- Case
Duplicate submission, overlap of papers, and a referenced paper that was not in press
A paper was submitted that reported a randomised controlled trial of a treatment for a blood disorder in a group of children. Better psychomotor development was achieved in the treated group. This paper went through considerable revisions, which were requested by the editorial committee, and a revised version was finally submitted a year later. But the revised version now included a new referen… - Case
Duplicate publication
Sixteen randomly chosen papers were examined from a PubMed search of 370 publications between 1995–2000 by the same author. Two papers were virtually identical, differing only in the form of the introductory paragraph and the list of authors. Neither publication acknowledges the other. Another paper reported a “second ever published case”, and two subsequent papers reported the same “second” ca… - Case
Attempted redundant publication
A group of authors submitted a paper to Journal A, but the editor noticed that it was very similar to a paper already published in Journal B. Neither paper made any mention of the other in the text, references, or the covering letter. The editor of Journal A sent a copy of the submission to the editor of Journal B who compared the two papers and decided there was substantial overlap. More worry… - Case
Duplicate publication
The editor of Journal A drew the attention of the editor of Journal B to two articles published in their journals which were remarkably similar. The editor of Journal A believed that certain passages of text suggested duplicate publication of results. The dates of publication indicated that these data were accepted first by Journal A. Should it turn out to be duplicate publication, the authors… - Case
Redundant publication
Journal A received letters from two readers pointing out that the female component of a cohort the paper published was identical with that in a paper published in Journal B earlier that year. The two papers were sent to two independent reviewers, one of whom felt that there was a great degree of overlap between the two papers. The other agreed, but suggested that the paper submitted to Journal… - Case
Dual submission due to discordant action of two authors
A paper was submitted describing observations in patients with symptoms confined to one area of the body. The paper was sent out to two expert reviewers, one of whom produced an unfavourable report and suggested rejecting the manuscript. The second reviewer, however, reported promptly to the editor that he knew this manuscript had also been submitted to another journal. The editor wrote to the… - Case
The incomplete retraction
A journal published a paper several years ago that subsequently had to be retracted, on the advice of the university where the work had been conducted. The university provided no further details but promised to do so. Two years later they confirmed that the paper should be retracted, but gave no information on exactly what had gone wrong and whether anybody had been punished. Subsequently, one… - Case
The single authored, unbelievable, randomised controlled trial
A randomised controlled trial submitted to a journal showed that a nutritional supplement could dramatically improve one aspect of the health of the elderly. The study was a follow up to a trial reported in an international journal eight years previously. Why had there been so much delay? Why were the results reported in this study not reported in the previous study? There was only one author a… - Case
Duplicate publication: how much is too much?
A paper (hypothesis) was submitted and sent out for peer review. One of the reviewers pointed out that large parts of the paper had been published, almost word for word, in a previous publication not cited by the authors. We rejected the paper voicing concern about the previous publication of largely similar material. The authors have appealed against our decision to reject the paper and said t… - Case
Plagiarism or redundant publication?
A manuscript was submitted with a covering letter clearly stating the originality and unpublished nature of the work. The authors stated that the results had already been orally presented at a meeting the previous year. Before sending the manuscript for review the editors discovered that the manuscript contained 60% of the Materials and Methods text and 90% of the Results section of a previousl… - Case
Duplicate publication based on conference proceedings
A paper was submitted to Journal A and concern was raised by a reviewer that a substantial part of the paper had been previously published in two other journals. This point was taken up with the authors, who denied any lack of originality and maintained that their manuscript contained previously unpublished data. They did admit that part of the work had been presented as an invited lecture at a… - Case
Retrospective correction: how far back do we go?
In 1990 a case report was published in which it was alleged that the use of a particular endotracheal tube had led to tracheal damage, requiring the child to have a tracheostomy and a tracheal reconstruction. This paper was from a specialist surgical unit, and a letter was subsequently received from the paediatricians who had cared for the baby at the referring hospital before and after the tra… - Case
Duplicate submission of a paper
A paper concerning the prevention of coronary disease in primary care was received. This examined the practical consequences of following some recent national recommendations and suggested that the recommendations were unrealistic. A few weeks later another paper from the same authors was submitted, which the editor who first read it thought was probably an inadvertent duplicate submission of t… - Case
Developing novel approaches to improve the assessment of absolute risk among patients with cardiovascular disease
The possibility of dual publication of two papers with almost identical titles and an identical list of authors emerged in the course of appointing a short-listing panel for an NHS award. The potential duplication was spotted in the publications list of an applicant for the award, who was not the first author on either paper. The editor of Journal A, in which one of the papers was in press, was… - Case
Undeclared conflict of interest
A paper on a controversial topic from three authors was published. All three authors completed forms to say that they did not have competing interests. This was stated at the end of the paper. A reader subsequently contacted the journal to say that she had clear evidence that one of the authors did have competing interests. He had, she said, been involved in legal cases and received substantial… - Case
The study that may or may not already have been published
A study purported to have been stimulated by a systematic review that had already been published in the journal. The new study included 15 patients who had been treated in one arm of a study and 15 who had been treated in another arm. The peer reviewers noticed that the original systematic review included 31 patients from the same authors. The editor contacted the authors asking them to make cl… - Case
Duplicate publication based on government data
A group of researchers from departments of psychology and public health submitted a paper based on a survey that had been commissioned by the NHS Executive. The paper was received at Journal A on 14 May 1998 and a decision to offer publication of a revised version was made on 25 June 1998. Over a year elapsed between this offer and the resubmission of a revised version of the paper due to illne… - Case
Editorial compliance with duplicate publication
An editorial that was very close to a paper that had already been published in another journal was submitted for publication. The authors did not make clear that the editorial was essentially the same as the one already published, but this was discovered during the peer review process. Nevertheless, the journal went ahead and published the editorial without disclosing that it was very similar t… - Case
The overlapping papers with conflicting data
Three papers concerning one hospital problem had been submitted to three different journals. Before publication the three editors of the journals became aware of the three different papers and the substantial overlap between them. The three editors communicated with each other and realised that they had four concerns: 1. There was very considerable overlap among the three papers. There didn’t s… - Case
Dual publication may be necessary in some situations
At a recent editorial board meeting it was suggested that in some disciplines straddling several specialties, transparent simultaneous publication might be necessary. It was suggested that this applies to sexually transmitted infections, and different readers may not have access to each other’s journals. For example, in a study of human papilloma virus epidemiologists, virologists, STD physicia…