Publish & perish

Plagiarism, self-plagiarism, salami slicing, and research misconduct

Neal Stewartnealstewart@utk.edu

Materials from upcoming book published by Wiley-Blackwell.

commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Salami_aka.jpg

Research Ethics for Scientists: Principles for Best Practice

“The best course I’ve ever taught”

Research Ethics for the Life SciencesPlant Sciences and Animal Science 525

Fall semester 2007-2020Mondays 12:20-1:10

Table of contents• Research ethics: best ethical

practices produce the best science

• How corrupt is science?• Backgrounder on ethics-

guest author, Gary Comstock• Plagiarize and perish• The perfect mentor• Research fraud: fabricating

data• How to blow the whistle and

still stay alive in science

• Authorship: who is an author and why

• Grant proposals: ethics and success intertwined

• Peer review and the ethics of privileged information

• Data and data management: the ethics of data

• Conflicts of interest• What kind of research science

world do we want?

Great ideas

Preliminary data

Funding

Research

Presentations

Publications

P

E

O

P

L

E

Guiding principle: What is best for science and its stakeholders?

Ask not what can I get away with, but what can I do to make the world a better and

smarter place.

Who am I and what am I here for?

discipline + entrepreneurship = greatnessJim Collins. Good to Great

Ethical egoism: people ought to do what is in their own self-interest.

WorkerBossManagerUnitCompanySector

StudentProfessorAdministratorUnitUniversityEd/Research

culture ethicof of

The dedication to greatness drives discipline.The pursuit of discipline is the pursuit of greatness.

http://tastychomps.blogspot.com/2009/07/53rd-and-6th-halal-cart.html

www.phdcomics,com Piled Higher and Deeper by Jorge Cham

“Culture of cheating”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/photo/2008/12/09/PH2008120901211.jpghttp://www.imnotobsessed.com/files/imagecache/main_pic/files/images/a-rod.jpghttp://blog.wbru.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/belichick1.jpghttp://www.cbc.ca/gfx/images/news/photos/2006/06/22/woo-suk-hwang-cp-9187764.jpgMary Allen

Photo credits

I am, as I’ve said, merely competent. But in the age of incompetence, that

makes me extraordinary.”-- Billy Joel

“One case can cost a million

dollars.”

Matt Ronning, DirectorNCSU Sponsored

Programs

““Less than 1% Less than 1% reported?reported?””

Paul Cousins, Director Paul Cousins, Director NCSU Office of NCSU Office of Student ConductStudent Conduct

Courtesy of Gary Comstock

In 2004 the editorial office of the Journal of Cell Biology (166:11-15) estimates that paperscontaining questionable data might be as high as 20%.

How common?Graduate students:

Business 56% Engineering 54%Physical sciences 50%Medical and health-care 49%Law 45%Social science and humanities 39%

- Donald McCabe, Center for Academic Integrity, Duke U.

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=oddlyEnoughNews&storyid=2006-09-21T120800Z_01_N20379527_RTRUKOC_0_US-LIFE-CHEATING.xml&src=rss

Courtesy of Gary Comstock

44% of faculty say they have ignored cheating.

52% have never reported cheating to anyone else.

Donald McCabe, Sociology, Rutgers and Center for Academic Integrity, Duke 75,000 students; 125 institutions; 2 decades; self-reported data using paper and now online survey; 2001-02 datawww.lib.washington.edu/about/events/academic/Pres_2-24.ppt

Courtesy of Gary Comstock

Federal offenses: research misconduct

Fabrication -- making up data or results and recording or reporting them.

Falsification -- manipulating research materials or research subjects, equipment, or processes, or changing, or omitting data or results, such that the research is not accurately represented in the research record.

Plagiarism -- appropriating and using as one’s own the documented ideas, processes, results, or words of another without giving appropriate credit

FEDERAL POLICY ON RESEARCH MISCONDUCT http://www.ostp.gov/html/001207_3.html

Courtesy of Gary Comstock

www.phdcomics,com Piled Higher and Deeper by Jorge Cham

Plagiarism is claiming others’ideas, sentences, or phrases as one’s own. It is fraudulent and

intentional. In science, fairness and honesty dictate that others’works are cited and recognized

in scientific literature, grant proposals, or in coursework.

