- Case
Extensive plagiarism
…Journal A were asked for an explanation. It’s hard to see that there is any explanation apart from plagiarism. The authors of paper A claim that there is only 5% overlap between the two articles.… - Case
Plagiarism
A paper by Turkish authors was submitted to journal A. The paper was virtually the same as one published in the equivalent US journal B of the same specialty,but with different authors. The paper submitted to journal A seems to have been plagiarised from the paper published in journal B. The editor has written to the deans of the faculties of medicine to which the authors are attached. What mor… - Case
Suspected plagiarism
This is regarding a case of suspected plagiarism in our journal. I as editor have received a manuscript which was published by me in our January 2006 issue and on subsequent follow up after availability of plagiarism detection software the manuscript - a review article - seems to have a lot of similarities to another article written in a website and though the language is not the same -the… - Case
Double plagiarism
…should be informed that if there is no action or explanation forthcoming on their part, then all the journals will simultaneously publish a notice of plagiarism.… - Case
Definition of plagiarism?
…that this is not an isolated incident, the editor has been advised to contact the institute with details of this specific allegation. However, we were interested to note that advice from our legal department clearly stated that plagiarism could only be proven if the alleged plagiarism was word-for-word the same as the original text, with the implication that as the text was in a different… - Case
Plagiarism
A manuscript submitted to journal X was remarkably similar to a paper already published in journal Y. The similarities were noticed by one of the peer reviewers for journal X. The paper has been rejected by journal X but the editor has now written to each of the authors asking for an explanation and has told them that if a reasonable explanation is not forthcoming, she will inform the dean of t… - CaseOn-going
Plagiarized figure
…plagiarism? Can the authors remove the figure and publish this paper or should the paper be withdrawn?• Should we contact the author’s university again?… - Case
Plagiarism
…seems likely that the co-authors are unaware of the plagiarism by the first author. The editor of Journal A wrote to the corresponding author to point out the apparent plagiarism and to ask for an explanation. The corresponding author replied, apologising profusely for the error and saying that he would withdraw the paper for consideration while further investigations were made. He explained that the… - CaseCase Closed
Possible plagiarism
We received an email from a whistleblower notifying us about possible plagiarism in two chapters published by us, both authored by the same two authors. The whistleblower accused the authors of substantial plagiarism. In both chapters there were, indeed, certain unattributed parts of the text, although the majority was properly attributed. Some of the unattributed parts were authored by… - CaseCase Closed
A case of plagiarism?
The Forum agreed that this was a clear case of plagiarism, and as another journal was involved, there may also be copyright issues. The Forum stressed that according to the COPE guidelines, an editor does not need the approval of the author to retract an article. If the editor feels there are grounds for retraction, he/she can retract the article without the author’s permission. In this… - Case
Plagiarism
A review article by an expert group plagiarised an article from another journal. It was largely a direct translation, involving large slabs of the text. Some of the authors are on the editorial board of the journal where the paper was published. There was no declaration that this was a translation of another article. … The editor is potentially in a very difficult situati… - Case
Possible plagiarism
…author of paper 2 for an explanation. Although I did not consider the author’s explanation satisfactory, I felt uncertain whether this was a case of “minor” or “major” plagiarism based on the fact that the paragraphs copied verbatim from paper 1 constituted only a small fraction of paper 2 and because this was a review paper and not original data. I then contacted COPE and the chair of COPE… - CaseOn-going
Preprint plagiarism
…guard author group B against accusations of plagiarism, and certainly did not assign full credit to their original discoveries. Author group A feels like author group B took advantage of some key results in their preprint to accelerate some major points in paper B. Unfortunately, author group A did not raise this with journal B. Journal B has only found out about this through word of mouth.… - Case
Alleged plagiarism
The author apologised, and said that no deliberate attempt to plagiarise had been made, but the editor of Journal A contacted the author’s institution. A careful review was undertaken, concluding in the end that there was no intentional plagiarism. The editor, with consent of all parties, sent this to the author and the complainant, explaining that the journal did not intend to take any… - Case
Attempt at multiple plagiarism
The committee felt that the reported plagiarism was a serious matter. The editors should contact the authors to request an explanation. Additionally, the editor should contact the authors’ institutions and regulatory body to request an investigation into the matter. The editor should let the authors know of his/her intention to do so. The editor of journal B should let the original authors… - Case
Possible plagiarism case
One of the referees of our journal has brought to our attention a potential case of plagiarism. The referee feels that the a manuscript submitted to our journal plagiarises an article published in another journal. The authors are from an institute in a far-eastern country. We would be grateful if COPE could provide an opinion on this issue, as well as advice on what would be the… - 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… - CaseOn-going
Reprimanded author plagiarizes again
A reviewer, R1, brought to our attention several suspected cases of plagiarism in paper A1, submitted by authors A. The main concerns were:— large parts of paper A1 resembled paper B submitted by a different group of authors B, with one of the most major changes being a change in the observation day;— large parts of a section were taken from paper C by author C, including an… - Case
Plagiarism
On review of a paper for Journal A, a referee recognised entire paragraphs of the manuscript from two published review articles that he himself had written. Both reviews were referenced in the manuscript with regard to particular topics, but the verbatim paragraphs were not attributed to the previously published reviews. The editor rejected the paper and pointed out the apparent plagiarism to… - CaseCase Closed
Plagiarism and publication fee
A journal’s editors were informed about a plagiarism case just before the last step in the volume publication process. The publication fee for the paper was already paid by the author and the author completed and signed the publication agreement in which confirmed the paper's originality. The author was informed of the plagiarism issue and also that the paper would be withdrawn from…