Checking for plagiarism, duplicate publication and text recycling Sabine Kleinert Senior Executive Editor, The Lancet Trusted. Timely. Today’s Medicine. Sao Paolo, Nov 2012

Where does misconduct/questionable conduct occur Planning, applying for funding, protocol Conduct of research Writing, submitting for publication Publication process Failure to appraise literature Unethical research Plagiarism ‘Poorly’ designed research Authorship issues Unethical research Sloppy data collection or documentation Fraud/Fabrication Omitting results …etc Failure to report Sloppy reporting Omission of information/results Salami/redundant/duplicate publication Plagiarism Text recycling Authorship Editorial misconduct Reviewer misconduct

COPE cases

Plagiarism, duplicate publication, ‘text recycling’ or self-plagiarism

Plagiarism Serious misconduct Part of ‘FFP’ Plagiarist gets undeserved status, authority, and credit Now easier to detect (even retrospectively!) Extent matters! Place matters! ?language and background of researcher matters

What can journals do? Check Let authors know we check (=prevention) Act on allegations and findings Lancet only checks Review material We check before sending to peer reviewers Treat it on a case by case basis We rarely find plagiarism, but more often text recycling or ‘patchwork writing’

Exists since 2008 (CrossRef, uses iThenticate)Exists since 2008 (CrossRef, uses iThenticate) 302 publishers signed up so far (> journals)302 publishers signed up so far (> journals) >32 Mio pieces of scientific literature in database>32 Mio pieces of scientific literature in database Takes test-text and matches it with published pieces (does not check images, figures, or tables)Takes test-text and matches it with published pieces (does not check images, figures, or tables) Cannot check against translated plagiarismCannot check against translated plagiarism Needs editorial judgment !!Needs editorial judgment !! CrossCheck plagiarism, duplicate publication, and ‘self-plagiarism’

Monitors text available on internet or freely accessible databases So, does not cover subscription journals or other text behind Paywalls Largely used by institutions to check Student essays License-based

Monitors text available in search engines/databases, such as Medline So, does not cover subscription journals or other text behind Paywalls Matches abstracts only High false positive and false negative Rate BUT free

COPE’s flowchart on plagiarism

The problems with plagiarism How much is too much? Difficult to detect plagiarism of ideas Plagiarism from grant proposals Plagiarism by reviewers Plagiarised paper might be published BEFORE original paper Method section might be ok In review papers of non-native English speakers When should institutions be informed and with which aim? ?sanctions by editors

COPE: Advising editors on specific cases sharing experience generic guidance

Redundant/duplicate publication Does it matter? –meta-analyses, readers, deception (CV, editors….etc) May be ok –Different audience, language (with everybody’s knowledge and agreement and crossreference) Overlapping vs complete duplicate –Still matters for meta-analyses In non-research papers –= text-recycling ‘I can say the same thing only in so many ways’ –Really? Deception!

Text recycling or ‘self-plagiarism’ “Self-Plagiarism is defined as a type of plagiarism in which the writer republishes a work in its entirety or reuses portions of a previously Written text while authoring a new work”

Text recycling or (‘self-plagiarism’) CV with many publications Readers! Journals/editors! Academic laziness Misleading and deceptive