- Email: [email protected]
Duplicate publications and related problems in published papers on oral and maxillofacial surgery
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
British Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery 53 (2015) 546–549
Duplicate publications and related problems in published papers on oral and maxillofacial surgery A. Le a , C.M.P. Moran b , M. Bezuhly c,d , P. Hong c,d,∗ a
Faculty of Medicine, Memorial University, St. Johns, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada The London School of Economics and Political Science, London, England, United Kingdom c IWK Health Centre, Halifax, NS, Canada d Dalhousie Pediatric Craniofacial Group, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada b
Accepted 17 March 2015 Available online 9 April 2015
Abstract As duplicate publication is unethical, our aim was to find out how common it is among published papers on oral and maxillofacial surgery. We used PubMed to identify index articles published in 2010 in the Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, the British Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, and the European Journal of Cranio-Maxillo-Facial Surgery, and searched for possible duplicate publications from 2008 to 2012 using the first or second and last authors’ names. Suspected duplicates were categorised into “non-duplicate” (no overlap), “duplicate” (identical results and conclusions), or “salami-sliced” publications (part of the index article repeated or continued). Of the 589 index articles, 17 (3%) had some form of duplication, but specifically, we found 3 duplicate, and 15 salami-sliced publications. Most redundant articles originated from China (n = 4), followed by Italy, Japan, and Germany (3 from each) and the United States and Denmark (2 each). Of the 18 redundant publications, 9 did not reference the related index article. Duplicate material is still being published, and salami-slicing is relatively common among publications on oral and maxillofacial surgery. Further research is required into the extent and impact of this finding. © 2015 The British Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Duplicate publications; Oral and maxillofacial surgery; Dual publications; Salami-slicing
Introduction Duplicate publication, the publication by the same author(s) of multiple articles that overlap substantially without clear, visible reference to the related publication,1 is considered highly unethical.2–4 It unnecessarily expands and dilutes the already saturated body of scientific work, and wastes the time of reviewers and editors of scientific journals. These publications can also contribute to false conclusions being ∗ Corresponding author at: IWK Health Centre, 5850 University Ave, PO Box 9700, Halifax, NS B3K 6R8, Canada. Tel.: +1 902 470 0841; fax: +1 902 470 8929. E-mail address: [email protected] (P. Hong).
reached when they are included in systematic reviews or meta-analyses.5 Salami-slicing, which is related to duplicate publication, is another controversial practice, and several definitions exist. A simple one, “writing too many papers from one study”,6 can also cover articles that are written by the same group of authors and share similar hypotheses, methodology, and results. In academic practice, to publish peer-reviewed articles, some investigators may slice data from a single research project into several pieces to generate multiple manuscripts, and this can be viewed as unethical. When authors do not clearly cross-reference and acknowledge an original article, it could be a deliberate attempt to conceal the practice of salami-slicing.7
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bjoms.2015.03.008 0266-4356/© 2015 The British Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
A. Le et al. / British Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery 53 (2015) 546–549
In some instances salami-slicing can be deemed legitimate – for example, it may be better to present data from large clinical trials or epidemiological studies as multiple papers, or to draft additional manuscripts in large cohort studies when different analyses have been done to answer distinct research questions.7 In these cases however, the authors should clearly reference the associated study and, to ensure transparency, notify the editor when they submit their manuscripts. Previous studies have assessed the problem of duplicate publication and salami-slicing,8–11 but to our knowledge, none have looked at papers on oral and maxillofacial surgery. Our aim therefore was to find out how common the practice is, and to describe and analyse the characteristics of the redundant materials.
