Science and Medicine

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Profiles in Plagiarism: Science and Medicine

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A.P.


F.T.


Z.C.

Scientific experimentation in genetic engineering at Peking University

In the mid-1990s, textual appropriation by scholars received much publicity in China after a rash of plagiarism cases (Xiguang Li and Xiong Lei 1996). One case involved what appears to be a "plug in" framework approach to the presentation of "original" research results.

Pan Aihua and 5 co-authors presented the results of a project investigating the potential for genetically engineering heavy-metal tolerant varieties of tobacco plants (1994 Plant Molecular Biology). The Peking University scientists reported how they had created a transgenic tobacco plant which was resistant to Cadmium by introducing a cloned mouse metallothionein gene into the plant's genetic structure. The resultant tobacco plants, and their offspring, demonstrated the potential for genetically engineering plants capable of withstanding high amounts of Cadmium or other heavy metals. Such plants would be useful in reclaiming heavy-metal contaminated soils which would normally be unsuitable for agricultural use.

Pan Aihua's project (1994) seemed to be a valuable contribution to genetic engineering research. However, it was discovered that the project was very similar to a project reported in the 1989 issue of Theoretical Applied Genetics (Misra and Gedamu 1989). Misra wrote to Plant Molecular Biology editor Robert Schilperoot to inform the journal staff as well as the scientific community that Pan et al. had plagiarised from her (and Gedamu's) 1989 article.

After an investigation, Shilperoot concluded that Pan (et al). had reported original research results from several years of experimentation with tobacco plants, but he also concluded that Pan (et al) had plagiarized extensively from Misra and Gedamu.

This problematic reporting of research results by Peking University scientists illustrates how a "plug in" framework approach is used by researchers wanting to publish in English, but lacking the needed proficiency in written academic English to do so on their own. To compensate for their English language deficit, they had copied the structure and much of the wording of a model research report, and they had inserted their own data into the article template in order to report the results of their own experimentations with the genetic engineering of heavy-metal tolerant varieties of tobacco plants.

The research by Pan (et al) had been conducted in Peking University's National Laboratory of Protein Engineering and Plant Genetic Engineering. Since there were slight differences in the research methodology and procedures used by Pan (et al) in their experimentation versus the experimentation of Misra and Gedamu, it does seem that Schilperoot was correct in concluding that language had been plagiarized, but that the research data was original.

For example, whereas Misra and Gedamu used a cloned human metallothionein gene to introduce heavy-metal tolerance to tobacco plants, the Peking University scientists had used a cloned mouse gene. The derivative influence in the Pan Aihua (et al) article is first evident in the abstract and introduction. In the abstract, Pan et al's statement "seeds from self-fertilised transgenic plants were germinated on medium containing toxic levels of cadmium and scored for tolerance/susceptibility to this heavy metal" has been lifted from Misra and Gedamu with only a slight change of media to medium.

Next, shortly into the introduction, extensive verbatim copying begins, as is evident in comparing the two articles. It is clear from such comparison that extensive copying has occurred. Pan (et al) have skipped several lines in the source text here and there, and they have omitted textual information such as Misra and Gedamu's explanation of heavy metal binding/sequestration proteins.

The appropriation of Misra and Gedamu's results section is also evident. Pan et al have appropriated the section heading and much of the wording of the results presentation. There are, however, several slight modifications. Misra and Gedamu's section title "Construction of chimeric gene encoding the MT protein" has been modified to include the variant spelling for chimaeric, and the indefinite article has been used: "Construction of a chimaeric gene encoding the MT protein."

In describing the origin of the metallothionein gene used in their study, Pan (et al) note that their mMT (mouse metallothionein) was obtained using a process developed by Palmiter, whereas Misra and Gedamu cite Varshney and Gedamu (1984) for the isolation of their human metallothionein gene (hMT). The description of how the gene was inserted was copied practically verbatim by Pan (et al) from Misra and Gedamu, but the Peking University scientists report that they used a 335 bp fragment rather than Misra and Gedamu's 320 bp fragment. The language appropriation employed by Pan (et al) from Misra and Gedamu in the reporting of their research results is quite selective, skillful even, as these scientists plug in their own results to the existing language framework.

The derivative influence continues in the next section where the section title has again been appropriated with a slight modification. Pan (et al) have substituted tobacco for Misra and Gedamu's N. tabacum. But some original textual composing also seems to occur in this section. Except for the first 2 sentences, the following language has evidently been composed by the Peking University scientists themselves. However, it very well could be that they have appropriated fragments and phrases from other sources as the Spanish scientists in St. John's (1987) study did.

These Peking University scientists have appropriated nearly the entire text structure of a research article in a "plug in" framework approach, but a "jigsaw" approach might have also been used in lifting key phrases and sentences from other sources besides Misra and Gedamu. In the next parts of this derivative article, it is evident that Pan Aihua (et al) have again substituted tobacco for Misra and Gedamu's Nicotiana tabacum.

Additionally, they have shortened Misra and Gedamu's Agrobacterium tumefaciens to A. tumefaciens. Some of these modifications may have been made by the editorial staff of Plant Molecular Biology, so it is not exactly clear how many of the modifications were actually made by Pan (et al).

As with the preceding sections, derivation is also evident in the section on "Transformation, selection and regeneration of B. napus and N. tabacum." Shortly thereafter, another section heading has been appropriated, and additionally, it is clear that nearly the entire section on inheritance of the cadmium-tolerant phenotype has been lifted from Misra and Gedamu, with only slight changes and omission of several lines of Misra and Gedamu's text.

Skipping the first paragraph as well as part of the second paragraph in Misra and Gedamu's section entitled "Inheritance of the cadmium-tolerant phenotype", Pan et al begin appropriating from the source text with Misra and Gedamu's sentence "Seed progeny from self-pollinated . . . ." Instead of calling the self-pollinated transformants the S1 generation as did Misra and Gedamu, Pan et al have labelled these transformants as the R1 generation. It is also evident that Pan et al (or the Plant Molecular Biology editors) prefer the use of medium instead of Misra and Gedamu's media. Pan (et al) also deviate slightly from Misra and Gedamu in the Cadmium concentration which they used in the medium on which the transformants and control plants were germinated.

Pan et al then skip several more lines of the source text, and toward the end of their section on the inheritance of cadmium tolerance, they substitute X2 analysis for Misra and Gedamu's Chi-square analysis.

The final sections of both articles, the discussion sections, reveal further appropriation by Pan et al on an extensive scale. The appropriation of Misra and Gedamu's concluding comments are particularly disturbing as the usefulness and potential application of their genetic engineering research is parroted from their fellow scientists.

Misra and Gedamu had demonstrated in their 1989 article that genetic engineering of plants for heavy metal tolerance held promise for "partitioning toxic metals in unconsumed parts of the plant" and for facilitating "reclamation of wastelands and mine spoils." Pan (et al) appropriated the conclusions of Misra and Gedamu as is glaringly evident.

The first paragraph of Pan et al's discussion section seems to be mainly of their own construction. However, beginning in the second paragraph, they appropriate the wording of the second half of the third paragraph of Misra and Gedamu's discussion section. Skipping the fourth paragraph of Misra and Gedamu's discussion section, Pan et al begin copying again from Misra and Gedamu's ending paragraph, this time copying nearly the entire paragraph with only the omission of several lines and the omission of a reference to Sherlock and Van Bruwne.

Pan Aihua et al have borrowed the model framework of Misra and Gedamu to "plug in" their own research results for their 1994 article, and they have appropriated the text structure, the presentation of results, and the conclusions reported by Misra and Gedamu in the 1989 issue of Theoretical Applied Genetics. When confronted, the Pan Aihua and colleagues agreed that "There is a significant degree of identity in the wording" but they refuted the charge of plagiarism saying "we have all the original data" (Xiguang Li and Xiong Lei 1996).

However, Plant Molecular Biology editor R. Schilperoot's conclusion was that although original results had been reported, "it is not acceptable practice to copy text--not even small passages--from published materials without reference." Later, Pan Aihua, who had been the main author of the article, claimed that the appropriation was a result of "his limited knowledge of English." A language "plug-in" framework was used to compensate for the fear held by many Chinese scientists, obviously including Pan (et al), "that they can't compete equally in Western journals because of a problem with English" (Xiguang & Xiong 1996).

It seems possible that these Peking University scientists who had appropriated Misra and Gedamu's text had come from a background (previous education as well as the general academic climate of the early 1990s at Peking University) which was somewhat tolerant of the use of derivation/copying as a second language writing strategy.

In order to compete on "equal" footing with native English speaking professionals, as Xiguang Li and Xiong Lei note, many Chinese scientists believe that copying the work of others and adding some new material, as Pan (et al) have done, "is not considered an aberration but part of an attitude that says it's OK to copy as long as you've done the work yourself."

