- Email: [email protected]
Avoiding unethical writing practices
Food and Chemical Toxicology 50 (2012) 3385–3387
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
Food and Chemical Toxicology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/foodchemtox
Editorial
Avoiding unethical writing practices 1. Introduction As with most other scientific journals, the editorial staff of Food and Chemical Toxicology has detected plagiarized material in an increasing number of manuscripts submitted for publication. Moreover, instances of plagiarism in articles that have already been published have also been uncovered. Plagiarism has become of such great concern that the authors of a paper on the subject published in the summer of 2011 noted that more articles have been published with the word ‘plagiarism’ in their title since 2005 than were published in all of the years prior to 2004 (Habibzadeh and Marcovitch, 2011). 2. What is plagiarism? Plagiarism is generally defined as passing others’ work as our own. The journal’s publisher, explains that ‘‘[p]lagiarism takes many forms, from ‘passing off’ another’s paper as the author’s own paper, to copying or paraphrasing substantial parts of another’s paper (without attribution), to claiming results from research conducted by others. Plagiarism, in all its forms, constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable’’ (Elsevier, 2012). Indeed, plagiarism manifests itself in various ways and prospective authors must be aware that, in addition to text and data, plagiarism also includes the misappropriation of a wide range of others’ intellectual property, including ideas, images, and methodologies. 3. Common myths about plagiarism Various explanations have been proposed for the rise in research misconduct and, particularly, for the increase in cases of plagiarism (e.g., competition for resources, pressure to publish). With respect to the latter, there certainly are cases in which there is little doubt that the offenders were intentionally deceitful. However, in many other cases, these malpractices seem to be the result of difficulties with written English and/or of a lack of proper training (Heitman and Litewka, 2011; Vasconcelos, Leta, Costa, Pinto, and Sorenson, 2009) and perhaps even benign neglect over basic principles of traditional scholarship.
net). Neither view is correct. It does not matter whether the misappropriated material was published or not, or whether it was obtained from print media, the internet, or even from an informal verbal discussion. Scientific writing must be honest and transparent. Such honesty means that when we use others’ work or ideas we must clearly inform the reader of their origin, regardless of the medium in which such work originally appeared (e.g., draft proposal) even if it was obtained via a casual conversation (see, for example, page 4 of Roig, 2006). 3.2. Citations and paraphrasing Lapses in standard citation and quotation practices can translate to instances of plagiarism. For example, there are those who seem to believe that it is acceptable to simply use portions of verbatim text from others as long as a citation is provided (Julliard, 1994; Roig, 2001). While such an approach informs the reader of the origin of the ideas conveyed by the borrowed text, the reader is misled into believing that the words are the authors’ own rather than those of the authors’ cited. Standard rules of scholarship call for any verbatim text taken from other sources to be enclosed in quotations marks and be accompanied by a citation. Curiously, placing others’ text in quotation marks is rarely done in empirical journal articles that consist of a literature review, methods, results and discussion (Knisely, 2009, p. 44). Perhaps this tradition is the result of editors’ expectations that scientists can convey others’ ideas and findings in their own words. Thus, when we report on others’ ideas and results we must do so by summarizing and/or paraphrasing their work and by adding citations to identify the origin of such work. 3.3. Summarizing A summary represents a condensed version of the original. For example, a journal abstract represents a summary of the much longer paper. Authors who must summarize others’ work are expected to read the original article and write their own summary and not merely paraphrase the original abstract. Doing the latter and citing the actual paper (as opposed to the abstract) misleads the reader into believing that the author has read the paper.