Material and methods Search for index articles Index articles were defined as original articles of interest (reference articles). Subsequent searches looked for other articles (duplicate or salami-sliced publications) that were similar. We used PubMed to retrieve original index articles published (in print and online ahead of print) in 2010 in 3 journals: the Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, the British Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, and the European Journal of Cranio-Maxillo-Facial Surgery. Case reports, editorials, letters, reviews, systematic reviews, and metaanalyses, were excluded. Results were recorded on Microsoft Excel spreadsheets (Microsoft Corp, Redmond, USA). Search for duplicate publications To identify potential duplicate and salami-sliced publications, we searched PubMed for the first initials and surnames of the first or second, and last authors of the index articles.11 We restricted it to between 2008 and 2012 to cover the 2 years before and after the year the index article was published. For searches that yielded more than 200 results, a keyword from the title of the index article (agreed by 2 of the authors) was used to limit the results. Potential duplicates not in the English language were excluded at this point. Two of the authors independently reviewed the titles and abstracts found, and also reviewed the full text of papers that covered similar subjects to the index articles. The full texts were then categorised into 3 groups: non-duplicate (no significant overlap between the articles), duplicate (identical or nearly identical methods, results, and conclusions), or salami-sliced publications (substantial part of the index article repeated or continued) as previously defined.10 The study’s objectives, hypotheses, methods (including subjects), results (including tables and figures), and conclusions were compared to establish similarities between the index and possible duplicate material. Any disagreements between the 2 authors were resolved by the senior authors.
547
As the definition of salami-slicing can vary, we initially used a broad definition to include all possible duplicate material.9 All the authors reviewed the full texts of the articles selected in this initial round, and they further categorised them into legitimate and non-legitimate groups. A paper was considered legitimate if the index article was explicitly cited and it included the assessment of different outcomes or tested different hypotheses.
Results We identified 589 original articles published in the 3 oral and maxillofacial journals in 2010. Initial screening for redundant material yielded 86 titles and abstracts that contained similar or related topics to their respective index articles (corresponding to 60 (10%) of all index articles) (Fig. 1). The full texts were then retrieved and compared to the index articles of which 23 were from the Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, 20 from the British Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, and 17 from the European Journal of Cranio-Maxillo-Facial Surgery. In the full-text review we found that 18 of the 86 suspected duplicates had some form of redundancy, while 68 were not considered duplicates. Of the corresponding index articles (n = 17 or 3% of all index articles), 6 originated from the British Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, 6 from the Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, and 5 from the European Journal of Cranio-Maxillo-Facial Surgery. Further classification showed that 15 were salami-sliced, and 3 were duplicate publications (Fig. 1). Of these 17 index papers, most (n = 16) were associated with only one redundant publication, but one was associated with 2 salami-sliced publications. Eight of the index articles were prospective cross-sectional or cohort studies, 8 were retrospective case series, and one was an experimental study. Using the mailing address of the corresponding author, we identified the countries from which the duplicate papers had originated: 4 were from China, 3 each from Italy, Japan and Germany, and 2 each from the United States and Denmark. Seven of the redundant articles had been published 2 years before the index article (2008–2009), 3 the same year (2010), and 8 had been published 2 years after (2011–2012). Of the 15 salami-sliced papers, 12 were judged to be not completely legitimate. Although the index articles were clearly referenced in 6, the contents were very similar and they included only slightly different analyses with the same or a very similar group of subjects. Five included a different analysis but the original article was not clearly referenced. A total of 13 used the same or a very similar cohort, and the other 2 added more patients to the initial study. The 3 articles judged to be legitimate used the same study population as their index article, but all made clear reference to the original paper and included different analyses. The 3 duplicate publications did not reference the respective index articles. All of them included identical or very
548
A. Le et al. / British Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery 53 (2015) 546–549
Fig. 1. Flow diagram of the search process for inclusion of studies in the review. The corresponding number of index articles are found in parentheses.
similar analyses and the same cohort, and the conclusions were the same as those in the original papers.