[see also the Guo Jingming plagiarism case for further discussion of linguistic templates and derivation by second language writers]

References

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Anonymous Research Center

This institution is known for various publications, high-profile conferences, and research training initiatives

While conducting research on Famous Plagiarists, a serious case of plagiarism at the professional level came to the attention of the current researcher. This case seemed to have all of the elements needed to illustrate the disruptive nature of a discourse community interchange where a writer has chosen to import an exterior text into the reader-writer interaction and the space surrounding the text, or the discourse community itself.

Unfortunately, the anonymity of both the research institution and the plagiarist must be preserved due to the following circumstances:

1) These allegations have not yet been published in the professional literature or public media

2) Legal threats from--and a confidentiality agreement with--the research center in question prohibit divulging specific details

In this particular case, the discourse community comprised a number of well known and prestigious research institutions and government "think tanks". The Research Center publishes a number of lectures, papers, and books each year and serves as a focal point for discussion and debate on issues of global importance.

The writer who had submitted a derivative compilation of unacknowledged source texts as an "original" manuscript for publications consideration back in 1999-2000 was a widely known scholar who will be referred to in this profile by the pseudonym of Dr. Plagiarist in the following discussion.

The initial readers in the interaction were referees who evaluated Dr. Plagiarist's paper which he had submitted for possible publication in an "Occasional Papers" series published by the Center, and the text itself was related to the impact of the petroleum industry on the environment.

The derivative manuscript submitted to the publications department of the Center was found to contain plagiarism by a manuscript referee in the process of evaluating the paper for possible publication as a monograph supposedly representing research by a leading scholar on petroleum and the environment. Here was a case of plagiarism which, thanks to the examiner who discovered it, had been prevented from creating a larger disruption to the discourse community than the disruption already caused by its discovery prior to publication. Out of three referees, one had already (conditionally) recommended the article for publication.

What might have happened had not the other perceptive reviewer, a scholar with expertise in petroleum economics, noticed the derivation due to his familiarity with the sources cited by Dr. Plagiarist ? What if two of the reviewers had recommended the paper for publication, conditional or otherwise? Conceivably the disruption to valid discoursal interchange could have been much worse.

But why should this instance of plagiarism be seen as a disruption to the discourse community in the first place? For that matter, why should any instances of derivation/plagiarism be seen as a disruption to a discourse community? In attempting to answer these questions by showing how such derivation/plagiarism does indeed constitute a discourse community disruption, the case of Dr. Plagiarist will be briefly analysed, and an analogy will be made of certain ideology underlying particular interpretations of plagiarism and plagiarations as forms of postmodern disinformation and propaganda.

As such, plagiarism, and the poststructuralist propagandists/disinformers in this Postmodern Age of Cut-n-Paste should be given no quarter in the ideological warfare occurring within discourse communities of scholars, researchers, and intellectuals who wish to maintain the integrity, vitality, and genuineness of their communicative interchange.

At stake is the very life of a discourse community. If an attack is made on the texts and written communications of a community, the lifeblood of genuine interchange is spilled. And as the attack is, so should the response be, one which will thwart the enemy's influence, one which will preserve the lifeblood of dynamic and genuine interchange, one which will strategically target the supply lines, ammunition, and logistical support of an enemy who hopes to gain in territory, power, and superiority of influence while continuing a hostile invasion of the domains of genuine, relevant, meaningful, unfalsified, accurate, truthful, bona fide scholarly interaction (in this case, one of the manuscript referees explicitly stated his trust in the good faith, or bona fide contribution, of the author, who had in fact plagiarized).

Where the enemy has infringed and encroached, in the journals, in the infiltrated institutions, in the subversive indoctrination camps, these must remain until their liberation from poststructuralist influence as the abode of war, and warfare is always a very unpleasant reality. As Todd Leventhal (1999) has explained in his study of Iraqi propaganda and disinformation, "The harsh glare of war throws the actions of states as well as individuals into stark relief. War demands an all-out effort that sweeps away niceties and illuminates what may have previously remained hidden. Policies, practices and people reveal themselves in extremis." Such an observation would seem to have great relevance for today's "War on Plagiarism" within the Postmodern Age of Cut-n-Paste.

The case of plagiarism which infiltrated this particular discourse community aptly illustrates the disruptive nature of plagiarism and ideological warfare to genuine, academic, scholarly interchange, and it provides a sort of independent validation of certain observations made in other cases of plagiary, particularly with regard to the features of derivative text, and the (disruptive) nature of (derivative) discoursal interchange. In this case, a respected scholar had submitted a paper relating to oil and the environment. The manuscript, under consideration for publication as a monograph, was sent out for independent evaluation to the first 2 out of 3 referees with expertise in the subject area of the monograph. Referee 1 rejected the paper on the basis of the unacceptable research practice (plagiarism) which was evident in the manuscript.

The following is a summary of Referee 1's evaluation. Referee 1 described the manuscript as lacking "the organization, originality and established practices in citing references and writing the bibliography." He also highlighted the lack of topical organisation (disjunctures), the extensive summary, and verbatim copying using "exact wordings" from source texts. The disjunctures observed, along with the irrelevant information present in the manuscript, are described by Referee 1 in detail:

. . . The author then jumps abruptly to analyze the framework of the oil market . . . The paper then jumps . . . This lack of organization has affected the paper's analytical value.

Errors of informational incongruency are also highlighted, with reference to the author's use of two model cases which have differing oil yield projections, but there is "no attempt from the author to reconcile the differences . . . ." Such errors of informational incongruency are now recognized as a category of error resulting from the copying and juxtaposition of source texts, or from use of a text template which does not quite fit the information or data being conveyed through that framework.

Referee 1 notes that "Chapters two and six are irreconcilable since they analyze two different models." The discoursal flow of the derivative manuscript "jumps" back and forth through a series of disjunctures and poor transitions which have resulted from the source text re-combination strategies of the author in forming a hybrid language manuscript.

Most seriously, Referee 1 has highlighted the derivative nature of the manuscript, the "outright copying [of] paragraphs or texts from other papers and research without proper reference or quotation." Referee 1's judgment on his fellow colleague and discourse community member is no anaemic excuse for plagiarism on the grounds of differing ideology, or the influence of culture (i.e. the rote-learning of the Quran influence which certain other discourse analysis experts have invoked). No, this judgment by a fellow scholar, from within the same culture and the same discourse community, is justly scathing and harsh:

The lack of Organization of the paper might have been overlooked or dealt with accordingly had the paper exhibited originality and thorough research. But, unfortunately, the paper resorts to outright copying paragraphs or texts from other papers and research and without proper reference or quotation. This is an unaccepted research practice . . . Relying exclusively on one reference in supporting the author's argument is one thing and outright copying of the argument and analysis is quite another.

The first referee included copies of two specific source texts from which the author had lifted text, and he had highlighted the passages which had been copied (The texts were (a) Ghanem, C., Lounnas, R., and Brennand, G. (1999). "The impact of emissions trading on OPEC" OPEC Review 23 (2), and (b) - - - (1997). "Implications of the post-Uruguay round international trading system for petroleum-exporting countries and for international trade in petroleum and petroleum products." UNCTAD).

Referee 1 also surmised that the "same pattern of copying without proper references" could be proven by consulting other sources listed by the author in the bibliography. It seemed that the referee was able to recognise the features of derivative text in the author's manuscript in much the same way that teachers are able to spot derivation in student work--obvious clues give the game away.

Finally, Referee 1 pointed out the author's unconventional, separate listing of his own publications "whether relevant to the material or not" (Ironically, this prideful act of the author resulted in the reviewer (Referee 1) being able to identify the author in what would have otherwise been a blind or anonymous manuscript review).

The second referee's comments were much in line with Referee 1's evaluation, although Referee 2 did not have the benefit of realising just how derivative the manuscript was. This paper might have been published had not Referee 1 discovered the plagiarism since Referee 2 had recommended the manuscript for publication, conditional on revising and rewriting. Had a third reviewer recommended the manuscript, conditionally or otherwise, the paper would have been accepted for publication as an "Occasional Papers" monograph by the Center, but fortunately, the discovery of plagiarism resulted in outright rejection of the paper without it undergoing a review by a third referee.

Referee 2, although he did not realise the extent of the plagiarism, recommended that "Bibliographic references should be included to suggest examples of whom the author actually has in mind." He also noted the serious disjunctures and lack of transitions (resulting from the manuscript's having been compiled from copied source text), and he wrote "I suggest a reorganization of this work." He also gave an extensive redrafting plan.

According to the evaluation of Referee 2, the manuscript lacked "an ease of exposition . . . [and] the sorts of transitions from one section to another, that make for easy reading and contextualization." Referee 2 recommended that "[t]he analysis itself just needs to be presented in a more flowing manner, so that the reader does not have to work so hard to ascertain the thought, and can spend more time on actually digesting it." The manuscript needed a "re-drafting, to improve continuity and thus also clarity".

