http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v451/n7177/full/451397a.html
Sunday, January 27, 2008
A Tale of Two Citations
I just heard this on a pod-cast, but I've only provided the link to the written article. It seemed relevant to the review process that we have been discussing.
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2 comments:
It seems as though the issue here is not whether or not plagiarism and duplicate paper submissions exist, but how to prevent these articles and papers from being published. Although the peer review process is extensive, I’m not certain on how much time these reviewers and editors put into determining whether a submitted article is original as opposed to accurate and informative. With the increasing number of articles available on the internet as well as in print, it seems almost impossible to insure the originality of the work being submitted. However, the article does make a good point that if editors do advertise that they will use programs and tools to identify these issues, they may see a decrease in the amount of unauthentic articles submitted.
I agree that while this is a difficult issue to decipher, with individuals on each side of the publication debate justifying their practices in a variety of ways, what is critical to the argument is what type of material is being duplicated. If one is simply re-publishing their work in order to increase the girth of their publications, I believe such work to be unethical. However, if they are replicating their previously done experiments, say with a different laboratory, or with a slightly different endpoint in mind, I believe the duplication of results to bolster, rather than undermine, their authority in the field.
While the promotion of the use of text comparison software and other tools to lessen plagiarism may help to lessen outright duplication, scientists, themselves, are aware of the magnitude of articles published; consequently they are perhaps the most conscious of the time, effort, and methods which such efforts may entail. As a result, they, if so inclined to unethically re-publish, would easily find ways to override the process. As a result, reviewers must be the gatekeepers, remaining aware of previous publications in the field - as daunting as that may be given the vastness of publications, in order to abolish this practice.
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