3.1. Published vs. unpublished
3.4. Paraphrasing
Apparently, some authors incorrectly believe that the charge of plagiarism should only apply when the plagiarized material finally appears in print form, but not when it is still in manuscript form, for example, under review by journal referees. Others seem to believe that one can freely use others’ work as long as such work has not been published (e.g., research proposals, material on the inter-
Paraphrases are more detailed representations of the original, but employ different words. In most situations, taking a sentence and changing a word or two does not constitute an adequate paraphrase nor is it acceptable to merely change the subject and predicate around. An acceptable paraphrase requires that the original sentence or paragraph be substantially modified. Paraphrases tend
0278-6915/$ - see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.fct.2012.06.043
3386
Editorial / Food and Chemical Toxicology 50 (2012) 3385–3387
to be of approximately the same length and contain the same level of detail as the original. When writing scientific papers, particularly literature reviews and similar material, we should be relying mostly on the process of summarizing or on some combination of mostly summarizing and some paraphrasing. Of course, both processes demand that we include citations to alert the reader as to the origin of those ideas we are writing about. In addition, whether we use footnotes, parenthetical notations, or some other literary mechanism to identify others’ contributions, we must do so in a manner that indicates specifically which portions of the writing represent our work and which represent the work of others. 3.5. Only a few ways to say the same thing A common justification for misappropriating others’ text is the notion that there are only so many ways to express the same concept. Indeed, scientific writing often consists of technically intricate descriptions of equipment and methodological procedures whose unique expressions and terminology can be very difficult to paraphrase. Perhaps that is why plagiarism guidance such as that offered by the United States’ Office of Research Integrity (ORI’s working definition of plagiarism, 1994) stipulates that they ‘‘generally [do] not pursue the limited use of identical or nearly-identical phrases which describe a commonly-used methodology or previous research because ORI does not consider such use as substantially misleading to the reader or of great significance.’’ However, while this type of technical text is typically confined to methods sections, a perusal of sanctioned cases in the Déjà vu data base (http://dejavu.vbi.vt.edu/dejavu/duplicate/) reveals that plagiarized text tends to be detected from every section of a typical journal article and not just the methods sections. Nonetheless, completely rewriting a methods section for the sake of avoiding plagiarism runs a risk of inadvertently introducing wording that can be misinterpreted. But, authors need to keep in mind that phrases are not sentences and sentences are not entire paragraphs and misappropriating even a single paragraph can constitute grounds for a retraction (e.g., Sticklen, 2010). 4. Self-plagiarism and other forms of redundancy Whereas plagiarism is the act of misappropriating the work of others, self-plagiarism refers to the reuse of one’s own previously disseminated work (e.g., data, text). While we can quibble about the appropriateness of the term self-plagiarism, there is general agreement in the biomedical science editorial community that such practices can be highly problematic (Wager, Fiack, Graf, Robinson, Rowlands, 2009). When authors fail to inform the reader about the extent to which they are reusing their own previously disseminated ideas, text, and, especially, their data, we collectively refer to these types of malpractice as forms of covert self-plagiarism. Let’s examine some of the most common forms. 4.1. Covert Duplicate Publication Instances have occurred in which authors of an already published journal article decide to submit the same manuscript to another journal, however, they fail to indicate that the work had been published earlier. In many cases, the rationale offered by these authors is to make the information available to a wider audience or to a different audience altogether. As per the guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, this approach is acceptable when the author informs readers about the earlier publication of the paper, including a full citation of the earlier published article, and when both, the editor of the original publication and the editor of the duplicate, approve of the duplicate publication. Because the vast majority of journals are only interested in
original contributions, there are very few instances of acceptable duplication (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, 2010). 