- CaseOn-going
Habitual plagiarist
Author F published a single case report (CR1) in my journal. A few months later, I received a letter from author G who claimed that the case published by author F was a verbatim copy of his case report published in another journal H. On comparison of the documents it was obvious that CR1 was an exact reproduction of the article of author G. More than 90% of the sentences overlapped in both arti… - CaseCase Closed
Publication of private data
An article was submitted for publication. This was a survey of research activity in a specialist area and included, among other things, research funding amounts from each institution. This led to a sort of 'league table'. The information was provided by the responding director of the specialty area or head of school/research group of each institution. The cover letter stated this is for researc… - CaseClosed: author misconduct
Possible overlapping publications/data
As editor-in-chief of a journal (journal A), I was contacted by an individual (N) who indicated the following: authors of an article published in journal A were questioned as to the similarity of a figure and a table appearing in both journal A and in another journal (journal B). N noted that reanalysis of the data of the published work by the authors suggested errors and inconsistencies of the… - CaseOn-going
Self-plagiarism of review article
A reader flagged up that a review article originally published in a journal X in April 2003 had subsequently appeared with a few minor additions and deletions in journal Y (our journal) in July 2004 and then in journal Z (of which the author is an editor) in September 2006. The authors on the paper are all from the same institute although with some minor differences between the publications: jo… - CaseCase Closed
Plagiarism of reviewer's work
Several Europe-based authors, including well known, respected and much published ones, submitted an essay for the journal's section on research methodology. We rejected it without external review as it wasn't making sufficiently new points. We offered to see it again, however, if it was revised and if it added some worked examples using this methodology within published studies. A year l… - Case
Plagiarism of published paper
My subeditor handling this case told me he had found similarities with the protocol of a paper published elsewhere. The subeditor decided to send the paper for review to one of the authors of this published paper. The reviewer reported that the manuscript had the same figures and conclusions as a second paper he had published. All figures and the conclusions of the manuscript were the same as t… - Case
Suspicion of breach of proper peer reviewer behaviour
An author submitted a paper for peer review with journal X on a topic that refers to a very recently published paper (ie, highly timely). The peer review was rather protracted because of long response times, reviewer substitution and the need to re-review the manuscript after a major revision. Just before the second decision was rendered, the author contacted the editor-in-chief with a s… - Case
Self-plagiarism?
A paper was published with four authors from two universities and the contact author provided an exclusive license form on behalf of all of the authors. After publication, one of the authors contacted the editor claiming a case of plagiarism. The claim is that the published paper was a direct copy of an MSc thesis which this person had supervised 7 years previously. Complications arise in that… - Case
Parallels between unpublished manuscript and a published article from other authors
I am seeking advice on a confidential ‘letter of concern’ from an author (X) of a manuscript submitted before I was appointed editor of the journal but rejected by me on the advice of the associate editor. Author X is concerned with similarities or parallels between his manuscript, rejected in 2008, and a recently published article. I have looked over our file and contacted the associate… - Case
Dispute over authorship and usage of research protocol
In November 2009, the Editor of Journal X received a letter complaining of a serious breach of publication ethics regarding an article already published a month earlier on the Journal’s website. The paper concerned had not yet been published in a full journal issue either online or in print. One of the authors of the letter, Professor X, was a named author on the published paper. His complaint… - Case
A case of child abuse
Child abuse is a common but underdiagnosed problem in our country. The abuse ranges from minor injury to severe head trauma. The true incidence of intentional head injury in children remains uncertain. We published a case of child abuse with blunt head trauma with intracranial haemorrhage presenting as loss of consciousness simulating a diabetic ketoacidosis. We received a complaint from… - Case
Ethics committee waives consent for case report, editor disagrees
The authors wish to publish a case report that aims to characterise complex chromosomal abnormalities in a rare congenital syndrome. It describes, in detail, the clinical features of two newborn infants. When asked about consent to publish, the authors said they did not obtain it because the data were reported from existing clinical diagnostic test results and therefore did not constitute a sys… - Case
Plagiarism, double submission and reviewer ethicality
This is a complicated case which involves possible plagiarism, double submission and reviewer misconduct. The timeline is as follows: In year n, a paper P1 authored by A1 and A2 was published in the English language journal X. The paper describes a theoretical analysis of a particular phenomenon. In year n+6, paper P2 was published in a non-English language outlet by auth… - Case
Self plagiarism
On initial assessment of a submitted review paper with a single author, the editor checked some of the references to the author’s own work that were cited in the paper. The author mentioned in the covering letter that he had written extensively on some of the specific themes of the paper, as the references made clear, but he claimed that the paper was an original synthesis of the material.… - Case
Sections of plagiarised text in an e-publication
An article was published online (e-pub), and a reader notified the editor about a section of the abstract that was taken from a review article published in another journal by different authors. Subsequent analysis of the e-pub manuscript found sections plagiarised from additional articles, often with citations but not quotation marks. Some sections were from manuscripts previously published by… - Case
Alleged unauthorized use of data and possible dual publication
During review of a manuscript submitted to our journal, a dispute arose over some of the data used in the database that was described in the submitted paper. The authors listed several preferred reviewers and also one non-preferred reviewer (without giving reasons). The journal’s submission site states that the editors will consider the authors’ preferred suggestions but are under no obl… - Case
Pedigree descriptions: genotyping results for family members
We received a paper which describes genotyping results from a large number of individuals (>50) from five unrelated families, in which family members had various blood and liver conditions. On submission we noted that the paper included specific details regarding the clinical histories of individuals in each family. Some individuals were described in substantial detail, others only briefly.… - Case
Possible plagiarism
A review paper (paper 1) was published in journal A. A review paper on the same subject (paper 2) by a different author was published in my journal (journal B) later in the same year. The authors of paper 1 and the editor of journal A informed me that paper 2 had in part been plagiarised from paper 1. I as editor of journal B looked to the COPE flowchart for guidance and I wrote to the… - Case
Duplicate publication or salami publication?
An author submitted an article to my journal. The editorial board discovered that the author had already published his article in another journal. The editorial board communicated with the author and he defended himself stating that they were two different articles with different titles. However, the editorial board could find no significant difference between the two papers. There are t… - Case
Possible serial misconduct in relation to coauthors and other activities
I am the editor of an international clinical journal and am facing a very unusual problem that does not fit readily into COPE flowcharts. Through a reviewer, I was informed that an author had submitted a paper without the approval of at least one of the other authors. This appeared to be confirmed by two other authors. In response to my bringing this possibility to the first author’s at…