Plagiarism, etc., in Journal publications : some of our experiences

1. Plagiarism, etc., in Journal publications : some of our experiences H R Krishnamurthy Department of Physics I I Sc, Bangalore 560 012, India Editor PRAMANA-Journal of Physics Rohini Godbole Centre for Theoretical Studies I I Sc, Bangalore 560 012, India Associate Editor PRAMANA-Journal of Physics Published by

2. Case study 1 • Paper entitled "Slipping stream instability in curved magnetic field“ submitted to PRAMANA on 4th Dec 98 and sent for refereeing. • Referee says that the paper is a plagiarized version of one of his earlier papers published in Physics of Fluids! • The referee also says that the same paper was earlier submitted to Indian J. Pure and Appl. Phys. where again he was the referee, pointed out the plagiarism to the editor of that journal where upon the paper was rejected. • A copy of referee's paper that appeared in Phys. Fluids was provided to us. A comparison told us that the case for plagiarism was indeed very strong.

3. Case study 1(continued) • PRAMANA wrote to the author saying • It has been suggested to us that your manuscript is “plagiarised” from the paper “Diocotron instability in curved magnetic field” by ………, published in Physics of Fluids 1993. This is a very serious charge that you should worry about. Irrespective of whether the charge is true or not, this does mean that your manuscript can not be considered by our journal, because the results of your paper are already available in the literature. • Same Author submitted another paper to PRAMANA entitled “Technique for the measurement of ion temperature in a discharge of argon” on 15th Feb 1999 • PRAMANA wrote saying • In connection with a paper you had submitted to PRAMANA earlier, we had written to you that a charge of plagiarism had been levelled against you. You did not respond to our note and clarify your position. We are apprehensive about processing this further until we receive such a clarification. • We have not heard from the author since that time.

4. Case Study 2 • A Referee wrote to editor of Proc. Math. Sci of the Indian Academy of Sciences pointing out that • The paper ‘A note on absolute summability factors’ by author O published recently in the journal was very similar to the one that had been sent to him for refereeing sometime ago (titled ‘A study on local properties of Fourier series’ by author B) which he had rejected. • Authors O and B are from the same university in Turkey, and seemed to be collaborators • Author B seems to have published umpteen papers with essentially similar content, Each time adding a new factor to a previously defined “summability” and “proving” some silly result.

5. Case Study 2 (continued) • An editorial note was published in Proc. Math. Sci. retracting the article by Author O published in the journal, saying : “It was brought to our attention that the paper mentioned above was almost identical in content to the paper entitled entitled "...." published by the same author in Dynamic systems .... . After verifiying that this was indeed the case, a formal letter was sent to the author seeking clarification. The author responded by e-mail, expressing regret over the matter. His explanation amounts to the following: He was simultaneously handling several of his own manuscripts of a similar nature and also corresponding with different journals at the time of communication of his article, consequently leading to this unfortunate situation. As is the practice in all research journals, we do not re-publish articles from other journals, nor do we allow papers from our journal to be published in another journal without explicit permission from us.”

6. Case Study 3 • A note was received from an author A about a paper under consideration for publishing in PRAMANA, saying: “A paper, it appears, is going to be published soon in PRAMANA on ‘Spectroscopic studies of Dergaon Meteorite........’ with reference to data presented in a conference held in BHU. I was one of the coauthors in the conference presentation and it so happened that I collected the meteorite sample myself last year and got it registered as a Dergaon meteorite in the Meteoritical Bulletin. Now I have come to know that my name has been omitted in the paper to be published in PRAMANA and relegated to a place in the acknowledgement. I take a serious view of the matter and feel strongly that I do not want to share the sample with the people who could so unethical. The way the thing is done does seem to be befitting a wholesome scientific culture. Please do the needful as per the norms followed by your prestigious journal on such matter.”

7. Case Study 3 (continued) • What the journal did: We talked to author A on the phone. She said she will talk to the other authors and get a letter sent to us signed by all authors for including her name in the authorship, and wanted 15 days time. • But author A never got back to us and the paper was eventually published.