An obvious lack of referencing and citation was also evident to Referee 2, and he asked the author "to expand the specific documentary references" advising that "The actual citation of the material used would add significant authority to his arguments." Meanwhile, in making his recommendations, Referee 2 was trusting "the good faith of the author" but unfortunately he was deceived into thinking that this manuscript was a genuine, original contribution to the strategic studies discourse community interchange.

In fact, it was not. The manuscript was a compilation, a hybrid language text, a fraudulent representation by the author of work which was not his own. This paper represented a seriously deceptive product of an individual's disinformation campaign, an attempt to gain monetary remuneration (payment for published monographs amounted to US$1500 at the time) and academic recognition which were most emphatically undeserved.

In addition to the disjunctures, the lack of organization, the missing referencing and source documentation for very specific items of information, the manuscript contained the type of errors which result from a mechanical, scribal manner of copying from a text, and perhaps also resulting from the copiest making slight changes in wording which result in subtle ungrammaticalities due to the writer's not possessing a native linguistic proficiency which might permit a smoother recontextualisation and a less noticeable style of text re-combination.

For example, at one point in the manuscript the author copied from the UNCTAD paper "a balancing was not supportable in Article III:4" omitting the word that from the original text which read "a balancing that was not supportable under Article III:4." At another point, in copying from the same article, the author wrote "Failing to use Method 2, use data on quality post-1990 gasoline blendstock or gasoline." The author has here slightly deviated from the wording of the original which read "if the evidence in this respect is not complete, they must use data on the quality of blendstock produced in 1990 ('Method 2') or, failing that, use data on quality of post-1990 gasoline blendstock or gasoline."

In slightly changing the original phrasing, the author has created a grammatically imperative construction which does not fit with the preceding discourse. In keeping with the preceding grammatical structures he should have written "Failing to use Method 2, they [referring to the antecedent individual refiners] must use . . . ."

At another point, another error occurs with a slight change in the original source text wording. The author mistakenly omits the indefinite article in writing "Under the last rule, domestic refiner must maintain . . . ."

Thus, there have been copying mistakes which resemble very closely the copying mistakes made by college student-plagiarists on occasion in their patterns of source text appropriation. Also significant in this case, there is an extensive pattern of appropriation, and an awkwardly implemented fitting back together or recontextualisation of copied source texts, very similar to other plagiarists' patterns of appropriation. And as such appropriation is obvious to teachers aware of a student's writing capabilities, so the derivation in the EOP manuscript was obvious to Referee 1, and the textual features of derivation (but not the specific fact of plagiarism) were also evident to Referee 2 (who trusted the "good faith" of the author).

Through this author's submission of a derivative manuscript to be considered for publication, a disruption was caused. This disruption included a breach of trust between the research center staff and the author, and between Referee 1 and the author. The publications department's view was that if this paper had been published, it would have potentially damaged the image and credibility of the Center, and so as a result of this breach of trust, the department recommended the following:

In view of this and previous experience with regard to Dr. Plagiarist, I would suggest that he should definitely not be considered for any future publication/research project by the center, whether as a contributor, author, referee, or even as a conference presenter. [this previous experience indicates that this 2000 case was not the first instance of plagiarism discovered by the Center staff. Previously, Dr. Plagiarist had tried to submit as an individual research project a report which, in fact, had been a collaborative effort involving other researchers!].

 

In addition to a breach of trust, the disruption also involved a wasting of time in evaluating this derivative manuscript. Within the Center's publications department (as within any publishing house), many hours go into preparing each manuscript for review, finding suitable referees, posting the manuscripts, corresponding with referees, and finally, reviewing their written evaluations. Much money is spent as well, US$300 dollars being paid at the time to each referee for the manuscript evaluation. This amounts to US$900 dollars for the manuscript evaluation process for one paper, not including the time spent by internal staff in facilitating the review process. Potentially, even more time and resources could have been wasted in preparing this derivative manuscript for publication, but fortunately it did not get to this stage.

Conceivably, if fraudulent, plagiarised manuscripts make it to the publications stage, more serious disruptions to the discourse community might ensue. In the strategic studies discourse community, information is important in informing policy and decision-making at the highest levels of government. If this information is false, fraudulent, outdated, or misrepresented, then the decision-making and policy-making process can be undermined.

Of course the extent of the damage done depends on how extensive the plagiarism is, and on how dated, inaccurate, and fraudulent the information is.

In this postmodern age of plunder (AKA The Postmodern Age of Cut-n-Paste) , there are some striking similarities that postmodernism's propagation of ideology has with the forms of disinformation and propaganda employed by ruthless governmental regimes for whom untruthfulness, "lies, deceptions, half-truths, forgeries and other forms of unscrupulous media manipulations" (Levanthal 1999) are the means of maintaining totalitarian control. In those parts of the postmodernist-influenced academy which have been infiltrated by purveyors of poststructuralist propaganda and disinformation, whether at an individual or collective level, the subversion continues.

By definition, propaganda involves "information, arguments and images that appeal mainly to the emotions of a target audience" (Levanthal 1999) for example, the argument that the so-called Enlightenment engendered construct of plagiarism is a tool of imperialism (Pennycook 1996).

Who would want to be accused of continuing the imperialist era through imperialistic oppression of students in former colonies? No one would, but the argument, for all of its emotional appeal, is a form of propaganda designed to invoke images of empire and colonial oppression, but as Sower (1999) has argued, such propaganda "goes beyond the justifiable trashing of the jingoism of a darker era and crosses over into discounting the good-faith efforts of educators trying to extend the knowledge of the field."

Such "attempt[s] to induce guilt and shame" can be "effective, emotion-based propaganda" (Levanthal 1999), and the propaganda purveyors' (i.e. Pennycook and Scollon) invocation of heavyweights such as Barthes and Foucault as primary influences must not remain unignored. But the task of confronting any form of propaganda is an unpleasant one, for one must come to grips with emotionally-laden issues, containing elements of truth, but nevertheless underlying a vast and pervasive network of poststructuralist influence, something akin to a regime who like ruthless governmental regimes will "engage in all sorts of lies, deceptions, half-truths" (Levanthal) toward the ends of achieving power and control within academe.

Propaganda, or the use of emotionally-laden ideas, represents an attempt to influence perceptions. In the case of plagiarism and postmodernism, propagandists would have the general populace in academe believe that the issue of plagiarism is relative, that in certain times, in certain cultures, in certain places, it might be all right to plunder the ideas and hard work of others. Disinformation, as opposed to propaganda, comprises the falsifications and deceptions themselves, and thus continuing the analogy of postructuralist ideology as forms of disinformation and propaganda, the resultant plagiarism and textual fabrications/falsifications are forms of disinformation, deceptions "masquerading as fact" (Levanthal 1999).

Levanthal, who served as Senior Policy Officer for Countering Disinformation and Misinformation in the USIA (United States Information Agency) from 1987 to 1996, correctly notes that "it is important to recognize that if disinformation claims go unchallenged--even if they run counter to logic and known facts--they can be widely believed and do tremendous, lasting damage." He further illustrates in his monograph on the Iraqi disinformation and misinformation campaign "how cheap and easy it is to engage in disinformation."

How cheap and easy indeed! In some instances, the disinformation or plagiarism is simply a matter of switching terminology, such as exchanging cervical cancer for throat cancer. In other instances there is a simple "plugging in" of scanty bits of research data (whether falsified or genuine), or in other instances there might be a payment for someone else to compose a text for submission to the reader-writer interchange. And there also explanations for plagiary which reference postmodern literary genres as if verbatim *intertextuality* were just part and parcel of postmodern literary composing:

As a writer, I consider myself a postmodern regionalist, that is, as an artist I have sought to marry the sense of Southern place and identity found in the works of William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor with postmodern novels of cultural information and fragmentation popularized by authors such as Don DeLillo and Thomas Pynchon (Brad Vice quoted in J. Sledge's "Plagiarism charges pull prize-winner from shelves").

Thus, an investigation of the explanatory variables and dynamic interactions involved in derivative writing contexts reveals the necessity of countering the propaganda, disinformation, and misinformation of the poststructuralists and their ilk. It becomes vitally important to challenge the cheapness of knowingly, fraudulently "contributing" a plagiarised work to what should be a genuine discourse community interchange.

What seems to be one of the best options for countering postructuralist propaganda would be to isolate within their own Wastelands those who choose not to participate in discourse community interchange according to the accepted standards and conventions of the international discourse community. To be able to maintain pockets of productive interchange and interaction, uncorrupted by obfuscation, withstanding the pervasive postmodernist influence, seems to be a feasible goal, pockets of resistance against the enemy-Plagiarists.

