Meat extenders, opposite of salami slicing? (Re: Plagiarism)

[Guest guest]

Smita and Vijay Sir,Self plagiarism, if you will, at least the way I see it, is more of an issue of lack of academic etiquette than a crime (sort of wilful misconduct). Taking things too literally can be problematic. In this post, I'd like to present a couple of counterpoints (almost bordering on being a devil's advocate). I'd be interested to know your opinions. 

I think in the context of countries such as India and some other third world countries where researchers may not be too proficient in English language, issues around self plagiarism can work adversely and stack things against researchers with low level of English language skills. A similar but related situation happens when you consider reporting of epidemiological or clinical data related literature. 

After all, in clinical and epidemiological data related communication, the methods and the background sections  are usually based on fairly standard agreed upon evolved vocabulary that have evolved over the years (its still evolving, see research around unified medical language system, SNOMED-CT and other standardized vocabulary to express clinical terms, and similarly in Epidemiology, because of the need to connect with field investigators, the terms are fairly standardized). Add to that the rigorous requirements of strict word limits enforced these days with most journals. So my point is, it is not unusual that parts of clinical and epidemiologic publication show significant overlaps with stuff already published elsewhere and particularly by the same research groups, and all of that may not be necessarily wilfully done by lazy and dishonest researchers. One can then question how much is that plagiarism and how much is that because of standard procedures.As far as I know, the jury is still out, and one can only expect that as the volume of publications increase, this will become increasingly common.

While we are at it, consider also the issue of another form of plagiarism, " meat extending " or augmenting literature. We discussed in this forum earlier about salami slicing or cutting data too thin and we discussed that this was academic dishonesty. Think of the reverse now (meat extending) as in the following situation. You, the researcher, have collected data, have written up a publication based on the incompletely collected data in the initial stages (such as in the early stages of a cross sectional survey as you are setting up a case control study on it, or early stages of a long cohort study when you are setting up an initial data analysis). This is not a too uncommon situation in biomedical and epidemiological research where surveys are not completed but initial data show promising results. Now this is distinct from bench sciences or biomedical research where data collected, experiment done, experiment completed and after that, people start writing their papers. This does not work in that order in clinical or epidemiological literature. So what happens? After your initial submission of the publication, you continue to collect data. You then add additional data points to your datasets, re run your statistical analyses, and report again. You realize that your wordings in the introduction (background), methods, and even perhaps results section will be similar (significant overlap and this is natural), as will be your discussion and conclusions because now, you, or your group has more data to justify your earlier observations. No wonder you will have similar or even significant overlaps in your writings. If you look at it purely from an academic dishonesty perspective, devoid of the context of the situation, it is like beefing up your data or you are extending the meat by augmenting your research with more data, right? This " meat extending " is academic dishonesty, is it?

It turns out that this would indeed constitute meat extending if you do not notify the editors of the journal (or whoever is entrusted with the task of publishing your knowledge) that this builds on your earlier work. On the other hand, if you disclose, you run a risk that your work will be rejected on the ground that there is nothing new or nothing significantly new been added on the top of what you published before. You see, it's almost like a double edged sword. You, the researcher has a pressure to publish. So, you take your publication elsewhere, not disclose that a study has already been published by your group elsewhere or under consideration and that this is based on extended data. Are you dishonest? Yes as long as you do not disclose. Are you pragmatic? Are you extending the meat? yes. 

Why? It appears that self plagiarism becomes an issue is the " nature " of the beast. If you cite yourself, if you declare, and if you state and explain the reason for significant overlap, you may just be OK. But if anything is perceived as " covert " or hidden, you're in trouble. 

That's just one aspect. The other issue with plagiarism is to with the English language skills of the researcher who writes the report. Not everyone is equally proficient writing in English language. On the other hand for technical writing, even apparently innocuous alteration of text can render meanings or connotations significantly different from what was intended and in the end gets rejected by peer reviewers. This is particularly troublesome with authors from the third world who may have limited English language skills, and one wonders if at some point, strong emphasis by the native English language scientific publishing establishment and the peer reviewers on the construct around self-plagiarism is actually a bias against researchers from the third world countries with poor english language skills, whether intended or not.

I think speaking of plagiarism, these are some issues that need to be considered as well.Best,Arin 

On Thu, Apr 14, 2011 at 4:46 AM, smita sontakke <smitaavanti@...> wrote:

 

Hello All.

 

'Self-plagiarism'  refers to the practice of an author using portions of their previous writings on the same topic in another of their publications, without specifically citing it formally in quotes. This practice is widespread and sometimes unintentional, as there are only so many ways to say the same thing on many occasions, particularly when writing the Methods section of an article. Although this usually violates the copyright that has been assigned to the publisher, there is no consensus as to whether this is a form of scientific misconduct, or how many of one's own words one can use before it is truly " plagiarism. " Probably for this reason self-plagiarism is not regarded in the same light as plagiarism of the ideas and words of other individuals. If journals have developed a policy on this matter, it should be clearly stated for authors.

 

Dr. Smita Sontakke 

From: Vijay <drvijaythawani@...>Subject: Plagiarismnetrum

Date: Wednesday, 13 April, 2011, 3:20 PM

 

Hi,So we come to specifics now. Let us start with Plagiarism. To plagiare means to steal.It is intellectual theft to use someone else's ideas, data or text without acknowledgement.It is a serious scientific misconduct and should not be indulged in.

Scientific copying has become very common since all material became available on web. Plagiarism was never so easy since copy and paste facility came in! Digital plagiarism includes cyber-plagiarism; it is a term used to describe copying using computers.

The E revolution made plagiarism faster, quicker, easier. The electronic shovel needs less effort and is very powerful. Vast array of tools are now available which are now misused for plagiarism.I am sure that the E-savvy young turks on NetRUM are aware that nothing is safe now, nothing can be protected from copying. There are converter softwares available for every format to make copying easy.

But just because it is

there does not mean you should be doing it. You do not steal belongings of others, just because they are there.Some say one is called a thief, only when caught stealing and not otherwise. In scientific writing, if you plagiarise, you will be branded plagiarist for ever - a scientific thief and there is no grey area or borderline thin difference here!

Vijay