Discussion To our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the issue of duplicate publication and salami-slicing in papers on oral and maxillofacial surgery, but similar studies have previously been done in other areas of medicine and surgery. Taking into account the differences in the search criteria and the definitions used for duplicate publication, other studies in surgical specialties have yielded a redundant publication rate of between 0.7% and 14%. The surgical disciplines studied to date include plastic surgery,9 ophthalmology,12 urology,13 orthopaedic surgery,7 otolaryngology,8 and general surgery.10 Another recent study involving paediatrics yielded a rate of 2.4%.11 We found 3 duplicate publications and 15 salami-sliced articles, a redundant publication rate of 3% (18 of 589 index articles). This seems to be slightly lower than in other surgical fields, but as the search methods and classification of redundant publication differ between studies, comparison is difficult. We were particularly concerned about the 3 duplicate publications. All 3 did not reference their index articles, but reported the same or extremely similar results using the same subjects, and came to the same conclusions. The motivation for publishing duplicate material is unknown, but may be related to the structure of the current academic system in which academic advancement, which is often related to the number of peer-reviewed publications, can also offer secondary monetary rewards such as a higher income or increased funding for research.2 However, such a system does not take into account other important factors such as the quality of research.5 The establishment of an academic system that places more emphasis on the quality
and impact of research, rather than the number of publications, would reduce the incentives to compromise ethical standards. With recent advancements in technology there have been numerous efforts to formulate an objective electronic program to detect redundant publications and plagiarism. Déjà vu is a publicly available resource that detects very similar Medline citations using a search engine called eTBLAST,14 but as Roach et al. described, software designed to detect plagiarism has its limitations.15 The verification of plagiarism involves more than the finding of duplicate words and phrases, and since figures are not automatically analysed by many of these programs, duplicate material with substantially different wording may be missed. Sometimes a form of redundancy may be ethical, and some consider redundant publications in different languages to be acceptable because of the authors’ desire to share their findings with a wider audience.16 In the case of salami-slicing, multiple articles that expand on an original database such as a large epidemiological study or clinical trial,17 or those that analyse a large database in different ways to test different hypotheses, may be deemed acceptable. However, the index publication should always be clearly referenced.11,18,19 The limitations of this study pertain to the possible underestimation of the rate of redundant articles. First, the 3 journals used to identify the index articles were chosen because of their higher impact factors and wide readership,20 but it is likely that the rate would have been higher if more had been selected. Similarly, only index articles from 2010 were identified, and the search period of 2 years before and after covered a total of 5 years. If duplicate papers had been published outside this period, the rate would have been higher. However, previous studies have shown that most duplicates appeared within a few months of each other, and other studies have used similar time periods.8,11 Further research is now needed into the extent and impact of duplicate publication. Continued surveillance and rigorous
A. Le et al. / British Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery 53 (2015) 546–549
review is warranted as redundant publications dilute the body of work and have negative consequences.
Conflict of interest We have no conflicts of interest.
Ethics statement/confirmation of patients’ permission Ethics approval was not required for this study.
References 1. International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Overlapping publications. Available from: http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/ browse/publishing-and-editorial-issues/overlapping-publications.html [accessed 15.12.14]. 2. Surgical Journal Editors Group. Consensus statement of submission and publication of manuscripts. Surgery 2001;129:662–3. Erratum in Surgery 2001;130:43. 3. Rivara FP, Christakis DA, Cummings P. Duplicate publication. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med 2004;158:926. 4. Babalola O, Grant-Kels JM, Parish LC. Ethical dilemmas in journal publication. Clin Dermatol 2012;30:231–6. 5. Benos DJ, Fabres J, Farmer J, et al. Ethics and scientific publication. Adv Physiol Educ 2005;29:59–74. 6. Henly SJ. Duplicate publications and salami reports: corruption of the scientific record. Nurs Res 2014;63:1–2.
