- Email: [email protected]
Ethics issues
Micron 61 (2014) iv
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Micron journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/micron
Editorial
Ethics issues
Micron has just had to retract a paper, for the first time in its 45-year existence. We hope it will be the last time. An author was writing a review of the topic, saw a micrograph in a Micron paper, and alerted us to the fact that it looked unreal. Computer analysis bore this out, and correspondence with the authors elicited the admission that the junior author did not think the image was good enough, and decided to ‘improve’ it in Photoshop. One ironic aspect is that the person who spotted the fakery frequently reviews papers for Micron, and had he been sent this one the problem might have been averted. Another ethics issue crops up in this issue, with the publication of an apology from a group of Brazilian authors. They published a series of papers in Micron, some of which contained large amounts of material – text and micrographs – which had previously been published in the journal Sociobiology. Some of their papers also have repeated images which had appeared in their previous Micron papers. The papers were cited, but none of the re-use was acknowledged. Elsevier’s policy on re-publication is as follows: (Quoting from http://www.elsevier.com/editors/perk/questions-and-answers) “However there are instances where an article might be published in local language in a local publication, which might then be considered for re-publication in an international journal. This of course can only happen with agreement between the two journals, and with a notice re the prior local publication, and if the editor-in-chief believes the article is significant and will reach a new or different community of readers.” Sociobiology is, arguably, a local journal, published in Brazil, but it is in English. It also does not claim copyright over its content, so there was no violation of copyright. That would have made the problem far more serious. We have not retracted these papers since the science was sound and there was substantial new material in them. But the
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.micron.2014.02.009 0968-4328/© 2014 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
humiliation of having to publish an apology will, we hope, deter both these and others from doing the same thing. Plagiarism, and self-plagiarism, is a growing problem for Micron and many other journals, but it is also getting much harder to get away with. One paper we recently rejected had taken an entire paper (from other authors in another country) and just pasted in their results. Since Micron now subscribes to the Ithenticate service, which checks a huge database of papers for plagiarism, such behaviour will probably be spotted – you have been warned. This was a clear-cut case, but in two other recent examples authors had re-used their own papers just changing the samples used – in one case a different species, in another different material. Both were rejected for self-plagiarism. If you want to compare certain structures in a range of species, it makes far more sense to write just one paper making the comparison. One paper that does get published is better than three that do not. Ithenticate will only – at the moment – analyse text, so we rely on editors and reviewers to spot re-use of micrographs. When is this permissible? First of all, never without acknowledgement. But in a review it is, naturally, OK (in some cases permission may be required). In a research paper the criterion is that it must be used to make a different point. If you just want to make the same point, use a reference to the original publication. The rules are not hard to understand, nor are they overly stringent. Obeying them makes things much easier for all concerned.
Guy Cox Filip Braet Ray Egerton Available online 20 February 2014
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Micron journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/micron
Editorial
Ethics issues
Micron has just had to retract a paper, for the first time in its 45-year existence. We hope it will be the last time. An author was writing a review of the topic, saw a micrograph in a Micron paper, and alerted us to the fact that it looked unreal. Computer analysis bore this out, and correspondence with the authors elicited the admission that the junior author did not think the image was good enough, and decided to ‘improve’ it in Photoshop. One ironic aspect is that the person who spotted the fakery frequently reviews papers for Micron, and had he been sent this one the problem might have been averted. Another ethics issue crops up in this issue, with the publication of an apology from a group of Brazilian authors. They published a series of papers in Micron, some of which contained large amounts of material – text and micrographs – which had previously been published in the journal Sociobiology. Some of their papers also have repeated images which had appeared in their previous Micron papers. The papers were cited, but none of the re-use was acknowledged. Elsevier’s policy on re-publication is as follows: (Quoting from http://www.elsevier.com/editors/perk/questions-and-answers) “However there are instances where an article might be published in local language in a local publication, which might then be considered for re-publication in an international journal. This of course can only happen with agreement between the two journals, and with a notice re the prior local publication, and if the editor-in-chief believes the article is significant and will reach a new or different community of readers.” Sociobiology is, arguably, a local journal, published in Brazil, but it is in English. It also does not claim copyright over its content, so there was no violation of copyright. That would have made the problem far more serious. We have not retracted these papers since the science was sound and there was substantial new material in them. But the
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.micron.2014.02.009 0968-4328/© 2014 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
humiliation of having to publish an apology will, we hope, deter both these and others from doing the same thing. Plagiarism, and self-plagiarism, is a growing problem for Micron and many other journals, but it is also getting much harder to get away with. One paper we recently rejected had taken an entire paper (from other authors in another country) and just pasted in their results. Since Micron now subscribes to the Ithenticate service, which checks a huge database of papers for plagiarism, such behaviour will probably be spotted – you have been warned. This was a clear-cut case, but in two other recent examples authors had re-used their own papers just changing the samples used – in one case a different species, in another different material. Both were rejected for self-plagiarism. If you want to compare certain structures in a range of species, it makes far more sense to write just one paper making the comparison. One paper that does get published is better than three that do not. Ithenticate will only – at the moment – analyse text, so we rely on editors and reviewers to spot re-use of micrographs. When is this permissible? First of all, never without acknowledgement. But in a review it is, naturally, OK (in some cases permission may be required). In a research paper the criterion is that it must be used to make a different point. If you just want to make the same point, use a reference to the original publication. The rules are not hard to understand, nor are they overly stringent. Obeying them makes things much easier for all concerned.
Guy Cox Filip Braet Ray Egerton Available online 20 February 2014