4.2. Covert Segmented or Salami publication This is perhaps the most common form of self-plagiarism and, at its core, it occurs when authors take a data set from what should be a single research project, and divide it into two or more subsets, each of which is then analyzed and published in separate journal articles (i.e., salami slices). Covert segmented publication can be problematic because interpretation of the results could vary as a function of whether each article is understood as having been derived from a single independent project or whether they are part of a larger, more complex study. For example, let’s suppose an author carries out a study of attitudes toward various food groups that included measures of food group preference, perceived cost, ease of availability, and illnesses associated with each food group. It is well known that subjects sometimes adjust their responses to questionnaire items (e.g., specific food item preference) based on their responses to previous items (e.g., illness attributed to a certain food item) and that these context effects can produce very different results (see the work of Council, 1993). Equally troubling is the possibility that control group data are reused in the various covert ‘salami slices’ but no adjustments are made to the alpha levels (i.e., Bonferoni method) as a result of the multiple statistical analyses of the same data. Authors need to be very clear about the exact relationship between the various publications derived from the same data set. 4.3. Covert Augmented publication A related inappropriate publication practice occurs when authors take a previously published study, collect additional data, and publish the augmented results in a new paper, However, because readers are never specifically told that the ‘new’ data also include older, already published data, they are mislead about the originality and true impact of the study. Moreover, the true status of the scientific record is tainted by the duplication of existing data. This latter outcome is perhaps the most damaging feature of many instances of plagiarism and self-plagiarism of data. When older data are presented as new, the consequences for science are analogous to fabricating data, a major form of research misconduct alongside data falsification and plagiarism: It is a type of pernicious fraud that corrupts scientific truth. 4.4. Other forms of duplication and redundancy A number of other practices have also been subsumed under the heading of self-plagiarism and whether they are classified as segmented publication, or some other type of redundancy depends on specific features of the study. For example, consider a situation in which data from a published study are reanalyzed with a new technique that provides new insights about the phenomena under study. The paper accurately describes the methodology and other details and the results of the new analysis are published, but the authors make no reference to the earlier publication, thereby misleading the reader into believing that the data are new. Arguably, this example is neither a true duplicate publication nor segmentation or augmentation, but the failure of the authors to identify the data as being the same as that from an earlier publication is highly problematic. In sum, covert reuse of data that misleads readers into believing that the data are new when in fact they are not, particularly if they do not add any new insights about the phenomena under study, should be seen as a major form of research misconduct.
Editorial / Food and Chemical Toxicology 50 (2012) 3385–3387
3387
4.5. Recycling one’s own previously published text
References
While the covert reuse of authors’ earlier published data represents the central offense in most cases of self-plagiarism, a common characteristic in nearly all such cases is the substantial reuse of these authors’ own previously published text. Such substantial text reuse can also occur in the absence of any other form of misconduct involving data, but the practice is problematic. The reader should note that, at least in one recent case, substantial text reuse has resulted in a retraction (Neligan, Malhotra, Fraser, Williams, Greenblatt, Cereda, Ochroch, 2010). Regrettably, while there is no consensus as to what amount of text reuse is unacceptable (e.g., a sentence, a paragraph, several paragraphs?) some editors believe that approximately 10% may be the limit (e.g., Kravitz and Feldman, 2011). And while at least one journal editor does not consider the reuse of a methods section as self-plagiarism (Shafer, 2011), others caution about such reuse without making the necessary changes to reflect the new experiments (e.g., Biros, 2009). Copyright considerations aside, authors’ reuse of even relatively small portions of previously published text (i.e., ORI’s ‘‘. . .limited use of identical or near-identical phrases’’) does not reflect the highest standards of scholarship expected by the editors of this journal. However, such reuse should be deemed acceptable, even desirable, in those methodology sections where the descriptions of materials, procedures, processes, etc., are so intricately technical that paraphrasing them runs a risk of altering their interpretation. Contributions to biomedical journals demand the highest scientific standards as well as excellence in traditional scholarship (e.g., sound argumentation, documentation of our sources). When authors plagiarize others’ data or present their own data as new, they malign the scientific record in the same way that fabricated data do: Plagiarized data are data that, in reality, do not exist. Misappropriation of even a few verbatim sentences from another author without attribution is plagiarism. Likewise, and with the exception of some instances of highly technical text from Materials and Methods sections, reusing portions of our previously disseminated text and passing them along as new writing is self-plagiarism. While such transgressions when carried out in small scale might not reach the threshold for research misconduct, they can represent forms of scholarly misconduct. When authors engage in even minor scholarly misconduct their entire edifice of scientific work may come under suspicion. With this editorial, authors considering submitting their work to Food and Chemical Toxicology are now put on notice: Ignorance is no excuse.