549
7. Karlsson J, Beaufils P. Legitimate division of large data sets, salami slicing and dual publication, where does a fraud begin? Knee Surg Sports Traumatol Arthrosc 2013;21:751–2. 8. Cheung VW, Lam GO, Wang YF, et al. Current incidence of duplicate publication in otolaryngology. Laryngoscope 2014;124:655–8. 9. Durani P. Duplicate publications: redundancy in plastic surgery literature. J Plast Reconstr Aesthet Surg 2006;59:975–7. 10. Schein M, Paladugu R. Redundant surgical publications: tip of the iceberg? Surgery 2001;129:655–61. 11. Haworth R, Anderson K, Hong P. Duplicate publication and related problems in the pediatrics literature. Global Pediatric Health 2014;(January–December):1–5. Available from: http://gph.sagepub. com/content/1/2333794X14564442.full 12. Mojon-Azzi SM, Jiang X, Wagner U, et al. Redundant publications in scientific ophthalmologic journals: the tip of the iceberg? Ophthalmology 2004;111:863–6. 13. Hennessey KK, Williams AR, Afshar K, et al. Duplicate publications: a sample of redundancy in the Journal of Urology. Can Urol Assoc J 2012;6:177–80. 14. Errami M, Sun Z, Long TC, et al. Déjà vu: a database of highly similar citations in the scientific literature. Nucleic Acids Res 2009;37:D921–4. 15. Roach ES, Gospe S, Ng YT, et al. Trust but verify: the introduction of plagiarism detection software. Pediatr Neurol 2014;50:287. 16. Bloemenkamp DG, Walvoort HC, Hart W, et al. Duplicate publication of articles in the Dutch Journal of Medicine in 1996. Ned Tijdschr Geneeskd 1999;143:2150–3 [in Dutch]. 17. Abraham P. Duplicate and salami publications. J Postgrad Med 2000;46:67–9. 18. Britton J, Knox AJ. Duplicate publication, redundant publication, and disclosure of closely related publications. Thorax 1999;54:378. 19. Doherty M. The misconduct of redundant publication. Ann Rheum Dis 1996;55:783–5. 20. Medical journal impact factors. Available from: http://impactfactor. weebly.com/paeds.html [accessed 04.12.14].
British Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery 53 (2015) 546–549
Duplicate publications and related problems in published papers on oral and maxillofacial surgery A. Le a , C.M.P. Moran b , M. Bezuhly c,d , P. Hong c,d,∗ a
Faculty of Medicine, Memorial University, St. Johns, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada The London School of Economics and Political Science, London, England, United Kingdom c IWK Health Centre, Halifax, NS, Canada d Dalhousie Pediatric Craniofacial Group, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada b
Accepted 17 March 2015 Available online 9 April 2015
Abstract As duplicate publication is unethical, our aim was to find out how common it is among published papers on oral and maxillofacial surgery. We used PubMed to identify index articles published in 2010 in the Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, the British Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, and the European Journal of Cranio-Maxillo-Facial Surgery, and searched for possible duplicate publications from 2008 to 2012 using the first or second and last authors’ names. Suspected duplicates were categorised into “non-duplicate” (no overlap), “duplicate” (identical results and conclusions), or “salami-sliced” publications (part of the index article repeated or continued). Of the 589 index articles, 17 (3%) had some form of duplication, but specifically, we found 3 duplicate, and 15 salami-sliced publications. Most redundant articles originated from China (n = 4), followed by Italy, Japan, and Germany (3 from each) and the United States and Denmark (2 each). Of the 18 redundant publications, 9 did not reference the related index article. Duplicate material is still being published, and salami-slicing is relatively common among publications on oral and maxillofacial surgery. Further research is required into the extent and impact of this finding. © 2015 The British Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Duplicate publications; Oral and maxillofacial surgery; Dual publications; Salami-slicing
Introduction Duplicate publication, the publication by the same author(s) of multiple articles that overlap substantially without clear, visible reference to the related publication,1 is considered highly unethical.2–4 It unnecessarily expands and dilutes the already saturated body of scientific work, and wastes the time of reviewers and editors of scientific journals. These publications can also contribute to false conclusions being ∗ Corresponding author at: IWK Health Centre, 5850 University Ave, PO Box 9700, Halifax, NS B3K 6R8, Canada. Tel.: +1 902 470 0841; fax: +1 902 470 8929. E-mail address: [email protected] (P. Hong).
