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Plagiarism in Science – The plague that is here to haunt

 There is a thin line that separates outright ‘copying’ from being ‘influenced’ by someone’s work.  Many, in the creative world may lift wholesome pieces in the name of ‘strong influence’ or ‘inspired by’, which may get noticed but may not be challenged.  However, in scientific research, being influenced by one’s work is strictly limited to ‘Introduction’ or ‘Background’ details and the argument may not be advanced any farther.

 The dictionaries define plagiarism as ‘to steal and pass off (the ideas, words or expressions of another)’, ‘imitation’, ‘wrongful appropriation’ and so on.  Use of someone else’ work and present it as his own, without crediting the source is broadly termed as plagiarism.  While plagiarism is a scourge in literary and creative world, scientific plagiarism is not far behind and has its own stories galore on its rack.

It is important to note that plagiarism does not lead to copyright violation per se and thus there is no crime involved.  However, it is more of a moralistic violation and may be challenging natural law and question the doer’s ethics.  Before getting into the details of scientific plagiarism, let us look into the popular non-scientific case that involved a young Harvard school’s sophomore whose first fiction was highly publicized and published by Little Brown and Company in 2006¹.  While the book is nothing more than a regular chick-lit as per many reviews, The Harvard Crimson (Harvard’s very own journal) unearthed that ‘How Opal…’ had many portions reproduced verbatim from Megan McCafferty’s not one but two novels².

To this allegation, the young author responded that any similarities were unintentional and unconscious and that she had not realized how much she had internalized Ms. McCafferty’s words.  This however, did not convince many in the literary world, especially the author and the publisher of the two novels and ultimately ‘Opal’ was withdrawn off the rack by the publisher.  It appears that at least 40 pages had similarities in words, situations or dialogues and most believed that there is little that is coincidence in this saga.  But at no point, did Ms. McCafferty or Random House ever thought of Copyright infringement as lifted portions alone cannot be entitled for copyright violation under IP Law. However, isn’t there more at stake? Morals, ethics, scruples, embarrassment and your place among peers?

A recent publication³ reports that about 31% submissions made to Chinese journal is plagiarized.  Can plagiarism be a cultural misunderstanding as a few claim? There should be strong denial to this notion.  Herein, we are dealing with science in the global arena and any lifting of idea or data or words is indeed a conscious act.  In that sequence, probably, the last one, i.e lifting of words (or text) is perhaps most easily and commonly detected and less sacrilegious.

Case Study I

A reviewer of a peer-reviewed Journal lifts a paragraph from an article submitted for publication, paraphrases it and inserts it into her own manuscript (to be published elsewhere) during final stages of revision.  The review article appears in Nature Reviews Genetics (NRG) in 2008⁴ while the original article is still in the review process.  What follows is an arduous process of fact-finding: the authors of the original article bring it up with Plant Science Editor (where the original article was submitted for publishing), the reviewers are generally anonymous and their names are not revealed to the authors, so the Editor uses his discretion to find whether there is a case in hand and then takes it up with the University where the reviewer was a faculty.  In defence, the scientist fiercely contested that she has been suffering from thrombocytemia that causes memory and cognitive problems.  That however did not hold water and the article was retracted by Nature Reviews Genetics⁵.  Lesson: ‘Paraphrasing a paragraph without attribution is a form of plagiarism’: NRG’s chief editor Louisa Flintoft.

Case Study II

On similar lines as Case Study I, closer to home, Dr. Karmeshu’s (co-authored with Ms. Sharma) unpublished paper had startling resemblances including two identical figures to that of a 2007 publication in The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)⁶.  On further enquiry, Karmeshu learns that his paper submitted to Performance Evaluation (a peer-reviewed journal) was indeed reviewed by Kouvatsos who later went on to author the IEEE publication.  The Chief Editor of Performance Evaluation, Werner Bux, after thorough examination, has removed Kouvatsos from the list of referees and indicated that his conduct was unworthy and unacceptable.  After almost three years of rigourous chasing⁷, the original authors have at least gotten some reprieve as IEEE has posted on its website ‘a notice of violation’ indicating that portions of the article have been ‘copied without attribution and permission’.  In that bargain, however, the original article remains still unpublished.

Case Study III

Recent news on plagiarism allegation with regard to Indian scientist(s) has brought out another aspect of plagiarism to the fore⁸.  Herein the material copied were lines from authors’ very own published article.  These are believed to form a substantial portion of the ‘Background’ and ‘Discussion’ Sections while the data of the said article is new information.  Is it then alright to lift one’s own words and incorporate them into another article? In the words of Catriona Fennell, Director of Journal Services at Elsevier (Amsterdam), ‘there are only so many different ways you can describe how to run a gel’ and that the idea and the data are indeed of ‘greater concern’⁸. While the scientific community seems to be split in its views, it certainly is a topic to ponder in terms of educating and training the young researchers and writers.

