over-extensive scientific literature; waste valuable production resources and journal pages; lead to flawed meta-analysis; exaggerate the significance of a particular set of findings; distort the academic reward system and copyright laws; and bring into question the integrity of medical research. Republication of data yields no benefit other than to the authors."

I think I might see if some of my colleagues would be willing to inform his department. One of my colleagues is phoning one of the editors to see what is being done.

posted by jessamyn at 8:26 AM on December 10, 2008

I assume these papers have the same corresponding author?

But yeah, apart from emailing the editors, and responding in the journal's correspondance. I am not entirely sure what more you can do besides put your faith in the peer-review process.

If you are inclined - I wouldn't mind having a look at the articles (I am in the biological sciences, and something of a nosy parker - email is in the profile).
posted by TheOtherGuy at 8:26 AM on December 10, 2008

To the OP:

Thanks for the clarification. Briefly:

1. You don't know, so far as you communicated, whether the journals involved are aware of the overlap. I agree with you that, ATBE, redundant publication is bad, but you do have to bear in mind that the Nature piece was a screed against a very common practice -- and it was just the opinion of those writing. It is by no means universal, so it will depend on your line of work, the journal policies, and the expectations of the readers.

2. Bear in mind, too, the need to distinguish b/w what has happened and what you fear will continue to happen. The journals may now be on alert, but decide not to do anything about that which has been done. It will be very difficult for you to anticipate and ward off further attempts to do this, and perhaps a bit presumptuous that it will be attempted.

3. The matter of alerting the university is different. In your follow-on, you suggest that you might ask one of your colleagues to pursue the matter with the person's department. IMHO, this is the worst idea of the lot. This is a countervailing cover-up, and I strongly suggest that you not get someone else to do your bidding on this. If it is your agenda, own it.
posted by Clyde Mnestra at 8:46 AM on December 10, 2008

Sorry: I meant to say, you don't know whether the journals involved WERE aware of the overlap (when they decided to publish).
posted by Clyde Mnestra at 8:47 AM on December 10, 2008

Who publishes the journals? There's a lot of interest and activism in the scientific community about publishers who are charging our libraries vast sums for journals that publish a lot of crap like this -- in particular, see the interesting thread on n-category cafe about a similar case in an Elsevier journal. So you might consider letting John Baez know about the case; he's got a platform to talk about these issues and he seems to enjoy using it.
posted by escabeche at 8:59 AM on December 10, 2008

As a librarian with a side interest in exposing pseudo-science, and with not an insignificant number of connections in the library world, I would LOVE to know more.

email in profile if you want to follow up with me
posted by griffey at 11:54 AM on December 10, 2008

Hell, I found this in a actual science paper - two articles that appear to have been submitted to two different journals at the same time and published in both. Word for word, figure for figure identical, just slightly different discussions because one of the two has some additional data tacked on. What kills me is that both of them include data I need to cite. When I showed them to my mentor, she said "well, someone should have caught that!" which is true - one of the journals is a Nature publication, the other is a chemistry journal.
posted by caution live frogs at 1:07 PM on December 10, 2008

I take it from the description that it's not like he's a leading authority, where his work is pretty much the best and only done in a tiny subfield. I know that, at least in some of the areas that I studied in political science, it's not uncommon for an author to submit nearly the exact same research over and over again to different journals that get indexed different places (one guy, who wrote about the rhetorical tactics of the EZLN—the new Zapatistas in Mexico—would not only do this, but cite himself again and again as the authority he was drawing from. It was kind of obnoxious when following his citations, but on the other hand, no one else seemed to be doing the type of research that he was, at least in English). I take it from your description that he also didn't cite him prior paper.

I think you've already pursued the most appropriate remedy, the emails to the editors. Aside from that, if you have a blog that's not connected with the school (and perhaps not even that connected with yourself), you could toss these up and call attention to his plagiarism for anyone willing to google his name…
posted by klangklangston at 4:54 PM on December 10, 2008

There's no such thing as self-plagiarism, so I don't really see how you can "out" someone for that. Plagiarism is publishing someone else's work without credit, you can't steal ideas from yourself.

Focus on the facts, if you have a right of reply, use it. (But, seriously, move on from the "self-plagiarism" thing, it seems petty.)
posted by The Monkey at 5:35 PM on December 10, 2008

Actually, there is such a thing as self-plagiarism.
posted by nprigoda at 6:19 PM on December 10, 2008

There's no such thing as self-plagiarism, so I don't really see how you can "out" someone for that.

It may seem counter-intuitive, and perhaps should have had a different name, but it is well recognized even beyond Wikipedia.

Why anyone would sail into such a discussion and opine thus without Googling is beyond me. If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times. . . . Oh, crap.
posted by Clyde Mnestra at 7:02 PM on December 10, 2008 [1 favorite]

Even wikipedia indicates that it's known by a different name - multiple publication, which is a less ridiculous term. I stand corrected on the point that this term is used, but I still think that pursuing this course of complaint is petty, and that any argument should stick to factual problems with the republished work.
posted by The Monkey at 8:30 PM on December 10, 2008