We are fortunate to have very knowledgeable reviewers who are immersed in their specialty and in the literature. A reviewer informed us that s(he) was working on a review of a manuscript and thought that there had to be more qualitative studies on this subject. S(he) began to look and found three articles not cited by the author and then a fourth.
The fourth study was published in another journal but was written from the exact angle, reporting the same data and in the same way as the article submitted to us. While some of the wording had been changed and the introductory material moved around a bit, it was essentially the same study. The quotes describing each category had also been changed, but little else. Surprisingly, one of the major differences is that the published article contained a much richer explanation of the methods, a sample description and study limitations than the version submitted to us. We do not understand what the author was thinking, submitting essentially the same paper, albeit one of lesser quality.
I ask that COPE provide me with recommendations as to the follow-up course with the author.
The Forum was unclear about whether the same authors were involved—was this a case of plagiarism or duplicate publication? The Forum also noted that any action depends on the journal guidelines. Does the journal document in its guidelines how much overlap is allowed? If the authors are the same, the advice was to follow the steps in the COPE flowchart “Suspected redundant publication in a submitted manuscript”. The flowchart advises that you check the degree of overlap. If it is substantial, contact the authors and request an explanation. If an unsatisfactory response is received, reject the paper and contact the authors explaining your position and the expected future behaviour. The editor might also like to consider contacting the author’s institution and informing them of the author’s misconduct.
Sometimes the author makes a genuine mistake or the instructions to authors are not clear enough (does your journal say that submitted work should be original and not submitted elsewhere?) or the author is very junior. In such cases writing to the author explaining the situation and outlining the expected behaviour is sufficient.
May 2009
We rejected the article and the author said he learned an important lesson. The editorial board met and it was unanimous that the situation should be reported to the author’s university academic integrity committee for review.
February 2010
The case is now closed. The author self-reported within his university and did a faculty workshop about the issue. He submitted some information to the editor that will be incorporated into their editorial on duplicate publication.