Duplicate Publication: What It Is, What To Do

We have just "withdrawn" an article because of a serious ethical lapse by the author. The manuscript had already been copyedited and sent to production. We seek your views on next steps.

By chance, we discovered that the author (a single author) had just published an article with substantially the same data and argument as the one we accepted for publication. We sent both (the version all but published in JPHP; and the one that appeared elsewhere to our four reviewers of the original submission to JPHP). Within a couple of days, three had compared the two articles and answered that they concurred that the content was very similar, withdrawal was the correct action, and that something more needed to be done.

Had this been a simple misunderstanding? We doubt it, as 3 times—once for each revision—the author checked the following "no dual publication" statement on the journal's electronic submission system:

"No, the analysis/argument/data in this manuscript have not been published elsewhere, nor are they under consideration (from you or one of your contributing authors) by another publisher."

When we called the author's attention to the problem, explaining that we were withdrawing the article, the author responded rapidly, in two emails, that

1.   "You never liked it anyway.  Good excuse..." and then

2.  "I'll just publish it in a more receptive journal… They are really two very different articles..."

The three reviewers who responded to our query believe we should notify the author's institution. As we have not had occasion to do this previously, we seek advice:

Do we identify and write to the department chair and/or dean—with or without copying the author? Other options or suggestions?

Anthony ROBBINS & Phyllis FREEMAN
Co-Editors, Journal of Public Health Policy
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I believe that you should write to the author's institution together with the author's response to you. Clearly, this seems to be an attempt at duplicate publication.

At our journal, we had a similar case last year. Normally, when receiving a manuscript, we check out the author(s) publications on PubMed and Google Scholar. When doing so, we discovered that the author's submitted abstract was identical to one his group had previously published, despite the author declaring that it had not previously been published, nor was it under consideration elsewhere.

When contacted, the author claimed the article was sent by his student without his permission and that he was very angry. We did not believe his reason as it was him personally that submitted the article from his email address, and he personally signed the disclosure and submission letter.

We then contacted his institution departmental head and Dean) explaining the situation. Despite follow up letters, his institution has not replied.

I wonder whether there is some mechanism that we can publish a list of such authors who are guilty of duplicate publications or attempt to. This would then alert other editors in case the author tries to submit it elsewhere, as it appears to be in your case.

Rob Siebers
Editor, New Zealand Journal of Medical Laboratory Science
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Bringing the situation to the attention of the author's institution would be a journal response in accordance with the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journals (see www.icmje.org) and those of the Council of Science Editors Policy Committee. You may wish to notify the author that you are going to do so as a courtesy before contacting the institution. While it is not the journal's responsibility to make a final judgement about misconduct, the journal should cooperate with any institutional investigation by supplying necessary documentation. Another reasonable course of action would be to ask the WAME Ethics committee to review the case before contacting the institution if you feel that an independent opinion would be helpful.

Christine LaineSenior
Deputy Editor, Annals of Internal Medicine
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This is, unfortunately, not so rare an event. We have a working arrangement with other editors in our field, and we have shared manuscripts deemed to be suspicious (usually pointed out by a reviewer who has seen one manuscript for us and the other for a competing journal).

In side-by-side comparisions, we have found (1) identity, (2) similar by 'minimally publishable unit' differences, (3) extensive duplication of methods or summaries of the state of the art (usually in the introduction), and (4) outright plagiarism.

In such cases, we convene our editorial board to solicit opinions on the appropriate response. We do take note of somewhat different understandings of rules in other countries, and we have heard the "my student did it" excuse many times.

Our response for duplicate submission has been: notification of other journals and sanction against submitting to us for 3 or 5 years. We have not (yet) notified faculties of these actions, in some cases because submitting authors did not belong to a recognized faculty.

Michael D. Lockshin
Editor-in-Chief, Arthritis & Rheumatism
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At Tobacco Control, we recently had an example of an author not declaring a commercial competing interest and subsequently trying to deny it when confronted with evidence. He was not employed by any institution, so we could not take the matter up with his employer. We instead published an account of what he did on our Web site, and will not consider future submissions from him. See http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/cgi/eletters/13/4/327 (the first letter can be skipped...the second letter details the saga).

Simon Chapman
Editor, Tobacco Control
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It seems to me that the Methods section could be exempted from duplicate publishing, especially if attempts to create a de novo methods section stands to lose out the essence of the methods?

Adamson Muula
Malawi Medical Journal
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I am particularly interested in the replies to this as it has happened to me twice this year, but luckily it was caught before publication.

Vivienne Miller
DMJ
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As well as being recommended by ICMJE and CSE (as Christine points out), the COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) flowcharts also suggest that contacting the author's institution would be appropriate.