More to the point in this case, why would a fairly reputable research center continue to harbor an enemy-Plagiarist? The plagiarist featured in this profile, although discovered on at least several occasions to have engaged in some rather extensive and quite serious instances of plagiarism, has had feature articles posted on the Center's website as recently as May 2005. In spite of the Publications Department recommendation that this plagiarist "should definitely not be considered for any future publication/research project by the center, whether as a contributor, author, referee, or even as a conference presenter", the Center continues to collaborate with the Plagiarist-enemy. This would seem to be more of an indictment against the character of an institution (and its leadership) rather than merely an individual plagiarist.

Note: Dr. Plagiarist is a pseudonym for the plagiarist in this profile who must remain anonymous for the time being due to legal threats and a confidentiality agreement.

References

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Charles J. Arntzen

Pioneering edible vaccine development; former editorial board member for Science; appointed by President George W. Bush to the President's council on Science and Technology

Many graduate students have made important discoveries and contributions to scientific research only to have their work appropriated by an adviser or senior colleague with more clout and weight to throw around. Such students find themselves with little recourse, and if they do raise their voice in complaint, they may find themselves facing severe recriminations for daring to question the plagiaristic behavior of a tenured, powerful, and corrupt scientific overlord.

All of a sudden, the lowly graduate student finds himself cut out of the deal for important researh projects. He finds himself out of laboratory space, out of a research assistantship, out of a job, and maybe even out of a career. Such sob stories are not just out of the ordinary, scare-mongering urban legends. Horrific experiences have befallen numerous graduate student researchers bold enough to let out so much as a peep of protest against the greedy usurpation of their hard labor by a senior researcher.

The case of Dwayne D. Kirk at ASU seems to have had a happier outcome than the ongoing saga of Michael Pyshnov at the University of Toronto. As reported by T. Bartlett and S. Smallwood in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Kirk discovered that his mentor and adviser, Professor Charles J. Arntzen, had lifted portions of a paper which Kirk had authored individually for publication in a book on Genetically Modified Foods. Arntzen appropriated this material verbatim from Kirk's article for use as part of a cut-n-paste composing strategy in a chapter which he submitted for publication in Vaccines: Preventing Disease and Protecting Health. About one third of Arntzen's chapter in this book came from Kirk's article, and the rest of the text was lifted, or self-plagiarized, from another published article written in collaboration with another ASU colleague.

Arntzen even admitted his "cutting and pasting" strategy, justifying his behavior by claiming that such derivation and recycling of text is a common phenomenon in the scientific discourse communities!

Arntzen tried to throw in a few distracting elements to disguise the serious issue of plagiarizing a colleague's work. For example, he claimed that the issue was just a personal misunderstanding between himself and his former student. He also claimed that he had intended to insert Kirk's name as a co-author when the galley proofs arrived for a final proofread, and because those proofs never came, this final change was never made. In fact, the proofs were sent to Professor Arntzen as book editor Ciro A. de Quadros insisted, supporting Kirk's version of this plagiarism incident.

Kirk filed a formal complaint with the ASU when he found himself excluded from important research projects. As a result of such cases, critics have called for greater accountability in the scientific disciplines. Graduate students and junior researchers deserve credit and recognition for their contributions to scientific advancement, and as demonstrated by other notable cases of scientific misconduct, the potential for corruption of the scientific and professional discourse should not be taken lightly.

Straightforward observation of the scientific misconduct phenomenon demonstrates that scientific researchers who get away with the first few instances of misconduct may be in the fastlane toward becoming career plagiarists, fabricators, and/or falsifiers capable of contributing hundreds of questionable articles and research reports to the professional literature over the course of a fraudulent career (cf. J.W. Grove 1996 and other cases reported in this webspace).

References

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Bruno Bettelheim

Surviving the Buchenwald and Dachau concentration camps; Thought to be a specialist on the treatment of autistic children; Research on and "successful" treatment of mentally disturbed children in his Orthogenic School at the University of Chicago; Better known now for terrorizing and abusing many of his student-patients; A Jew himself, Bettelheim is also known for accusing fellow Jews of "ghetto thinking" (i.e. blaming Jews themselves for anti-Semitism because they did not assimilate)

Several biographies of Dr. Bruno Bettelheim have been written since Bettelheim's suicide in 1990: Richard Pollak's The Creation of Dr. B: A Biography of Bruno Bettelheim and Nina Sutton's Bettelheim: A Life and a Legacy. In the opinion of reviewer Molly Finn, only one of these is worth reading.

In Finn's well-informed view, Sutton "is so 'understanding' that the question of truth becomes almost irrelevant . . . [she] displays so little regard for the truth that her book is not worthy of serious consideration." As a "fervent Freudian", Sutton's disregard for truth can be seen as an attempt to partially salvage the reputation of a "charlatan whose life was based on falsehood and self-aggrandizement". For Finn, the mother of an autistic child who realized as early as 1967 that Bettelheim's claims were bogus, Sutton's mincing of the truth and mollycoddling of a charlatan are unacceptable. Bettelheim's absurd claims and outright falsifications with regard to autism pointed the finger of blame at the parent, a claim known today to be completely without basis.

Pollak's biography results from a study which grew out of his brother's experience at the University of Chicago's Orthogenic School which Bettelheim directed. Pollak's brother died in a tragic accident while on leave from the school, and Bettelheim insisted that the accident had been a suicide despite Pollak's having been present when the accident happened at a farm in Cassopolis, Michigan, his brother falling from a hayloft through a chute covered with hay. In an interview with Bettelheim later in life, Pollak endured firsthand the bizarre accusations and twisting of truth so characteristic of the reknowned doctor--including a "gutteral assault" against his mother which painted her as a villian--an uncaring, unloving, selfish parent.

Pollak's subsequent research would document a life and career based on falsified credentials, shoddy research, bogus claims to authority, and serious contraventions of professional accountability. Shortly after Bettelheim's suicide in 1990, accusations abounded from former students and fellow scholars. Accusations which utterly demolished Bettelheim's towering reputation as a successful psychoanalyst-therapist. Former students of the Orthogenic School accused Bettelheim of physical and sexual abuse while from the scholarly quarter the allegations encompassed plagiarism and lack of scientific rigour.

With regard to specific allegations of plagiarism, it was discovered that Bettelheim had developed a composing strategy comprising the "mining" of sources and the employment of secretaries to edit and revise his shaky manuscripts. Newsweek went so far as to re-name the eminent psycho-therapist as Bruno Borrowheim, an unkind play on words which reflected Bettelheim's unacknowledged textual debts.

As a non-native speaker of English, Austrian native Bettelheim was at a definite disadvantage when writing in his second language. Chapter seven of Pollak's biography, "The Feast-Day Garment" gives some rather detailed insights into Bettelheim's second language composing strategies: "Hunting and pecking in his second language late into the night and on weekends, Bettelheim had produced at least thirty published articles, co-authored eleven more, seen 'Extreme Situations' reprinted three times, and turned out two books."

But in weaving his "garment of prose" the famed doctor required "the constant and devoted help of skilled seamstresses, women he hired over four decades to rescue his manuscripts. He could write well when he tried, as his letters sometimes showed, but the rush of words that he produced each night that he spent holed up in his office usually lacked structure and concision; and he sometimes stumbled over the hurdles of English grammar and idioms."

In addition to these devoted English language "seamstresses", verbatim derivation was another composing strategy employed by the famous psycho-therapist. Just how derivative certain of his works actually were would not come to light for many years, and the plagiarism would be glossed over by some critics, indeed, even by an author whose work was stolen by Bettelheim.

One of these derivative works was Bettelheim's The Uses of Enchantment, a work which had significant influence through an insightful discussion of fairy tales told by parents to their children. Pollak notes that this book was named by the New York Public Library as "one of the 159 most influential and frequently requested 'Books of the Century' putting it in the company of the Bible, Ulysses, 1984 . . . " and others.

It was Joan Blos who first publicized her discovery that Bettelheim had plagiarized significant components of Julius Heuscher's A Psychiatric Study of Fairy Tales: Their Origin, Meaning, and Usefulness (1963). Adapting and copying important chunks of Heuscher's research, Bettelheim curiously omitted A Psychiatric Study of Fairy Tales from the bibliography of his Uses of Enchantment !

Pollak identifies other sources as well which "Bettelheim failed to credit": Géza Róheim and Otto Rank, for example. And while citing other authorities in an offhand manner, authorities such as Erich Fromm, Bettelheim simply repeats the points which these other researchers have made as if they were his own discoveries.

Pollack likens this sort of derivation to being lost in a forest, "scrambling for nuts and berries that would give him something to say about concentration camps or parenting or autism or the kibbutzim or the youth culture . . . ". Pollak also likens Bettelheim to "hungry Hansel" of the Hansel and Gretal fairy tale. Lost in the forest, he comes across the work of Julius Heuscher, "rich with psychological gingerbread, and, like the hungry Hansel, Bettelheim helped himself."