Biros, M.H., 2009. Advice to Authors: Getting Published in Academic Emergency Medicine, http://www.saem.org/getting-published-advice. Accessed May 20, 2011. Council, J.R., 1993. Context effects in personality research. Current Directions in Psychological Science 2, 31–33. Elsevier, 2012. Authors’ Rights & Responsibilities. Publishing Ethics. Duties of Authors. Originality and Plagiarism. http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/ authorsview.authors/rights. Accessed May 14, 2012. Habibzadeh, F., Marcovitch, H., 2011. Plagiarism: the emperor’s new clothes. European Science Editing 37 (3), 67–69. Heitman, E., Litewka, S., 2011. International perspectives on plagiarism and considerations for teaching international trainees. Urologic Oncology: Seminars and Original Investigations 29 (1), 104–108. International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (2010). Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals: Publishing and Editorial Issues Related to Publication in Biomedical Journals: Overlapping Publications. Available at http://www.icmje.org/publishing_4overlap.html. Accessed May 25, 2012 Julliard, K., 1994. Perceptions of plagiarism in the use of other authors’ language. Fam. Med. 26 (6), 356–360. Knisely, K. A., 2009. Student handbook for writing in biology 3rd ed., Sinauer and Associates, Inc. Suderland, MA. Kravitz, R.L., Feldman, M.D., 2011. From the editors’ desk: self-plagiarism and other editorial crimes and misdemeanors. J. Gen. Intern. Med. 26 (1), 1. Neligan, P.J., Malhotra, G., Fraser, M., Williams, N., Greenblatt, E.P., Cereda, M., Ochroch, E.A., 2010. Retraction. Noninvasive ventilation immediately after extubation improves lung function in morbidly obese patients with obstructive sleep apnea undergoing laparoscopic bariatric surgery. Anesth. Analg. 110 (2), 1360–1365. ORI’s working definition of plagiarism (1994). ORI Newsletter 3(1):3, http:// ori.hhs.gov/policies/plagiarism.shtml. Accessed May 29, 2012. Roig, M., 2001. Plagiarism and paraphrasing criteria of college and university professors. Ethics Behav. 11 (3), 307–323. Roig, M., 2006. Avoiding plagiarism, self-plagiarism, and other questionable writing practices: A guide to ethical writing. http://ori.hhs.gov/images/ddblock/ plagiarism.pdf. Accessed May 20, 2012. Shafer, S.L., 2011. You will be caught. Anesth. Analg. 112 (3), 491–493. Sticklen, M.B., 2010. Retraction: Plant genetic engineering for biofuel production: towards affordable cellulosic ethanol. Nat. Rev. Genet. 11 (4), 308. Vasconcelos, S., Leta, J., Costa, L., Pinto, A., Sorenson, M.M., 2009. Discussing plagiarism in Latin American science. Brazilian researchers begin to address an ethical issue. EMBO Rep. 10 (7), 677–682. Wager, E., Fiack, S., Graf, C., Robinson, A., Rowlands, I., 2009. Science journal editors’ views on publication ethics: results of an international survey. J. Med. Ethics 35 (6), 348–353.