Ideas

• Problem: if a scientist is devoid of novel ideas. • Insurmountable to career sustainability in

research, creating problems in funding in grants and contracts.

• Stuck—not uncommon to commandeer ideas from others—such as grant or paper as reviewer.

• Not unethical to use others ideas given in a public forum—foundation of research.

Sentences

• Copying and pasting sentences from one paper to another is plagiarism.

• The surest way to get caught is to also include internal referencing from the source paper.

• For example, Paper A says, “What distinguishes GFP from other reporter genes is its ability to fluoresce without added substrate, enzyme, or cofactor (Prasher1995).”

• The sentence reproduced verbatim in Paper B, citing Prasher 1995 and without citing Paper A, would be plagiarism.

• The author of Paper B would be attempting to convince us that he or she knew this fact and was clever enough to write this sentence.

Phrases• Copying or the apparent copying of phrases is

not as clear cut as the copying of sentences. • That is because there are only a few decent

ways to say certain things.• People get suspicious about plagiarism if

familiar phrases get used quite often.

www.phdcomics,com Piled Higher and Deeper by Jorge Cham

Separating the professionals from the amateurs

• Materials and methods made useful—not copied and pasted.

• Understanding, summarizing, and precise writing vs. copy and paste.

• Great communication vs good enough to get by.

• The apparent IQ problem.

Guiding principle: peer-reviewed original journal article is the dominant

manuscript

All other publications, including other peer-reviewed papers should not

include “significant portions” of the dominant article

Self-plagiarism—why do it?

• Publish or perish• “If it was good (perfect?!?) once, why

change it?”• Command of language• “I love copy and paste”• “It’s my stuff”• Efficiency

www.phdcomics,com Piled Higher and Deeper by Jorge Cham

Self-plagiarism—what’s the problem?

• Expectation is that work is original• Lazy science, lazy writing• Salami-slicing• Some salami/SP is allowable• Precedence• Published vs unpublished self-plagiarism

Examples of acceptable double dipping

• Self-plagiarizing concepts, structures, phrases with citation.

• Self-plagiarizing conference abstracts or proceedings

• Self-plagiarizing grant proposals (these are not really publications)—but research misconduct, e.g., data fabrication is a problem.

Ideas

Early data

Conference abstract

Conference proceedings

Cloned abstractsPosters

-INTEGRITY-

Extensive dataBook chapters

Grant proposals

Self-plagiarism network

Original building blocks Self-plagiarism candidates Must be fresh

Peer-reviewed journal articles

Review papers

Grant proposals

(Must be fresh)

Articles fortrade and popularmagazines

Books

Intellectual property (patents and trademarks)

Self-plagiarism?

• 1996 paper: “What distinguishes GFP from other reporter genes is its ability to fluoresce without added substrate, enzyme, or cofactor (Prasher 1995).”

• 1997 paper: “GFP is the only well-characterized example of a protein that displays strong, visible fluorescence without any additional substrates or co-factors (Heim and Tsien 1996).”

www.phdcomics,com Piled Higher and Deeper by Jorge Cham

Guiding principle: Golden Rule“Do unto others as you would have

them do unto you”

If you are learning about a new topic, how much do you want to

be deceived?

www.phdcomics,com Piled Higher and Deeper by Jorge Cham

Other misconduct

• Double publishing figures/photos– Image duplication—copyright violation– Image duplication with conflicting legends

• Data fabrication• Image fraud

Rules for changing images

• Do not combine images unless it is clear that they were combined

• Manipulations should be done to entire image

• Ideally, alterations should be disclosed and described

• There should never be the intent to deceive.

• Beware of over-beautification…

Image fraud

Being the police

• Misconduct is becoming more frequent and easier to do.