As a second language writer, Bettelheim might be forgiven for occasionally relying too heavily on the words and phraseaology of previously published sources. This is something that many second language writers do (see, for comparison, the cases of Pan Aihua et al, Vijay Soman, and Andrzej Jendryczko). But the extent of derivation by an acknowledged scholar with an earned PhD (just one PhD, not the three which Bettelheim claimed on his CV) is by no means justifiable. And beyond such language derivation lie the more disturbing patterns of falsification and fabrication which cannot be excused: academic degrees listed on his CV that he had never earned; works listed that had never been published; associations claimed which never existed (i.e. claims to have known Freud and to have received his "blessing" on his own research).

And beyond the falsifications and plagiaries of Bruno Bettelheim, "[i]t remains to hold those who sustained and promoted Bettelheim's reputation accountable for their carelessness and irresponsibility. There was an almost universal failure to look behind the facade, to ask even the simplest and most obvious questions that would uncover the shoddiness of the structure Bettelheim created." Why did the University of Chicago and the Ford Foundation support the work of Dr. Bruno Bettelheim without any apparent mechanisms for oversight and maintenance of professional accountability? (To their credit, one advisor to the Ford Foundation stated a reservation, wanting to see more "scientific sophistication and rigor" at Bettelheim's Orthogenic School). But by and large the academic establishment as well as the popular media believed the myth and legacy which Bettelheim had woven to portray a positive image of himself (Molly Finn, "In the Case of Bruno Bettelheim").

Truths which were repressed in Bettelheim's lifetime have re-emerged with renewed vigor, the most intricate details of his life being subjected to the rigorous external review which was denied to the subjects of Dr. B's own bogus studies in psycho-therapy at the University of Chicago's Orthogenic School (with the financial support of the Ford Foundation). The life story of Bruno Bettelheim is a tragic case study in social maladjustment to the norms of behavior governing interpersonal relationships so as to honestly represent one's true identity and motivations within those relationships--colleague to colleague, doctor to patient (and patients' relatives), author to reader, and family member to family member.

References

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Michael Briggs

Research on the effects of contraceptive pills and advising on related issues with the World Health Organization; Serving as a spokesman for pharmaceutical industry products at international symposia; Also widely known for his research fraud in scientific circles, the Briggs case being one of the most serious instances of pharmaceutical industry related fraud

In "The Morality of Scientists Revisited", J.W. Grove discusses the case of Michael Briggs and the research fraud perpetrated while his hands--and the hands of his wife--were deep in the pockets of the pharmaceutical industry. He was the researcher, and his wife was a family planning doctor, and together this duo waltzed hand-in-hand with the moneyed interests of drug companies such as Schering and Wyeth.

A well known expert on contraception, Briggs authored numerous papers with his wife as an occasional co-author. These papers were presented at conferences sponsored by the pharmaceutical industry, but as Grove points out, few of these were ever published in refereed medical science journals. Briggs also served as an adviser for the World Health Organization, and his fraudulent research was to eventually corrupt the pharmaceutical literature on a massive scale since his conference disseminated research came to be relied on by family planning clinic doctors and staff.

Grove observes that "[w]hen he was finally exposed, it became plain that much of the research he reported as his own was cobbled together from unpublished work done by others, that some of it had not been done at all, and that some of his alleged tests were impossible to perform." The substance of Briggs' research evaporated under closer scrutiny. Deakin University simply did not have equipment needed to perform research which Briggs claimed to have performed at Deakin. Research which incorporated a certain hormone product could not have been performed as reported by Briggs because that hormone product could not have been obtained in Australia. There were just too many irregularities in Briggs' reported research to go un-noticed.

Briggs resigned from Deakin University in 1985 and went into retirement in Spain. The Sunday Times of London interviewed the fraudster turned early retiree at his home on the Costa Del Sol, and he freely admitted to having engaged in rather serious research misconduct which had extremely serious ramifications for the millions of women taking contraceptive products such as Microgynon, Eugynon, Ovran, Ovranette, Trinordial, Logynon, and others. The perceived safety of these contraceptives was based at least in part on the fraudulent research reports of Michael Briggs (Brian Deer, "The Pill: Professor's Safety Tests Were Faked"; "Research Reveals Birth Pill Risk for 2M British Women").

Isn't that what background checks are for? Isn't science supposed to be self-correcting? Too many doctors and scientists and industry supported researchers today seem to think in modern money-minded parlance . . . self-enriching, self-serving, self-aggrandizing, . . . self-promoting . . . at the expense of their colleagues, their students, their patients, and even their own souls.

References

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Jorge Bucay

Red: Severe Risk

Self help books and expertise in psychotherapy and mental illnesses ["especializó en enfermadades mentales"]

Argentinan psychiatrist and psychotherapist Jorge Bucay caused quite a sensation in the Spanish media after it was found that his latest book borrowed heavily from the work of Spanish philosopher Mónica Cavallé.

A popular author of best-selling books in the "self-help" genre, Bucay specializes in mental ilnesses and is a frequent guest on radio and television shows. Julio Díaz de Alda describes Bucay's plagiary as "a grain of sand on the beach of impostures" ["un grano do arena en la playa de las imposturas"], an apt metaphor for the seemingly endless cases of fraud and deception in texts across genres of modern genres of communication ("Tú plagia que algo queda").

According to Bucay, if his version of events can be trusted, he didn't even realize that he had lifted nearly 60 pages verbatim from Cavallé's Wisdom Recovered [La Sabiduría Recobrada] until a friend pointed out the similarities between Bucay's and Cavallé's texts (Martinez, J.P. "Bucay reconoció que plagió obra").

After the discovery of Bucay's recycling of Cavallé's nuggets of wisdom, the popular Argentinan author made a "symbolic reparation" ["reparación simbólica"] by admitting his *inadvertent* "error" in an article published in the Spanish magazine Healthy Mind [Mente Sana] for which Bucay serves as Director, and the book Shimriti was pulled from the shelves in most countries . . .

. . . except for bookstore shelves in Argentina.

Self-help for plagiarists anyone?

How about a 12-step program along the lines of Plagiarists Anonymous for treatment of the pervasive variants of Textual Abuse Syndrome. Ask Dr. Lesko--that's the doctor's self-help prescription for this all too frequent malady of the Postmodern Age of Cut-n-Paste.


References

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Shervert Frazier

Dedication to a number of different projects with McLean Hospital including the recruitment of researchers and financial supporters for work on psychiatric illness, substance abuse, neuroscience, and the psychiatry of violence; Has also held positions with the Mayo Clinic, Columbia University, Baylor University, the National Institute of Mental Health; Founded the Shervert Frazier Research Institute

It was a perceptive and zealous graduate student--perhaps too zealous suggests J.W.Grove--who first discovered the plagiarized paragraphs in the published research of Dr. Shervert Frazier. The detective work of Paul Scatena in 1988 uncovered a number of instances of verbatim lifting from sources such as Scientific American. After Scatena sent the results of his detective work to the Dean of the Harvard Medical School, an official investigation found that Frazier had lifted text from other researchers in four of his published papers.

As J.W. Grove (1996) indicates, Frazier's lifting of text from the Scientific American for use in a review of psychiatric does not seem to constitute as serious of an infraction as plagiarism in an article which is supposed to represent primary research findings. Such verbatim lifting of text is still unacceptable according to scholarly convention, but it seems to be a lower level sort of plagiary when contrasted with cases in which wholesale lifting of an article's text is accompanied by insertion of fabricated data.

Frazier's post-plagiary contributions to the medical and psychiatric profession might be seen as an atonement of sorts for wrongdoing to which he admitted and for which he took responsibility. Apologizing for his actions, Frazier resigned from his position with the Harvard Medical school, but continued to work for the Harvard psychiatric affiliate McLean Hospital where he has led a distinguished career involving the recruitment of researchers and financial supporters for work on psychiatric illness, substance abuse, neuroscience, and the psychiatry of violence.

Described as a "champion of research at McLean", Frazier has helped to attract millions of dollars in support for the McLean research endeavor. Named after Frazier and founded by him, the Shervert Frazier Research Institute at McLean Hospital conducts important studies and attracts world-class researchers: "Shervert Frazier had the foresight, dedication and wisdom to create the Frazier Institute, which has added immeasurably to McLean's ability to attract and support world-class neuroscientists and promising young investigators" (Bruce Cohen, President and Psychiatrist in Chief for Mclean Hospital in "Frazier Institute Supports Researchers").

Time well spent in plagiary-purgatory. Move on up a level closer toward the habitation of the Author.

References

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Vishwa Jit Gupta

Sensational geological findings using plagiarized fossil images and other fossils which were stolen, purchased in shops and flea markets, or otherwise acquired from colleagues and other sources instead of discovered in situ as claimed

As one of the most spectacular cases of a career devoted to fabrication and plagiary, the case of Vishwa Jit Gupta ranks right up there with the likes of the notorious "Piltdown Hoax" ("the most serious case of its kind since the Piltdown hoax", W.K. Stevens)for the sheer number of fabricated and concocted research articles which resulted from Gupta's scientifically perverse machinations.