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Miguel Roig St. John’s University, 300 Howard Avenue, Staten Island, NY 10301, USA ⇑ Tel.: +1 718 390 4513; fax: +1 718 390 4347. E-mail address: [email protected] Available online 28 June 2012
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
Food and Chemical Toxicology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/foodchemtox
Editorial
Avoiding unethical writing practices 1. Introduction As with most other scientific journals, the editorial staff of Food and Chemical Toxicology has detected plagiarized material in an increasing number of manuscripts submitted for publication. Moreover, instances of plagiarism in articles that have already been published have also been uncovered. Plagiarism has become of such great concern that the authors of a paper on the subject published in the summer of 2011 noted that more articles have been published with the word ‘plagiarism’ in their title since 2005 than were published in all of the years prior to 2004 (Habibzadeh and Marcovitch, 2011). 2. What is plagiarism? Plagiarism is generally defined as passing others’ work as our own. The journal’s publisher, explains that ‘‘[p]lagiarism takes many forms, from ‘passing off’ another’s paper as the author’s own paper, to copying or paraphrasing substantial parts of another’s paper (without attribution), to claiming results from research conducted by others. Plagiarism, in all its forms, constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable’’ (Elsevier, 2012). Indeed, plagiarism manifests itself in various ways and prospective authors must be aware that, in addition to text and data, plagiarism also includes the misappropriation of a wide range of others’ intellectual property, including ideas, images, and methodologies. 3. Common myths about plagiarism Various explanations have been proposed for the rise in research misconduct and, particularly, for the increase in cases of plagiarism (e.g., competition for resources, pressure to publish). With respect to the latter, there certainly are cases in which there is little doubt that the offenders were intentionally deceitful. However, in many other cases, these malpractices seem to be the result of difficulties with written English and/or of a lack of proper training (Heitman and Litewka, 2011; Vasconcelos, Leta, Costa, Pinto, and Sorenson, 2009) and perhaps even benign neglect over basic principles of traditional scholarship.
net). Neither view is correct. It does not matter whether the misappropriated material was published or not, or whether it was obtained from print media, the internet, or even from an informal verbal discussion. Scientific writing must be honest and transparent. Such honesty means that when we use others’ work or ideas we must clearly inform the reader of their origin, regardless of the medium in which such work originally appeared (e.g., draft proposal) even if it was obtained via a casual conversation (see, for example, page 4 of Roig, 2006). 3.2. Citations and paraphrasing Lapses in standard citation and quotation practices can translate to instances of plagiarism. For example, there are those who seem to believe that it is acceptable to simply use portions of verbatim text from others as long as a citation is provided (Julliard, 1994; Roig, 2001). While such an approach informs the reader of the origin of the ideas conveyed by the borrowed text, the reader is misled into believing that the words are the authors’ own rather than those of the authors’ cited. Standard rules of scholarship call for any verbatim text taken from other sources to be enclosed in quotations marks and be accompanied by a citation. Curiously, placing others’ text in quotation marks is rarely done in empirical journal articles that consist of a literature review, methods, results and discussion (Knisely, 2009, p. 44). Perhaps this tradition is the result of editors’ expectations that scientists can convey others’ ideas and findings in their own words. Thus, when we report on others’ ideas and results we must do so by summarizing and/or paraphrasing their work and by adding citations to identify the origin of such work. 3.3. Summarizing A summary represents a condensed version of the original. For example, a journal abstract represents a summary of the much longer paper. Authors who must summarize others’ work are expected to read the original article and write their own summary and not merely paraphrase the original abstract. Doing the latter and citing the actual paper (as opposed to the abstract) misleads the reader into believing that the author has read the paper.
