Author X contacted the editor of Journal A to enquire whether the journal would be interested in a review of a new concept in the treatment of a disease, written by author X and two co-authors. Author X said that his co-authors had suggested writing the paper for another journal but he had convinced them to submit the paper to Journal A. The editor invited submission and, after peer review, the paper was published. Soon after the review was published by Journal A, a member of the editorial team noticed a review on the same topic by the same three authors published in a recent issue of Journal B. Neither article cited the other.
Comparison of the two articles revealed that some sections were very similar despite rewording. The general structure and order in which the ideas were presented in the two articles was much the same. Both reviews contained three figures reproduced from another article (as well as two different figures). Two thirds of the references were the same. There were some differences between the articles: some concepts had been explained in more detail in the article in Journal B, whereas Journal A’s article contained sections on basic science that were only briefly mentioned in Journal B. The concluding sections of the two articles were quite different.
The editor of Journal A contacted the corresponding author (Author Y) to ask for an explanation. Author Y was very apologetic and explained that they had been asked initially by Journal B, a new journal that had yet to publish its first issue, to write a review on this topic. They wrote the review, which was an academic article focusing on the basic science underlying this new concept and its therapeutic implications. When the first issues of Journal B were published, the authors realised that the article they had written was not suited to the intended readership of Journal B, which was oriented to the more general practitioner. They then decided to submit the review they had written to Journal A and write a more clinically focused review for Journal B. Author Y said it never occurred to him to mention the article they were writing for Journal B because the two articles were intended for different audiences and the orientation was different. Each review did not cite the other, he said, as neither had been accepted when the other was submitted.
The two articles do seem to be aimed at different audiences; however, the similarities between the two articles are obvious. Journal A feels that the authors should have been more open about the article’s history and informed the editors about the article they were writing for Journal B.
How should the editors proceed now?
The committee raised the point that this form of duplicate publication occurs frequently, in that authors feel that they can submit a paper to two different journals as they believe that the audiences are different. However, this is not acceptable, even in the case of review articles, unless the original paper is cited and the editor is informed. In this case, the committee felt that there was a lack of openness on the part of the authors.
The advice was to write to the authors saying that what they did was wrong, as outlined in the instructions to authors. Other advice was to ask the authors to insert a note in the review stating that a similar but not duplicate review has been published, and cite the other paper. It the authors are unwilling to do this, the journal should publish such a statement. Another suggestion was to raise the issue in an editorial.
Following COPE’s advice, the editor wrote a stern letter to the author, outlining the options considered at the COPE meeting (retraction of the paper, publishing an erratum, etc) but stating that it had been decided to take no further action. The author was told that a lack of openness can damage the trust between authors and editors. S/he was also told that the journal is considering changing the information for authors to request that for review articles authors notify them of any in press articles, similar in content to the paper under consideration.