reached when they are included in systematic reviews or meta-analyses.5 Salami-slicing, which is related to duplicate publication, is another controversial practice, and several definitions exist. A simple one, “writing too many papers from one study”,6 can also cover articles that are written by the same group of authors and share similar hypotheses, methodology, and results. In academic practice, to publish peer-reviewed articles, some investigators may slice data from a single research project into several pieces to generate multiple manuscripts, and this can be viewed as unethical. When authors do not clearly cross-reference and acknowledge an original article, it could be a deliberate attempt to conceal the practice of salami-slicing.7
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bjoms.2015.03.008 0266-4356/© 2015 The British Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
A. Le et al. / British Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery 53 (2015) 546–549
In some instances salami-slicing can be deemed legitimate – for example, it may be better to present data from large clinical trials or epidemiological studies as multiple papers, or to draft additional manuscripts in large cohort studies when different analyses have been done to answer distinct research questions.7 In these cases however, the authors should clearly reference the associated study and, to ensure transparency, notify the editor when they submit their manuscripts. Previous studies have assessed the problem of duplicate publication and salami-slicing,8–11 but to our knowledge, none have looked at papers on oral and maxillofacial surgery. Our aim therefore was to find out how common the practice is, and to describe and analyse the characteristics of the redundant materials.
Material and methods Search for index articles Index articles were defined as original articles of interest (reference articles). Subsequent searches looked for other articles (duplicate or salami-sliced publications) that were similar. We used PubMed to retrieve original index articles published (in print and online ahead of print) in 2010 in 3 journals: the Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, the British Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, and the European Journal of Cranio-Maxillo-Facial Surgery. Case reports, editorials, letters, reviews, systematic reviews, and metaanalyses, were excluded. Results were recorded on Microsoft Excel spreadsheets (Microsoft Corp, Redmond, USA). Search for duplicate publications To identify potential duplicate and salami-sliced publications, we searched PubMed for the first initials and surnames of the first or second, and last authors of the index articles.11 We restricted it to between 2008 and 2012 to cover the 2 years before and after the year the index article was published. For searches that yielded more than 200 results, a keyword from the title of the index article (agreed by 2 of the authors) was used to limit the results. Potential duplicates not in the English language were excluded at this point. Two of the authors independently reviewed the titles and abstracts found, and also reviewed the full text of papers that covered similar subjects to the index articles. The full texts were then categorised into 3 groups: non-duplicate (no significant overlap between the articles), duplicate (identical or nearly identical methods, results, and conclusions), or salami-sliced publications (substantial part of the index article repeated or continued) as previously defined.10 The study’s objectives, hypotheses, methods (including subjects), results (including tables and figures), and conclusions were compared to establish similarities between the index and possible duplicate material. Any disagreements between the 2 authors were resolved by the senior authors.
547
As the definition of salami-slicing can vary, we initially used a broad definition to include all possible duplicate material.9 All the authors reviewed the full texts of the articles selected in this initial round, and they further categorised them into legitimate and non-legitimate groups. A paper was considered legitimate if the index article was explicitly cited and it included the assessment of different outcomes or tested different hypotheses.