These fabrications and plagiaries were published in some of the most prestigious scientific publications. The sensational findings of Gupta were reported as fossil "discoveries", and and Gupta's articles included pictures of the micro- and macro-fossils which he claimed to have found during primary fieldwork expeditions.

But as the University of Macquarie's (Australia) John Talent would reveal, much of the evidence submitted by Gupta consisted of other researchers' fossil images, fossils purchased in shops and flea markets, or fossils which were obtained in other locales far removed from where Gupta claimed to have discovered them. Vague and imprecise descriptions of locations made it nearly impossible for anyone to check up on Gupta's sensational "finds".

The fossil record of the Himalayas would have to be entirely re-evaluated due to the immense, spectacular proportions of Gupta's deceptions. He had hoodwinked the scientific community from 1964 to the late 1980s, publishing nearly 500 articles at an astounding rate of nearly 18 per year! (Molina, Eustoquio, "The Fraud of the Recycled Fossils . . . "

Moreover he seems to have convinced other researchers to sign on as co-authors for some of these articles, most of these unwitting colleagues likely not aware of the fraud being perpetrated by Gupta. And in his articles, Gupta brought in as support for his "findings" big names in the respective areas of specialization, even though these individuals had not always examined and verified the research "findings" as claimed by Gupta.

H.K. Erben was one such researcher drawn into co-authoring a paper with Gupta. He "expressed astonishment" at apparent fossil findings which normally did not occur where Gupta reported finding them, and he questioned the "remarkable similarity of his specimens to the preservation of comparable material from southeastern Morocco." Gupta evidently lied to Erben, assuring him that "he [had] personally collected these specimens at the Himalayan locality." As Erben reports, "Under these circumstances I took his word for granted and I agreed to study the material and to join him as coauthor". After Gupta's fraud came to light, Erben felt it necessary to publish his own view of "this highly detestable affair" (1989, "Statement concerning a paper on Devonian allegedly Himalayan ammonoids").

The Indian scientific community's international standing and prestige suffered greatly from the wide publicity which followed revelations detailing the extent of Gupta's fraudulent research.

Among cases of scientific fraud in the 20th century, this is truly one of the most shocking and blatant examples of what an individual scientist is capable of doing without adequate oversight and a system of checks and balances to independently verify research discoveries.

References

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Mostafa M. Imam

In the field of micro-paleontology, Imam was known for important discoveries as published over two decades in the palaeontological literature related to his supposed specialty in fossil algae of North Africa and environs; made "an industry of copying other author's work in his papers."

Reminiscent of the Vishwa Jit Gupta case of paleontological fraud ("the most serious case of its kind since the Piltdown hoax", W.K. Stevens), a Saudi Arabia-based paleontologist has been accused of falsifying and corrupting the paleontological literature. For over 20 years Mostafa M. Imam published papers based on plagiarized photos which he had lifted from the articles of other micro-palaeontologists. These papers, written on subjects such as fossil algae, went undetected for years in numerous submissions to journals such as The Journal of African Earth Sciences and Neues Jahrbuch für Geologie und Paläontologie.

Such fraud is particularly disturbing to palaeontologists as Imam had made some important contributions (so it was believed anyhow) to the palaeontological literature related to his supposed specialty in fossil algae of North Africa. This fraud "affects researchers working on the regional geology of North West Africa [since] Imam has established the timing of sediments cropping out in different places of North West Africa, and interpreted the paleoenvironmental settings based on microfacies and calcereous algal assemblages." Such was the observation of Julio Aguirre, a perceptive University of Granada paleontologist who reviewed a paper submitted for consideration to Revista Española de Micropaleontología by Imam (Xavier Bosch, "Plagiarism in Paleontology"). As it turned out, Aguirre noticed that Imam had appropriated some of his own pictures of Pliocene algae from Spain which Imam falsely represented as being Miocene algae from Egypt.

Imam may have slipped his fraudulent articles past other peer reviewers, but despite his diabolic "ingenuity", he had made a grave miscalculation in sending a paper to a journal for review by one of the scientist's whose very work he had stolen.

After discovering this attempt by Imam to pass off a fraudulent paper to Revista Española de Micropaleontología, Aguirre did some further investigation into Imam's publishing record and found a disturbing pattern showing that Imam had "repeatedly been plagiarizing pictures of diverse organisms previously published by other authors" (Xavier Bosch, "Plagiarism in Paleontology"). The peer review process in the journals where Imam published was apparently not sufficient to prevent these sham articles making it to press, even though the pictures should have been recognized by the "experts" as not corresponding to the fossils being discussed in the articles.

Aguirre reported the results of his investigations in "Plagiarism in Palaeontology. A New Threat Within the Scientific Communiy" (Revista Española de Micropaleontología), giving specific information on Imam's history of publications "involving plagiarism of images and duplications of photos in different papers supposedly dealing with sediments and fossils from different areas and of different ages."

As Aguirre was to discover, Imam simply re-used the same pictures of coralline alga "in almost all the published papers" which he wrote: "Imam has been using the same pictures in the different papers that he has published concerning different areas and rocks of different ages" (J.Aguirre as quoted by Xavier Bosch in "Plagiarism in Paleontology"). In addition to pictures of coralline algae, Imam also lifted pictures of microfacies and foraminifers. Plate by plate, Aguirre analyzes Imam's pattern of appropriation, exposing how he "made an industry of copying other author's work in his papers . . . [with] results and conclusions . . . based on false and plagiarised data" (J. Aguirre).

A very remote possibility is that Imam's reports were genuine, with only the pictures having been appropriated, as paleontologist Bruno Granier suggested (Xavier Bosch, "Fallout from fraud"). This seems to be an extremely remote possibility. What seems to be more likely is that Imam completely falsified and fabricated his supposed research reports, possibly involving language plagiarism from other articles as well, although no one has yet offered definite proof of this.

Paul Copper suggests that such fraudulent practices are more common in "journals published in the Third World, where perhaps the perpetrators calculate they will not be caught in a foreign language" (Xavier Bosch, "Fallout from fraud"). As J. Aguirre concludes "Plagiarism in Palaeontology", the sort of fraud committed by Mostafa M. Imam affects everyone within the scientific discourse communities from readers to editors and reviewers: "We all together are forced to struggle among fraudulent and dishonest practices in Science."

References

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Andrzej Jendryczko

Red: Severe Risk

Various "research" agendas encompassing areas outside his area of bio-chemical engineering

In the mid to late 1990s, it was discovered that the plagiarism by Silesian Medical University scientist Andrzej Jendryczko spanned a research career of thirteen years. Evidence of extensive plagiarism was found by a medical researcher in both English and Polish language publications of Jendryczko.

The plagiarism and scientific misconduct was investigated by Marek Wronski, director of neuro-oncology research at Staten Island University Hospital. Wronski followed up on a note in the Danish Medical Bulletin by Jan Fallingborg who discovered that Jendryczko had plagiarized an article of his on the topic of selenium concentrations in ulcerative colitis patients. Jendryczko had published a nearly identical version of Fallingborg's paper in a Polish medical journal. Simply translating this article by Danish scientists, Jendryczko published it under his own name in Przeglad Lekarski, giving no acknowledgement to the Danish researchers.

After following up on the note in the Danish Medical Bulletin with some intensive sleuthing, Wronski discovered an absolutely astonishing number of plagiarized/fabricated research publications by Jendryczko. Over thirteen years, Jendryczko had published 125 papers, and as Wronski would learn, over 50 of them were identified as having been pasted together from other scientific articles with data fabricated when necessary to suit the topics of these faux research reports!

Powerful functions such as the "find related articles function" were used by Wronski to uncover the incredible number of previously undetected plagiarism incidents by Jendryczko. Thanks to the growth of the Internet in the 1990s, powerful new tools for plagiarism sleuths became available for use in tracking down textual plunderers in the digital age. Today, millions of documents can be scanned, nearly instantaneously, for linguistic matches, which as Wronski has demonstrated, can can help bring to light the sort of scientific misbehavior discovered in the Jendryczko case.

As Wronski would learn, Jendryczko had published 125 papers, many of them on medical subjects--and as a chemical engineer, Jendryczko was not even a medical doctor! Wronski reported how he used the Internet and the National Library of Medicine's Medline service to investigate Jendryczko's suspicious research publications. Using the PubMed access gate and the "find related articles" function, Wronski had a powerful search engine for identifying similar wording between Jendryczko's articles and other articles on related subjects. What Wronski found was the absolutely astounding current total of 50 fabricated research publications (and very likely there are more) which plagiarized the wording and content of other previously published scientific publications.