• If we don’t police ourselves, someone else will.• If we don’t police ourselves, journals will be

compromised.• If we don’t police ourselves an increasingly

technical society will be compromised.• Ergo, the destiny of the world is in our hands.

www.phdcomics,com Piled Higher and Deeper by Jorge Cham

Most agriculture and plant research societies and journals do not have policies and procedures to

deal with misconductException=ASPB

Expectations for publishing• Take credit only for work that they have produced. • Properly cite the work of others as well as their own related work. • Submit only original work to the journals, no part of which has been

previously published in print or online as, or is under consideration as, a peer-reviewed article in another journal, as a non-peer-reviewed article (such as a review) in another journal, or as a book chapter.

• Determine whether the disclosure of content requires the prior consent of other parties and, if so, obtain that consent prior to submission.

• Maintain access to original research results; primary data should remain in the laboratory and should be preserved for a minimum of five years or for as long as there may be reasonable need to refer to them.

Quoted from http://aspb.org/publications/authorethics.cfm

ASPB Procedures for handling allegations of misconduct

• All allegations of scientific misconduct or ethical violation will be referred to the Executive Director of the Society. Persons making oral allegations will be advised by the Executive Director that no action will be taken by the Society unless the allegation is made in writing.

• The Executive Director will consult with the Editor-in-Chief and Publications Committee Chair to determine whether to convene an Ethics ReviewCommittee (ERC; President, Past President, Editors-in-Chief of both Plant Physiology and The Plant Cell, Publications Committee Chair, and the editorial board member who is handling the manuscript in question).

• Depending on the outcome of "B," the Executive Director will refer allegations to the ERC, which will determine whether further action is necessary.

• If further action is deemed necessary, the Executive Director shall notify the author in writing of the allegations. The author shall be given the opportunity to respond to the allegations in writing within 30 days.

Quoted from http://aspb.org/publications/authorethics.cfm

Procedures, continued• The ERC shall consider all relevant information, including any response received from the author,

in making its findings. • The Executive Director, President, and Editor-in-Chief, with consultation from the ERC, shall

determine the appropriate course of action, which can range from simply returning the manuscript to the author to prohibiting further publication. The Executive Director, after discussion with legal counsel, shall then determine if Executive Committee and/or legal review is necessary before the Society takes action. It is important to recognize that the Society's investigation shall focus on our concerns as a publisher and that the appropriate course of action shall not exceed the constraints of this interest. If deemed appropriate, the author's home institution may be notified. Notification of the home institution will be informational only, so that the home institution is free to consider an independent investigation.

• Once a decision is made, the author will be notified in writing of the decision and of any action that will be taken by the Society. In the event of an adverse decision, the author may appeal to the Executive Committee. Such an appeal must be filed within 14 days of receipt of the decision. The procedures for the appeal shall be determined by the Executive Committee.

• All information relating to allegations and subsequent inquiries will be kept confidential by the ERC, any other Society members, and staff working on the matter and will not be disclosed to any third parties, unless considered necessary according to section F. All actions, including telephone calls, must be documented for all situations, even those resolved immediately. Copies of correspondence should be sent to the Director of Publications. A summary of alleged scientific misconduct or ethical violations, but with no names and other identifiers, should be part of the journal staff report that is delivered to the Publications Committee and the Executive Committee.

Quoted from http://aspb.org/publications/authorethics.cfm

Proposed simplified procedure for responding to alleged misconduct

1. Enable Editors-in-chief (EIC) to act on reports of misconduct.

2. Reject the paper.3. Accept no more submissions from the

author(s).4. Report incident to home institution of

corresponding author (chief research officer).5. EIC requests report from home institution,

which could ameliorate 2 & 3.

Whistleblowing

“We don’t teach ethics at home; we don’t teach ethics at school, because the teacher would be accused of teaching morality; and we have to look long and hard to find even a college course on ethics.”

Frank Abagnale, p. 291

“It is important to remember that technology breeds crime, it always has…it always will. There will always be people willing to use technology in a negative self-serving way ”

Frank Abagnale, p. 291

If we continue to ignore the problem, the scenery won’t be

pleasant

www.phdcomics,com Piled Higher and Deeper by Jorge Cham