Results We identified 589 original articles published in the 3 oral and maxillofacial journals in 2010. Initial screening for redundant material yielded 86 titles and abstracts that contained similar or related topics to their respective index articles (corresponding to 60 (10%) of all index articles) (Fig. 1). The full texts were then retrieved and compared to the index articles of which 23 were from the Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, 20 from the British Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, and 17 from the European Journal of Cranio-Maxillo-Facial Surgery. In the full-text review we found that 18 of the 86 suspected duplicates had some form of redundancy, while 68 were not considered duplicates. Of the corresponding index articles (n = 17 or 3% of all index articles), 6 originated from the British Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, 6 from the Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, and 5 from the European Journal of Cranio-Maxillo-Facial Surgery. Further classification showed that 15 were salami-sliced, and 3 were duplicate publications (Fig. 1). Of these 17 index papers, most (n = 16) were associated with only one redundant publication, but one was associated with 2 salami-sliced publications. Eight of the index articles were prospective cross-sectional or cohort studies, 8 were retrospective case series, and one was an experimental study. Using the mailing address of the corresponding author, we identified the countries from which the duplicate papers had originated: 4 were from China, 3 each from Italy, Japan and Germany, and 2 each from the United States and Denmark. Seven of the redundant articles had been published 2 years before the index article (2008–2009), 3 the same year (2010), and 8 had been published 2 years after (2011–2012). Of the 15 salami-sliced papers, 12 were judged to be not completely legitimate. Although the index articles were clearly referenced in 6, the contents were very similar and they included only slightly different analyses with the same or a very similar group of subjects. Five included a different analysis but the original article was not clearly referenced. A total of 13 used the same or a very similar cohort, and the other 2 added more patients to the initial study. The 3 articles judged to be legitimate used the same study population as their index article, but all made clear reference to the original paper and included different analyses. The 3 duplicate publications did not reference the respective index articles. All of them included identical or very
548
A. Le et al. / British Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery 53 (2015) 546–549
Fig. 1. Flow diagram of the search process for inclusion of studies in the review. The corresponding number of index articles are found in parentheses.
similar analyses and the same cohort, and the conclusions were the same as those in the original papers.
Discussion To our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the issue of duplicate publication and salami-slicing in papers on oral and maxillofacial surgery, but similar studies have previously been done in other areas of medicine and surgery. Taking into account the differences in the search criteria and the definitions used for duplicate publication, other studies in surgical specialties have yielded a redundant publication rate of between 0.7% and 14%. The surgical disciplines studied to date include plastic surgery,9 ophthalmology,12 urology,13 orthopaedic surgery,7 otolaryngology,8 and general surgery.10 Another recent study involving paediatrics yielded a rate of 2.4%.11 We found 3 duplicate publications and 15 salami-sliced articles, a redundant publication rate of 3% (18 of 589 index articles). This seems to be slightly lower than in other surgical fields, but as the search methods and classification of redundant publication differ between studies, comparison is difficult. We were particularly concerned about the 3 duplicate publications. All 3 did not reference their index articles, but reported the same or extremely similar results using the same subjects, and came to the same conclusions. The motivation for publishing duplicate material is unknown, but may be related to the structure of the current academic system in which academic advancement, which is often related to the number of peer-reviewed publications, can also offer secondary monetary rewards such as a higher income or increased funding for research.2 However, such a system does not take into account other important factors such as the quality of research.5 The establishment of an academic system that places more emphasis on the quality
and impact of research, rather than the number of publications, would reduce the incentives to compromise ethical standards. With recent advancements in technology there have been numerous efforts to formulate an objective electronic program to detect redundant publications and plagiarism. Déjà vu is a publicly available resource that detects very similar Medline citations using a search engine called eTBLAST,14 but as Roach et al. described, software designed to detect plagiarism has its limitations.15 The verification of plagiarism involves more than the finding of duplicate words and phrases, and since figures are not automatically analysed by many of these programs, duplicate material with substantially different wording may be missed. Sometimes a form of redundancy may be ethical, and some consider redundant publications in different languages to be acceptable because of the authors’ desire to share their findings with a wider audience.16 In the case of salami-slicing, multiple articles that expand on an original database such as a large epidemiological study or clinical trial,17 or those that analyse a large database in different ways to test different hypotheses, may be deemed acceptable. However, the index publication should always be clearly referenced.11,18,19 The limitations of this study pertain to the possible underestimation of the rate of redundant articles. First, the 3 journals used to identify the index articles were chosen because of their higher impact factors and wide readership,20 but it is likely that the rate would have been higher if more had been selected. Similarly, only index articles from 2010 were identified, and the search period of 2 years before and after covered a total of 5 years. If duplicate papers had been published outside this period, the rate would have been higher. However, previous studies have shown that most duplicates appeared within a few months of each other, and other studies have used similar time periods.8,11 Further research is now needed into the extent and impact of duplicate publication. Continued surveillance and rigorous
A. Le et al. / British Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery 53 (2015) 546–549
review is warranted as redundant publications dilute the body of work and have negative consequences.