These counterfeit articles published by Jendryczko in both Polish and English language journals reported research "on mitochondrial DNA and ageing, estrogen and myocardial infarction, neonatal growth, zinc and copper in cancer tissue, cholesterol and hypertension, antioxidant enzymes in the placenta, intracellular responses to cancer, menopause, the effects of selenium, the effects of ionizing radiation" (Marshall 1998) and so on.

The similarity of the Jendryczko case to the case involving the Peking University genetic researchers has to do with both the fact that the lifting was done by non-native speakers of English, and with the fact that both Jendryczko and Pan (et al) used a type of "plug-in" template framework approach to their textual appropriation. However, whereas it seems that the Peking University researchers were reporting original research data within a borrowed linguistic research-publication-template, Jendryczko was almost certainly not reporting original research results in his counterfeit academic publications.

In one particular article published in the German (English language medium) journal Zentralblatt fur Gynakologie, Jendryczko and co-author Marian Drozdz reported the supposed research results from their investigations of uterine cervical cancer in their 1991 article. The troubling truth behind this supposed research is that Jendryczko and Drozdz lifted an earlier article published in 1979 in the Journal of Maxillofacial Surgery.

Jendryczko and Drozdz simply lifted the 1979 article on cancer of the larynx, and substituted cervix for larynx throughout the article with other slight modifications such as adjustments in the ages and the gender of the study population. This substitution of key terminology throughout the article masked the grave scientific misconduct being foisted upon the medical discourse community.

It is clear in comparing the two articles that Jendryczko and Drozdz have employed a strategy quite similar to the "plug-in" template approach of the Peking University researchers. However, it is also clear that the Polish researchers were not reporting original research data as the Chinese scientists had done.

In another instance of alleged plagiarism, Jendryczko employed what Marshall called a "composite" article strategy in which portions of a 1989 article from the British Medical Journal were combined with portions of a 1992 article published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Jendryczko's composite paper incorporating these two articles was published in a 1993 issue of Zentralblatt fur Gynakologie.

This composite article approach has been observed in other settings by second language acquisition researchers working with students who appropriated large "chunks" of source text without acknowledgement and re-joined them together to form what Yao (1991) has termed a "hybrid-language" text.

Why would a top Polish scientist like Jendryczko resort to plagiarism throughout the course of his professional career? Wronski and the investigative committee of the Polytechnic Institute of Czestochowa finished their inquiry into Jendryczko's alleged research fraud, but the three year statute of limitations under the Polish laws governing higher education meant that Jendryczko could not be formally disciplined, and he has since retired from the Silesian Medical University, transferring to and then resigning from the Czestochowa Polytechnic Institute.

Proposals have been made by Wronski for procedures and committees to deal with future cases of such grievious misconduct in the Polish scientific community. The Jendryczko case is definitely one of the worst cases of plagiarism and science fraud in recent years.

Might it be that Jendryczko, early in his research career, faced the same language proficiency related lack of confidence experienced by the Peking University scientists as described by Xiguang and Xiong (1996), and also mentioned by St. John (1987)? These scientists felt that their English language weaknesses hindered their ability to publish in English.

After a few "successes" in publishing composite articles, feeling secure with initial "successes", Jendryczko may have been tempted by the easy route to publication which involved bypassing language difficulties, and which required only the minimal editing and altering of pre-existing publications.

Of course he was also bypassing the difficulties involved in conducting original and genuine research projects. An ominous question must be asked when such cases surface: "How many other such scientists and professionals have been doing this?" Kelley Rivoire quotes Paul Friedman's insight that "Nobody arrives at fraud as the first thing they ever do . . . . They got there by doing little things and getting away with it." Jendryczko is definitely not the only scientist to have engaged in such mass-production of plagiarized and fabricated, composite, faux research reports.

With powerful tools such as the "find related articles" function of the PubMed Medline service, and related database search functions, research fraud is now more likely to be discovered. Marshall suggests that since a number of co-authors were involved in Jendryczko's case, there may have been others who condoned such fraudulent research in the upper echelons of the Polish scientific community. Wronski found that knowledge of the Jendryczko case was widespread, but "nobody said a word . . [and research fraud was] protected by the old guy's network." There seems to have been a professional background/context and a plagiarism network which encouraged such behavior.

Indeed, the acknowledgements made by Jendryczko and Drozdz at the end of their article tend to support the view that there might have been such a "plagiarism" network. Jendryczko and Drozdz wrote, "We are indebted to Prof. Dr. J. Tomala and Prof. Dr. L. Dzieciuchowicz, III Department of II Clinic of Ostertrics [sic] and Gynaecology, Silesian Medical School, Katowice, Poland, for their invaluable help in gathering the patients and control group."

Such fraudulent misuse of position and resources deserves the harsh light of publicity which plagiarism sleuths such as Wronski focus on such shameful, fraudulent misconduct within the scientific community. As Donald Kennedy has put it, "If the benefits of authorship are enjoyed jointly and severally by all the authors, shouldn't the liability be shared in the same way?" This case clearly cuts deeper than Jendryczko alone--it implicates the "old guys network" which allowed such fraudulent behavior to exist undetected, unchallenged, until the mid 1990s.

References

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Ellen Larsen

Genetics research

Something definitely went wrong in the working relationship between University of Toronto graduate student Michael Pyshnov and his graduate supervisor, Ellen Larsen, University of Toronto genetics researcher and professor.

At his "University of Toronto fraud" website, former PhD candidate Michael Pyshnov tells his horrifying tale of being "outed" by a supervisor who wanted to rob him of his research findings and experimental techniques: "the credit for my work and my discoveries was stolen by the professor-supervisor and three other people. I received no degree."

The website is a rant against the University of Toronto, Professor Larsen, the President of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada,former Ontario Minister A. Brzustowski, and several other professors as well as the President of the University of Toronto, R. Birgeneau (no longer with U of T). Pyshnov claims, "The University of Toronto had soon crossed the line separating a university from organized crime."

To a disinterested observer, it is somewhat difficult to determine exactly what happened back in the mid-1980s to make Mr. Pyshnov so embittered against a university system which he believes to have cheated him out of authorship rights to his research on "Analysis of cell packing and its relationship to morphogenesis in fruit fly imaginal discs." Some of the conspiracy-minded ideas might result from his having emigrated from the former Soviet Union, an "Evil Empire" in the famous words of Ronald Reagan which became known for incredible levels of corruption and abuse of citizens' rights.

That having been said, looking past the invective and seething hatred at Mr. Pyshnov's online diatribe seems to suggest a few irregularities in the publications process by which a professor reported the experimental results of a student's work (Words used by Mr. Pyshnov--"sadistic"; "barbarous"; "criminal sham"; "Here [University of Toronto], a communist professor was a fraud. And she, the Jewish female, brought the holocaust upon a scientist . . . Ellen Larsen-the politically correct substitute of a professor, the sadistic criminal and the prostitute of science is still teaching students"; "unconscionable fraud" ; "Jews, communists, 'lesbians', feminists and marihuana addicts, all, unfortunately for me, had a representation in the figure of Professor Larsen . . . the cunning professor-criminal used political corruption . . . ").

Mr. Pyshnov has clearly not helped his case--if, indeed, he has one--by resorting to such invective and diatribe against the "system". "Just Response" interviewed Pyshnov, giving him a forum which, as he indicates, other media outlets have denied him, perhaps because of his outspoken racist remarks.

Pyshnov's case involves the termination of his PhD program for reasons which are somewhat controversial. He reports that Professor Larsen then went on to publish the results of his research projects resulting from over 5 years of experimentation. In the ensuing controversy, Larsen and the University of Toronto took the position that Pyshnov's research was being "salvaged", yet as Pyshnov maintains, why would his work be considered worth "salvaging" by publication in prestigious journals when his position had essentially been terminated by Larsen? Why was he not allowed to continue on, finish his PhD studies, and maintain the authorship rights to his innovative and original work?

Larsen did retract one paper after Pyshnov's objections, and there are other seeming irregularities which suggest Mr. Pyshnov's authorship rights might have been infringed upon. But this is very difficult to substantiate more than 20 years later. Pyshnov's career has come to a halt, and this is a great tragedy when a gifted researcher becomes no longer able to make quality contributions to scientific advancement (recovery may be in progress--see Federov and Pyshnov's Cell Division Program).

Rumours abound of graduate students in similar situations, although not quite as sensational as Pyshnov's case--their work having been appropriated by their mentors and supervisors, which the students only discover after it is too late to do much about it. The "poor man's copyright" as it has been called, circumventing the process of registering discoveries with the Copyright or Patent Office, is to use registered mail to send a draft of such discoveries to oneself in a sealed envelope. In case questions ever arise, this constitutes proof of the date of discovery as verified by the postal date on the un-opened envelope. Graduate students and researchers, be on guard against greedy mentors and supervisors helping themselves to your work!