3.1. Published vs. unpublished
3.4. Paraphrasing
Apparently, some authors incorrectly believe that the charge of plagiarism should only apply when the plagiarized material finally appears in print form, but not when it is still in manuscript form, for example, under review by journal referees. Others seem to believe that one can freely use others’ work as long as such work has not been published (e.g., research proposals, material on the inter-
Paraphrases are more detailed representations of the original, but employ different words. In most situations, taking a sentence and changing a word or two does not constitute an adequate paraphrase nor is it acceptable to merely change the subject and predicate around. An acceptable paraphrase requires that the original sentence or paragraph be substantially modified. Paraphrases tend
0278-6915/$ - see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.fct.2012.06.043
3386
Editorial / Food and Chemical Toxicology 50 (2012) 3385–3387
to be of approximately the same length and contain the same level of detail as the original. When writing scientific papers, particularly literature reviews and similar material, we should be relying mostly on the process of summarizing or on some combination of mostly summarizing and some paraphrasing. Of course, both processes demand that we include citations to alert the reader as to the origin of those ideas we are writing about. In addition, whether we use footnotes, parenthetical notations, or some other literary mechanism to identify others’ contributions, we must do so in a manner that indicates specifically which portions of the writing represent our work and which represent the work of others. 3.5. Only a few ways to say the same thing A common justification for misappropriating others’ text is the notion that there are only so many ways to express the same concept. Indeed, scientific writing often consists of technically intricate descriptions of equipment and methodological procedures whose unique expressions and terminology can be very difficult to paraphrase. Perhaps that is why plagiarism guidance such as that offered by the United States’ Office of Research Integrity (ORI’s working definition of plagiarism, 1994) stipulates that they ‘‘generally [do] not pursue the limited use of identical or nearly-identical phrases which describe a commonly-used methodology or previous research because ORI does not consider such use as substantially misleading to the reader or of great significance.’’ However, while this type of technical text is typically confined to methods sections, a perusal of sanctioned cases in the Déjà vu data base (http://dejavu.vbi.vt.edu/dejavu/duplicate/) reveals that plagiarized text tends to be detected from every section of a typical journal article and not just the methods sections. Nonetheless, completely rewriting a methods section for the sake of avoiding plagiarism runs a risk of inadvertently introducing wording that can be misinterpreted. But, authors need to keep in mind that phrases are not sentences and sentences are not entire paragraphs and misappropriating even a single paragraph can constitute grounds for a retraction (e.g., Sticklen, 2010). 4. Self-plagiarism and other forms of redundancy Whereas plagiarism is the act of misappropriating the work of others, self-plagiarism refers to the reuse of one’s own previously disseminated work (e.g., data, text). While we can quibble about the appropriateness of the term self-plagiarism, there is general agreement in the biomedical science editorial community that such practices can be highly problematic (Wager, Fiack, Graf, Robinson, Rowlands, 2009). When authors fail to inform the reader about the extent to which they are reusing their own previously disseminated ideas, text, and, especially, their data, we collectively refer to these types of malpractice as forms of covert self-plagiarism. Let’s examine some of the most common forms. 4.1. Covert Duplicate Publication Instances have occurred in which authors of an already published journal article decide to submit the same manuscript to another journal, however, they fail to indicate that the work had been published earlier. In many cases, the rationale offered by these authors is to make the information available to a wider audience or to a different audience altogether. As per the guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, this approach is acceptable when the author informs readers about the earlier publication of the paper, including a full citation of the earlier published article, and when both, the editor of the original publication and the editor of the duplicate, approve of the duplicate publication. Because the vast majority of journals are only interested in
original contributions, there are very few instances of acceptable duplication (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, 2010). 