8. Case Study 4 • A reader wrote to PRAMANA expressing doubts about the validity of a recent paper on Cosmic Ray Air Showers published in PRAMANA stating the following reasons: • The array apparatus used in the experiment would have difficulties observing the results claimed. • There is no mention about the statistics of air shower events used in the analysis. So one cannot check the statistical errors quoted in the paper, which appear to be too low. • Result not consistent with other measurements including earlier results by the same group (published in IL Nuovo Cim.) • Array is not in operation during the last few years as far as he knows! • Many publications by the group are repetitive, presenting the same measurements in slightly different way in different publications including journals such as Nucl. Instrum. Meth, IL Nuovo Cim, Can. J.Phys., J. Phys. G (References Provided).

9. Case Study 4 (Continued) • PRAMANA wrote to the referee who had accepted the paper saying • A reader of PRAMANA has sent the following feedback on the above paper published in March 2003 issue of PRAMANA. As you may please recall the paper was refereed by you and on the basis of your recommendation on the revised version we have published it. Your reports along with the paper is attached with this mail for your reference. In view of the serious concerns expressed by this reader, the editors were keen to get your reaction to this. We shall appreciate if you could please send us your reactions as early as possible. • PRAMANA also wrote to two other experts in this area saying • This is about a paper entitled "Cosmic ray air showers …" by … published in the … issue of PRAMANA (pdf file attached). The editors decided to publish the paper on the basis of careful scrutiny and recommendation by a referee after two rounds of refereeing. However we have now received a comment from a PRAMANA reader expressing serious doubts about the results presented in the paper (comment reproduced below). In view of this, our editors are keen to get this checked. They were wondering if you could help with your inputs and advice in the matter. • We are awaiting their response

10. Case Study 5 • The Editor of Publications of The Indian Academy of Sciences received the following letter from Author G saying • This is to bring to your kind attention that we have published the following paper in Int. J. Mod Phys D: “Higher Dimensional Charged Null Fluid Collapse …..” by author G and author S. • The paper was submitted to Int. J Mod. Phys. D on May 31, 2001 and was published in February 2002. • I was shocked to see the following paper being published by author P with slight adjustment and different title: “Gravitational Collapse in Higher-dimensional ….” in PRAMANA in March 2003. • Author P submitted the paper to PRAMANA on March 28, 2002 after the publication of our paper. Further, author P was a Ph.D. Student of author S, who is a co-author of our paper, and also acknowledges his help. I feel that author P was fully aware of our paper. • I am sending a copy of our paper for your perusal and request you to take appropriate action. I believe both the papers can be sent to same referee again for his opinion.

11. Case Study 5 (Continued) • We also received a note from co-author S saying • P ‘ s results published in PRAMANA are duplicates of our results proved nearly a year earlier. • P has mentioned my name and also name of another of my colleagues in the acknowledgement of his paper. The fact is that he never contacted us about this paper and we had no discussion about it. Had he done that, I would have definitely told him that this work has already been done by G and myself. • Since I am one of the authors in the paper published in IJMP D, and since I saw my name in the acknowledgement of P 's paper, I thought it necessary to clarify my position in this regard. • Any step / clarification / decision in this regard that will be taken by you may please be conveyed to me.

12. Case Study 5 (Continued) • We wrote to author P saying • This is in connection with your paper entitled "Gravitational …." published in PRAMANA Vol … 2003. It has been brought to our notice that almost the entire content and results have already been published by Author G and author S in Int. J Mod. Phys. D Vol … 2002 with the title "Higher … ". Please see the enclosed letters. • As per the standard norms and ethics of scientific publication followed by the journals published by the Academy, submission of a paper is held to imply that it represents the results of original research not previously published and also that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. • In view of the serious nature of the complaint, we request you to respond to it urgently (within a fortnight), so that the problem can be resolved at the earliest.