You can find the flowchart on 'What to do if you suspect duplicate publication in a submitted manuscript' at:

http://www.publicationethics.org.uk/flow-charts/cope-flowcharts-optimal.pdf/download

(it happens to be the first of the series)

If this link doesn't work, try: www.publicationethics.org.uk

Liz Wager
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Does anyone buy the argument that highly recognised specialists in their field have to duplicate articles that they write for different publications because there is no way they can keep re-wording the findings they have just released to the general and medical press? I understand the problem in this situation, but surely it doesn't justify extensive 'self-plagiarism' just to save them time? There are copyright problems for others. What does everyone think?

Vivienne Miller
DMJ
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I believe that journal instructions should set out clearly what (if any) degree of overlap/duplication is permissible, perhaps providing guidelines for different types of articles (eg, original research, reviews, editorials) and clearly establishing expectations for authors. Editors should also request copies of any related publications (or planned submissions), then they (or their reviewers) can judge whether the overlap/duplication is acceptable.

To my mind, it is possible that introduction and discussion sections of closely related studies might contain similar material if they are reporting existing research, and the methods section may also be repetitive if this truly reflects how the studies were done (eg, for an initial report and follow-up) but, for original research, the key element is unique DATA.

However, for reviews and editorials, no new data will be presented, so it is up to editors to decide what degree of repetition/self-plagiarism is acceptable, but authors should expect to justify their decision to submit similar articles to different journals.

The question of whether editors should alert other editors to possible duplicate submission is an interesting one. Journal submissions are generally considered confidential and in some countries there may be legal considerations about sharing or publishing details about authors—maybe we need some guidelines about when editors should share concerns and how this should be done.

Liz Wager
Publications Consultant
(and member of COPE Council, but these are my own views, not necessarily those of COPE)
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Thanks.
re: degree of reasonable overlap between submissions by the same authors:

At the BMJ we cover this in our guidance to authors, though clearly we need to sort out some inconsistency over the degree of reasonable overlap (!) At http://resources.bmj.com/bmj/authors/article-submission/publication we say:

   To save readers and researchers from being overwhelmed by redundant material we do not want to publish articles that overlap substantially with articles published elsewhere. We want to make up our own minds on the degree of overlap. Whenever an article submitted to the BMJ overlaps by more than 10% with previously published work, or work submitted elsewhere, we expect authors to send us copies of those articles.

And, specifically to the authors of offered or submitted review articles we ask (see http://resources.bmj.com/bmj/authors/article-submission):

   Who prompted this submission? We may ask authors submitting or offering unsolicited articles, particularly reviews and editorials covering topics with related commercial interests, these questions before proceeding: has anyone (particularly a company or public relations agency) prompted or paid you to write this article? would/did a professional writer contribute to the article, and to what extent? would the BMJ article be original, or would it be similar to articles submitted or published elsewhere?

How do we handle the answers to these questions? Even if the answers to all of these questions were "yes", we wouldn't necessarily reject the proposal or article. We appreciate that companies can commission some excellent evidence based work and that professional writers can present that evidence in a particularly readable and clear way that benefits readers and learners. We would, however, expect such companies' and writers' contributions to be mentioned in the article.And we would want to know that the BMJ article did not overlap by more than 15% with any similar publications or submissions written by the same authors elsewhere.

I think we'll stick at 15%.

Trish Groves
Deputy editor, BMJ
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Just today, I was invited to a meeting where the proceedings will be published. The topic (the ethics of banning smoking outdoors ... I am opposed) is something that I have written on several times, most recently at length in a forthcoming book.

This issue has got up some worrying momentum lately, and so I find myself being asked to increasingly speak and write about it. I tell those asking me, that I have little more to add than I have already written in my previous contributions, yet they insist they want yet another, "different" piece. What is the point, precisely, in me spending hours manicuring, paraphrasing and in every other way trying to express the same basic arguments that I originally felt I expressed as well as I could? All in the name of not "self plagiarising". I can play around with trying to top, tail and middle things differently, but if the core of what I'm wanting to say is essentially the same, and I'm running into agendas about originality, what is more important here?

Media outlets all over the world daily buy exemplary articles, syndicated columns, features etc in recognition that their readerships will not have read a piece that was originally published elsewhere, the web nothwithstanding. Why do we in the health & medical specialist journal media feel so precious about originality? When it comes to original research I well understand the point, but many editors on this list are editing journals whose standard fare goes beyond original data into policy analysis and contributions designed to leverage change in some of the world's most pressing problems (climate change, violence, poverty, obesity etc). Anyone who thinks that only data, rather than interpretation and commentary changes the world should get off at the next stop.

Ought we not to differentiate between original data and analysis/commentary? Do we really believe that humanity is best served by the straightjacket of requiring  debates, policy advocacy and commentary to always be wholly original? Do we really believe that significant contributors to these debates really only deserve one bite at expressing their best shots, and if the rest of the world happens to miss out on their original contribution in Calathumpian Journal of Significant  Issues, this is just too bad .. all in the name of preserving publishing integrity?