4.2. Covert Segmented or Salami publication This is perhaps the most common form of self-plagiarism and, at its core, it occurs when authors take a data set from what should be a single research project, and divide it into two or more subsets, each of which is then analyzed and published in separate journal articles (i.e., salami slices). Covert segmented publication can be problematic because interpretation of the results could vary as a function of whether each article is understood as having been derived from a single independent project or whether they are part of a larger, more complex study. For example, let’s suppose an author carries out a study of attitudes toward various food groups that included measures of food group preference, perceived cost, ease of availability, and illnesses associated with each food group. It is well known that subjects sometimes adjust their responses to questionnaire items (e.g., specific food item preference) based on their responses to previous items (e.g., illness attributed to a certain food item) and that these context effects can produce very different results (see the work of Council, 1993). Equally troubling is the possibility that control group data are reused in the various covert ‘salami slices’ but no adjustments are made to the alpha levels (i.e., Bonferoni method) as a result of the multiple statistical analyses of the same data. Authors need to be very clear about the exact relationship between the various publications derived from the same data set. 4.3. Covert Augmented publication A related inappropriate publication practice occurs when authors take a previously published study, collect additional data, and publish the augmented results in a new paper, However, because readers are never specifically told that the ‘new’ data also include older, already published data, they are mislead about the originality and true impact of the study. Moreover, the true status of the scientific record is tainted by the duplication of existing data. This latter outcome is perhaps the most damaging feature of many instances of plagiarism and self-plagiarism of data. When older data are presented as new, the consequences for science are analogous to fabricating data, a major form of research misconduct alongside data falsification and plagiarism: It is a type of pernicious fraud that corrupts scientific truth. 4.4. Other forms of duplication and redundancy A number of other practices have also been subsumed under the heading of self-plagiarism and whether they are classified as segmented publication, or some other type of redundancy depends on specific features of the study. For example, consider a situation in which data from a published study are reanalyzed with a new technique that provides new insights about the phenomena under study. The paper accurately describes the methodology and other details and the results of the new analysis are published, but the authors make no reference to the earlier publication, thereby misleading the reader into believing that the data are new. Arguably, this example is neither a true duplicate publication nor segmentation or augmentation, but the failure of the authors to identify the data as being the same as that from an earlier publication is highly problematic. In sum, covert reuse of data that misleads readers into believing that the data are new when in fact they are not, particularly if they do not add any new insights about the phenomena under study, should be seen as a major form of research misconduct.
Editorial / Food and Chemical Toxicology 50 (2012) 3385–3387
3387
4.5. Recycling one’s own previously published text
References
While the covert reuse of authors’ earlier published data represents the central offense in most cases of self-plagiarism, a common characteristic in nearly all such cases is the substantial reuse of these authors’ own previously published text. Such substantial text reuse can also occur in the absence of any other form of misconduct involving data, but the practice is problematic. The reader should note that, at least in one recent case, substantial text reuse has resulted in a retraction (Neligan, Malhotra, Fraser, Williams, Greenblatt, Cereda, Ochroch, 2010). Regrettably, while there is no consensus as to what amount of text reuse is unacceptable (e.g., a sentence, a paragraph, several paragraphs?) some editors believe that approximately 10% may be the limit (e.g., Kravitz and Feldman, 2011). And while at least one journal editor does not consider the reuse of a methods section as self-plagiarism (Shafer, 2011), others caution about such reuse without making the necessary changes to reflect the new experiments (e.g., Biros, 2009). Copyright considerations aside, authors’ reuse of even relatively small portions of previously published text (i.e., ORI’s ‘‘. . .limited use of identical or near-identical phrases’’) does not reflect the highest standards of scholarship expected by the editors of this journal. However, such reuse should be deemed acceptable, even desirable, in those methodology sections where the descriptions of materials, procedures, processes, etc., are so intricately technical that paraphrasing them runs a risk of altering their interpretation. Contributions to biomedical journals demand the highest scientific standards as well as excellence in traditional scholarship (e.g., sound argumentation, documentation of our sources). When authors plagiarize others’ data or present their own data as new, they malign the scientific record in the same way that fabricated data do: Plagiarized data are data that, in reality, do not exist. Misappropriation of even a few verbatim sentences from another author without attribution is plagiarism. Likewise, and with the exception of some instances of highly technical text from Materials and Methods sections, reusing portions of our previously disseminated text and passing them along as new writing is self-plagiarism. While such transgressions when carried out in small scale might not reach the threshold for research misconduct, they can represent forms of scholarly misconduct. When authors engage in even minor scholarly misconduct their entire edifice of scientific work may come under suspicion. With this editorial, authors considering submitting their work to Food and Chemical Toxicology are now put on notice: Ignorance is no excuse.
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Miguel Roig St. John’s University, 300 Howard Avenue, Staten Island, NY 10301, USA ⇑ Tel.: +1 718 390 4513; fax: +1 718 390 4347. E-mail address: [email protected] Available online 28 June 2012