13. Case Study 5 (Continued) • Author P wrote back to us clarifying that • He had sent his paper first to Physical Review D for publication on 12th Sept 2001, five months earlier than the publication of the paper by G & S. His paper code was DJJ803 and we could verify this on the status inquiry of Physical Review D. • After rejection of his paper by P R D he resubmitted the paper to PRAMANA. While submitting the paper to PRAMANA he was not aware of the work of S & G, because he did not meet S in this period. • He , S & G had earlier published a paper " Strong curvature … “ in 1999. His new paper which has been published now is straight forward generalization of this earlier paper, as also mentioned in the ABSTRACT of the new paper. • Since the new paper was a generalization of their previous paper, to give credit and to honour his teachers, he had given an acknowledgement to them in his paper. His mistake was that he did not ask them at that time. • It is a fact that that the two papers do overlap substantially, but he has not copied the other paper since he had sent his paper to PRD earlier to the publication of the paper by G & S.

14. Case Study 5 (Continued) • Co-author S wrote to us saying • Please refer to my mail sent to you on 5th May,2003, about P ‘s paper published in your journal in March 2003. • P has replied to your letter asking for clarification and he has forwarded his reply to me. I sincerely believe that whatever he has said in his reply is true. • P has not copied our work since he sent his paper first to Phys. Rev.D in Sept.2001, before our paper was published. Since our paper was not put on the net, he could not have known about it. • The only mistake P did was that he put my name in the acknowledgement without showing me his work. He has accepted his mistake. • Hence I hereby request you NOT to take any action against P except perhaps to ask him to write an addendum clarifying the situation. • I hope that you will be sympathetic to P.

15. Case Study 5 (Continued) • We contacted Author G, who had complained first, and his position was similar that of S. • We have taken no further action, assuming this to be a genuine case of unknowing and independent duplication of work.

16. Case Study 6 • PRAMANA was about to publish the proceedings of a conference • We received a letter from author X asking us to block publication of one of the articles by authors C, D, M and L as the material in this paper is based on his thesis work, and has not been adequately acknowledged. He included some documentary evidence in support of his claim, and alleged that this was a case of plagiarism by author D who was his thesis supervisor.

17. Case Study 6 (Continued) • We wrote to D informing him about the letter and said • Since the time for publication is very short, and the allegations very serious, D should get in touch with X immediately and sort out the objections, either by including X as a co-author or by adequately acknowledging his thesis work in a way acceptable to X • We must obtain the final manuscript after modifications acceptable to him and X within the next few days. Otherwise it would not be possible for us to include the paper in the proceedings.

18. Case Study 6 (Continued) • D happened to be coming to Bangalore the next day, and dropped into the PRAMANA office for discussions with the editor • He was very reluctant to include X as a co-author because of some past history which he explained • But he agreed to remove two of the figures in the paper which had been taken from X’s thesis, so as to protect X’s interests, and also to substantially revise the paper, so as to adequately acknowledge and credit X’s thesis work wherever appropriate. • X, who also happened to be in Bangalore at that time, would not make the time to talk to the editor either in person or on the phone and resolve the matter, but simply insisted on being made a co-author.

19. Case Study 6 (Continued) • D submitted the revised manuscript promptly, and after satisfying ourselves that it had been revised as promised, and that it longer discussed unpublished work from X’s thesis without giving him due credit, it was published in the proceedings. • X was very unhappy, and sent several e-mails protesting, threatening PRAMANA with “legal action”, and also a “global campaign...”, in order to expose the “collusion between the journal and D to cheat X …” • We just sent one e-mail to X explaining that • PRAMANA had given serious consideration to X’s complaints • The paper as published protects the interests of all the parties concerned as best as possible under the circumstances • What-ever decisions we as the editors of PRAMANA have taken have been completely above board and ethical to the best of our judgment, and we would be willing to defend them publicly in any forum.

20. What do we learn? • Need to be circumspect in dealing with complaints of plagiarism etc. • All cases not necessarily deliberate. • Lack of easy access to published papers makes it harder for referees to prevent plagiarism or duplication. • Can some accord and new software for sharing information between journals be set up to help? • Can common policies be evolved to deal with proven cases?