Simon Chapman
Tobacco Control
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I would third the comments of Dr Laine and Ms Wager on looking at what ICMJE, CSE, and COPE have to say. You need to have some assurances from such sources on how to proceed.

In addition to going to the institution, you should determine whether the author in question claimed grant support in conducting the study, and you may want to include the original publication here because you've got an ethics issue and a possible copyright violation. Bringing this issue to the funding agency could be good option.

Michael Vasko
CSE Editorial Policy Comm
Arch Phys Med Rehabil
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I have only been a member of WAME for about a year and a half and I must confess that the frequency of misconduct-type cases reported on this list continues to amaze me. Perhaps I have been a little naive about these situations.

Contacting the sponsoring institutions, funding agencies, professional organizations (eg, BMA, AMA), and even other journals seem like reasonable steps when misconduct is suspected, though as Liz pointed out, there may be some legal issues involved when taking certain steps. Regarding the possibility of liability and given the apparently high frequency of misconduct incidents uncovered by journals, I wonder if some language describing these and other possible steps should be conveyed in journals' Instructions to Authors, copyright forms, or in some other way.  If authors were made to understand that serious consequences would follow their misdeeds, perhaps some of them will think twice about submitting a duplicate paper, failing to report a conflict of interest, etc. Even if some of the incidents reported happen to be mostly inadvertent, there is still a possibility that strong language about serious consequences could make authors more mindful about their work, thereby leading to better journal submissions.

Miguel Roig
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I guess the main problem, as Simon has so effectively highlighted, is the legalities in most cases. The legal system (copyright etc) seems to be the main problem here (and flak from the media, in Australia, anyway). However, one example I was thinking of was where a Professor, an expert in the field, recycled a pet title, which was original and unusual, and based the entire article around this simile. He even quoted extensively (in the only original paragraph) from his previous articles and research, without providing a reference or mentioning his colleagues. To cap it all off, he had published an identical article 3 weeks previously in a national newspaper.

Self-plagiarism obviously is more than discussing the results of research and its outcomes. This author had admitted initially that he had had parts of the article published in that particular newspaper (without giving further details) and that he was quite comfortable about this and there was no copyright breached. I did some research. If we had published the article without credit to the newspaper we would have had some major problems in addition to looking very stupid, even though copyright actually lay with the author in this case.

Vivienne
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I would like to know where do these numbers (10%, 15%...) come from. For example some universities in the UK have set up 5% for the maximum level of similarities.

The second point is that all these percents are subjective and mostly depends on what the readers interpret. Is there any scale to find how much those articles are similar?I doubt.

Behrooz Astabeh
Deputy Editor, Iranian Journal of Medical Sciences
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I attach some thoughts and helpful references on self-plagiarism and copyright violation from a short editorial we have had accepted by the J. Am. Acad. Derm. (JAAD)--of note, we could find no successful legal claims in the US against authors who have reused their own words after yielding copyright.[Dellavalle RP, Banks MA, Ellis, JI. Frequently Asked Questions Regarding Self-Plagiarism:

How to Avoid Recycling Fraud. J Am Acad Dermatol. 2007 Sep;57(3):527.
is available at: http://eprints.rclis.org/archive/00010083/02/selfplagiarism.pdf]  

Robert Dellavalle
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I strongly suspect that the last time I contributed to the topic of self-plagiarism my comments were deemed to be discourteous by some contributors. Subsequently, the topic has come up at least once but I did not have the time to respond. Please know that, as with my other contributions, I offer my thoughts in these and related matters in the spirit of cooperation and collegiality and thus apologize in advance if anyone feels offended in any way.

Like Simon and others, I also struggle with attempts at expressing in different ways arguments/positions that I have published previously. After all, for me writing has always been a somewhat arduous task, for it takes me a considerable amount of time and effort to generate even a simple contribution to a professional list such as WAME. Unlike others, I am almost never fully satisfied with my finished product and thus see an invitation for a new publication or conference presentation (and yes, even a WAME contribution) on the same topic as an opportunity to convey my message in a more convincing and interesting way. Therefore, although the same themes and even certain phraseology (not full sentences--to my knowledge) may be repeated, I try my best to improve on the message by using different words and phrases in a fresh, and hopefully, more compelling way. In the process, I see no harm in citing my own previous works by pointing out that I have made these same arguments elsewhere. On the contrary, I want to make sure that the reader realizes that I have, indeed, made these arguments previously. If necessary, I would even quote myself but, unfortunately, I don’t believe that I have ever written anything so unique or so elegant that could not be captured in a good paraphrase.