Conflict of interest We have no conflicts of interest.
Ethics statement/confirmation of patients’ permission Ethics approval was not required for this study.
References 1. International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Overlapping publications. Available from: http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/ browse/publishing-and-editorial-issues/overlapping-publications.html [accessed 15.12.14]. 2. Surgical Journal Editors Group. Consensus statement of submission and publication of manuscripts. Surgery 2001;129:662–3. Erratum in Surgery 2001;130:43. 3. Rivara FP, Christakis DA, Cummings P. Duplicate publication. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med 2004;158:926. 4. Babalola O, Grant-Kels JM, Parish LC. Ethical dilemmas in journal publication. Clin Dermatol 2012;30:231–6. 5. Benos DJ, Fabres J, Farmer J, et al. Ethics and scientific publication. Adv Physiol Educ 2005;29:59–74. 6. Henly SJ. Duplicate publications and salami reports: corruption of the scientific record. Nurs Res 2014;63:1–2.
549
7. Karlsson J, Beaufils P. Legitimate division of large data sets, salami slicing and dual publication, where does a fraud begin? Knee Surg Sports Traumatol Arthrosc 2013;21:751–2. 8. Cheung VW, Lam GO, Wang YF, et al. Current incidence of duplicate publication in otolaryngology. Laryngoscope 2014;124:655–8. 9. Durani P. Duplicate publications: redundancy in plastic surgery literature. J Plast Reconstr Aesthet Surg 2006;59:975–7. 10. Schein M, Paladugu R. Redundant surgical publications: tip of the iceberg? Surgery 2001;129:655–61. 11. Haworth R, Anderson K, Hong P. Duplicate publication and related problems in the pediatrics literature. Global Pediatric Health 2014;(January–December):1–5. Available from: http://gph.sagepub. com/content/1/2333794X14564442.full 12. Mojon-Azzi SM, Jiang X, Wagner U, et al. Redundant publications in scientific ophthalmologic journals: the tip of the iceberg? Ophthalmology 2004;111:863–6. 13. Hennessey KK, Williams AR, Afshar K, et al. Duplicate publications: a sample of redundancy in the Journal of Urology. Can Urol Assoc J 2012;6:177–80. 14. Errami M, Sun Z, Long TC, et al. Déjà vu: a database of highly similar citations in the scientific literature. Nucleic Acids Res 2009;37:D921–4. 15. Roach ES, Gospe S, Ng YT, et al. Trust but verify: the introduction of plagiarism detection software. Pediatr Neurol 2014;50:287. 16. Bloemenkamp DG, Walvoort HC, Hart W, et al. Duplicate publication of articles in the Dutch Journal of Medicine in 1996. Ned Tijdschr Geneeskd 1999;143:2150–3 [in Dutch]. 17. Abraham P. Duplicate and salami publications. J Postgrad Med 2000;46:67–9. 18. Britton J, Knox AJ. Duplicate publication, redundant publication, and disclosure of closely related publications. Thorax 1999;54:378. 19. Doherty M. The misconduct of redundant publication. Ann Rheum Dis 1996;55:783–5. 20. Medical journal impact factors. Available from: http://impactfactor. weebly.com/paeds.html [accessed 04.12.14].