It is indeed disheartening to note that Wikipedia carries a page on the topic: ‘scientific plagiarism in India’⁹.  In addition, in the scientific circles, often one hears thesis topics, entire thesis material as well as journal articles being plagiarized.  Many of these are not filed as complaints and thus become only personal accounts for posterity.

Tools to Detect

It is interesting to note that there is a comic irony in viewing internet as the very source of exposure leading to ‘lifting of’ ideas.  Indeed, the internet has provided huge opportunities for fostering the ‘cut and paste’ culture.  But, here again, one must remember that due to its very presence, more and more cases of plagiarism come to light.  Thus, while there is a thought that the internet era has inevitably led to gradual strangulation of creativity and copying of ideas, it is plausible that much of the plagiarized material might have gone undetected in the past in the absence of the very same ‘internet’ (due to lack of availability of ways and means to check in its absence).

Thanks to the IT wizards, there are plenty of tools now available, either free or paid that can detect plagiarism.  A simple ‘googling’ will throw multiple alternatives for a seeker on which tool to use based on the need and the purse.  TurnItIn, iThenticare, WriteCheck, CheckForPlagiarism are some of the paid portals catering to teachers, students, corporate houses, journals etc., DocCop, CopyScape are a few that provide free services for detecting online plagiarism.  These tools are adept in detecting a detractor with as little as six – ten words stringed together.  However, how does one find an idea or a concept or data that is plagiarized?

Educating Early

Starting early is the Mantra which should include inculcating originality and creativity amongst the young and untrained mind.  Sadly, that is the time when the schools are thrusting projects and is almost an accepted thing to have the project in the cut and paste mode.  Wonder whether these projects are even corrected or corrected right.  By this, the author means that the glossiest of the lot gets the highest grades and accolades which means the better cut it is (with good animation and presentation) the greater is the appreciation.  This automatically makes the child to scrutinize the web even better to become a better scavenger than a creator.

School projects, should by default, be done in class room settings.  This helps two things: one, help the child to do things independent of the parent (most often the contest is between the parents as their effort is more visible in the project) and second, foster creativity wherein from the materials gathered, the child can create his/her story.  In addition, the tutors should firmly deal with the attitude of ‘copying verbatim’ and encourage the child to do things on their own.

At college level, be it a project or a dissertation, emphasis should be laid to original manuscripts both in terms of idea and expressions.  The advisors should counsel the students on what is expected and how the final product should be and sternly discourage any copying to save time or effort. A recent article dissects various aspects to put a system in place in discouraging plagiarism¹⁰.  This includes education, checklists for writing tasks, outline and draft submission, individualizing the task as per student’s interest areas and handing the students with plagiarism detecting software.  It is even more heartening to see that the article has emerged from ‘Survival Skills and Ethics Program’ of University of Pittsburgh.  Often, one tends to disregard that the learning continues beyond science and these programs are firm reminders of other much too important aspects of life. While these are some of the simple procedures that will check plagiarism, a concerted effort from the academia and the scientific world is absolutely essential to curb it.

References

1. How ‘Opal Mehta’ got shelved. Gary Strauss in USA Today, May 2006.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2006-05-07-opal-scandal_x.htm

2. Students Novel Faces Plagiarism Controversy.  David Zhou. Harvard Crimson, April 2006.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2006/4/23/students-novel-faces-plagiarism-controversy-beditors/

3. Chinese journal finds 31% of submissions plagiarized.  Zhang Y.  Nature (internet), 2010, 467:153.

4. Plant genetic engineering for biofuel production: towards affordable cellulosic ethanol.  Sticklen, MB.  Nature Reviews Genetics, 2008, 9:433-443.

5. Retraction.  Nature Reviews Genetics.  2010, 11: 308.

6. On the Analysis of Queues with Long Range Dependent Traffic: An Extended Maximum Entropy Approach. Kouvatsos and Assi . IEEE Proceedings, 2007, Conference on Next Generation Internet Networks, 3rd EuroNGI Conference, 21-23 May (IEEE07 paper).

7. Plagiarism case highlights ethical conflicts in scientific research. Jacob P Koshy.  Live Mint.  Aug 2008.  http://www.livemint.com/2008/08/07163240/Plagiarism-case-highlights-eth.html

8. More instances of plagiarism come to light.  R. Prasad in The Hindu, March 2012. http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article2975271.ece

9. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_plagiarism_in_India.

10. Educational approaches for discouraging plagiarism.  Fischer BA, Zigmond MJ. Urol Oncol. 2011, 29(1): 100-103.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                      – Posted by Kausalya Santhanam