Of course, the strategy of always expressing our ideas in novel ways is not always desirable in the sciences. As has been argued in this forum and elsewhere, certain methodology descriptions are so technically complex that even a modest paraphrase could conceivably lead to subtle, but important misinterpretations of the material. Such outcomes in methods sections are highly undesirable. I do not believe that literature reviews or discussion sections should contain long strings of words (ie, entire sentences or long portions of sentences) copied verbatim from an earlier publication. Introduction and Discussion sections tend to be the types of ‘stories’ that can generally be told in different ways, whereas this is not desirable (or even possible in some cases!) with certain methods sections. Again, as I believe to have pointed out in an a similar thread, it would be quite ironic to have a situation where we maintained a stricter definition of plagiarism with respect to university students relative to their professors who are established professionals. And, I certainly do not believe that we should treat science any differently (to the extent that we already have) than traditional forms of scholarship with respect to plagiarism and self-plagiarism.

My understanding is that matters of originality, self-plagiarism, etc., have their roots in the scholarly traditions of the humanities and that, historically, scientific writing has always operated within that same scholarly value system as the humanities. Interestingly, professional writing guides tend to provide little or no coverage of plagiarism and self-plagiarism is almost always covered within the context of duplicate publication (ie, duplicate data). To my knowledge, there is little or no official guidance in the sciences on the practice of reusing portions of one’s own previously published text. However, my sense is that this lack of coverage tends to occur NOT because such guides attempt to convey a more relaxed position on these important matters, but because the expectation is that scientists are scholars and “should know better".

Lastly, while traditional journalism may play by similar scholarly rules as those in the sciences and the humanities, few would elevate journalism to the level of “scholarly activity”.  Some journalism work may rise to the level of scholarship and some journalists may, indeed, be scholars, but—please correct me if I am wrong—I do not believe journalism is considered scholarship in the traditional sense. Likewise not all scholars are scientists (lack of training in the scientific method), but my sense is that scientists are, by definition, scholars. If so, then I think scientists should be expected to adhere to the highest standards of scholarship. Obviously, presenting previously published data as new data is scientific misconduct and should not be tolerated, but recycling one’s own previously published text and presenting it as new is poor scholarship and should also be avoided.

Miguel Roig
http://facpub.stjohns.edu/~roigm
On plagiarism and ethical writing: http://facpub.stjohns.edu/~roigm/plagiarism/
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Is it amazing that only now after the couple of waves of plagiarism-related discussion there is a cautious touch to the problem that plagiarism may not be limited to the copying of the chain of words.

The content may be stolen (plagiarized) and published in different phrases.

Example: If a scientist presented for publication the text with new ideas, the reviewer may capture this idea and quickly publish it or use it in other ways (eg, in a grant proposal expressing the ideas in other words).

This is not the only abstract possibility, this potential review malpractice is well known.

Of course, it is simple to detect the similar chain of words, and difficult to prove that the idea (content) was stolen. But it does not mean that important problem must be forgotten and "self plagiarism" attracts full attention.

Vasiliy Lassov
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Vasiliy, I think you are correct that plagiarism of ideas is much more difficult to detect and investigate.

There is a growing body of experimental research in the field of psychology on what has come to be known as cryptomnesia, or unconscious plagiarism. Essentially, the evidence shows that, not only can we forget the original source of ideas, but that under some circumstances we unconsciously misattribute ideas generated by others as having been generated by us.

Perhaps most cases of plagiarism of ideas by reviewers, colleagues, etc., are intentional, but the evidence indicates that unintentional plagiarism of ideas is a very likely possibility. On the other hand, my sense is that plagiarism is text is seldom unintentional and I am very skeptical of those who, when found to have plagiarized others text, claim that they did so unintentionally.

Here are some references on cryptomnesia. I have not kept up with this literature and I am sure that there is more recent work in this area.

Miguel Roig

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References

Brown, A. S., & Murphy, D. R. (1989). Cryptomnesia: Delineating inadvertent plagiarism.  Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning and Cognition. 15: 432-442.

Landau, J. D. & Marsh, R. L., (1997). Monitoring source in an unconscious plagiarism paradigm.  Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. 4, 265-270.

Landau JD, Thomas DM, Thelen SE, Chang P. (2002). Source monitoring in a generative task. Memory.10(3):187-97.

Marsh, R.L.; Bower, G.H. (1993). Eliciting cryptomnesia: unconscious plagiarism in a puzzle task. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition. (3):673-88.

Marsh, R.L.; Landau, J.D.; Hicks, J.L. (1996). How examples may (and may not) constrain creativity. Memory & Cognition. 24(5):669-80.

Marsh, R. L., & Landau, J. D. (1995). Item availability in cryptomnesia: Assessing its role in two paradigms of unconscious plagiarism. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 23, 886-897.

Marsh, R. L., Landau, J. D., & Hicks, J. L (1997). Contributions of inadequate source monitoring to unconscious plagiarism during idea generation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 23, 226-287