References

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David A. Latif

Blue: Guarded Risk

Research involving the moral reasoning of pharmacists

Janis P. Bellack became suspicious when she saw an opinion piece very similar to an editorial she had written in the Journal of Nursing Education. The plagiarism was skillfully done--according to her own analysis--with the text having been carefully manipulated to conceal detection.

The "chunks and patterns" which she saw replicated in Latif's plagiarized piece were enough to convice her that he had borrowed the very thesis of her own text. Upon investigation by the American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, the editors concurred with Bellack's allegations, and a retraction was published by David A. Latif admitting that he "should have given proper attribution to Bellack for the article."

The moral reasoning behind a professor's lifting a colleague's work remains a baffling phenomenon. Clearly more research is needed to investigate cases in academia where moral reasoning has apparently been skewed!

References

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Jose-Luis Ortiz (and student Pablo Santos-Sanz)

Astronomical/Astrophysical Research

Has the 10nth planet in the solar system recently been discovered? And if so, who should be credited with the discovery of 2003 UB313, the temporary name given by the International Astronomical Union to the trans-Neptunian object whose discovery has recently caused such a stir among astronomers?

In "One Find, Two Astronomers: An Ethical Brawl" (New York Times, Sept. 13), Dennis Overbye presents the details of an apparent lapse of ethics involving Jose-Luis Ortiz, a researcher with the IAA (Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia). While the P-word (plagiarism) is not specifically mentioned, Brown strongly suggests that his research results have been lifted by Ortiz:

. . . the standards of scientific ethics are also clear: any any information used from another source must be acknowledged and cited. One is not allowed to go to a library, find out about a discovery in a book, and then claim that discovery as your own with no mention of having read it in a book. One is not even allowed to first make a discovery and then go to the library and realize that someone else independently made the same discovery and then not acknowledge what you learned in the library. Such actions would be considered scientifically dishonesty. It is not clear from the timeline precisely what Ortiz and Santos-Sanz knew or how they used the web-based records. They were required by the standards of science, however, to acknowledge their use of our web-based records if they accessed them ("The Discovery of 2003 UB313, the 10th Planet").

And according to the web traffic logs of the telescope being used by Brown and his colleagues, someone from the IAA did access the web-based records in question.

Michael Brown of the California Institute of Technology, along with Chad Trujillo (Gemini Observatory) and David Rabinowitz (Yale University) claim that they discovered the 10nth planet in the solar system. But before they could publish their discovery, Ortiz and his student announced to the world that they had discovered 2003 UB313 through their work at IAA, and they offered as proof images of the object which they had taken several years previous to their announcement.

Undermining the credibility of Ortiz's "discovery" is an alleged "hacking" (term is in dispute since the telescope observation logs were on the Web) incident in which someone from the IAA accessed the publicly accessible observation log of the same telescope which Brown had been using to track the movements of 2003 UB313. This access to the log would have given the coordinates needed to find out exactly where the telescope had been pointing, essentially giving away the tracking of the 10nth planet by Brown and his research team.

Brown had code-named his discovery as K40506A, a reference code which appeared in public abstracts (designed to whet the public's appetite prior to the announcement accorting to Brown), but also appearing--to Brown's later dismay--in the Internet accessible observation logs of the SMARTS (Small and Moderate Aperature Research Telescope System) telescope. Unless Ortiz or someone else at the IAA was simply checking these logs for confirmation of his own discovery, it might appear that a planet discovery had been plagiarized . . . unless there is a different explanation for Ortiz's actions . . .

Ortiz claimed in an interview that Brown et al were "hiding their findings" in order to monopolize research on newly discovered trans-Neptunian objects:

With technology many times more advanced than our own, Brown's team had discovered three big objects many months ago, but they were hiding their findings from the international scientific community, as they did before with Quaoar and Sedna . . . This secrecy was useful to Brown, as it allowed him to study the object in detail and exclusively [exclusivity?]. But his actions harm science and don't follow the established procedures that imply notifying the existence of a new object to the astronomical community as soon as it's discovered (Ricardo J. Tohmé, "10th Planet Controversy").

Seen in this light, Ortiz's actions might be considered as a way to thwart one group's monopolization of scientific discovery. As astronomer Dr. Javier Licandro stated, "The group of Dr. Brown decided, as in previous cases, not to make public its detection until they finished their observations and their research work, and until the object was in conjunction with the Sun so that other people couldn't observe it" (Ricardo J. Tohmé, "10th Planet Controversy"). By forcing Brown et al to reveal their discoveries, Ortiz was, in effect, preventing the Caltech researcher from stalling until 2003 EL61's conjunction with the sun, and this would mean that other astronomers would have an opportunity to target this newly discovered 10th planet with their own telescopes while viewing conditions were still favorable.

Nothing wrong with that. Where's my telescope?

References

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Constantine
Papadopoulos

Use of Internet in the early 1990s as part of an apparent plagiarism strategy toward professional advancement in computer science

In one of the early cases of the Internet being used as part of a *professional* plagiarism strategy, PhD student Constantinos V. Papadopoulos was found to have submitted verbatim copies of previously published papers for consideration to the conference organizers of EURO-PAR '95, an annual conference on parallel processing.

Referees noticed the verbatim replication in Papadopoulos' derivative manuscripts, and an investigation brought to light a number of other cases in which this PhD student had copied papers by other researchers with only slight modifications of the titles, and a listing of these works in his CV as if they were the product of his own mind!

It appears that Papadopoulos had a history of such plagiaristic use of others' work--he was evidently expelled from the National Technical University of Athens for instances of plagiarism. The EURO-PAR '95 webpage on the Papadopoulos case contains a lengthy list of papers on various topics which were published and/or submitted to publications venues including the following:

• IEEE Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems
• Journal of Computer Systems Science and Engineering
• Parallel Algorithms and Application Journal
• Proceedings of Parallel Languages and Architectures Europe
• 5th Hellenic Informatics Conference
• EUROMICRO-95
• Discrete Applied Mathematics
  
  

Also listed on this webpage were a number of other papers which were listed on Papadopoulos' CV, but which had not yet been conclusively proven to contain plagiarism. Following the listing of plagiarized papers was a warning to the computer science community to "beware of C.V. Papadopoulos."

What is clear is that Papadopoulos had gotten off to a running start in what might have been a lengthy career comprising such fraudulent contributions. The cases of Andrzej Jendryczko, Mostafa M. Imam, Michael Briggs and other career plagiarists illustrate what might have become of Papadopoulos had his plagiaries not come to light early on in his career as a computer scientist.

As was concluded by the Steering Committee of the EURO-PAR Conferences (and as is widely acknowledged today in the broader academic and scientific communities), the Computer Science community, in 1995, was in need of "measures and techniques, of new refereeing methods, tools, etc., that may prevent such phenomena [i.e. plagarism] in the future."

References

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Raj Persaud

Orange: High Risk

Dr. Persaud has been called the "Frasier Crane of UK Media" (Momin, S. Daily News and Analysis India); A well regarded psychiatrist and mental health expert, Persaud has appeared on numerous radio and TV programs, and he has authored numerous articles in various scholarly and popular publications with regular columns appearing in magazines such as Cosmopolitan and Men's Health; He is also a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and the Director of the Institute of Psychiatry's Centre for Public Engagement in Mental Health Sciences

The well known mental health expert Dr. Raj Persaud, "Britain's most ubiquitous psychiatrist" (Pidd, H.) and the "Frasier Crane of UK Media" (Momin, S.), has come under criticism for pilfering the work of American professor Thomas Blass (Professor of Psychology, University of Maryland).

In February of 2005, Persaud's article "Why the Media Refuses to Obey", appeared in the journal Progress in Neurology and Psychiatry (Volume 9, Issue 2). It was subsequently discovered by Blass that Dr. Persaud had appropriated about fifty percent of the article content from Blass's work ("The Man Who Shocked the World" Psychology Today, March 2002). Allegedly the second time that Persaud has pilfered content from the same author without acknowledgement!

Blass claimed in an interview with the Guardian that "He [Persaud] had taken paragraphs from my work, word for word. Over 50% of his piece was my work, which I have spent more than 10 years researching. I felt outrage, disbelief, and incredulity this could happen . . . " (Pidd, H. "'He took paragraphs from my work, word for word' - psychiatrist faces plagiarism charge." The Guardian).

As reported by the Guardian and other media sources (The Asian Age, Daily News and Analysis India . . . )Persaud's article was retracted by Wiley Interface Ltd., the journal publisher, with Persaud himself attributing the alleged plagiarism to nothing more than an inadvertent omission:

I am happy to apologise for the error, which occurred whereby when I cut and pasted the original copy, the references at the end were inadvertently omitted.

Virtually the same excuse Persaud used the first time in blaming the unacknowledged derivation on "subeditors" who for some reason felt the need to remove Persaud's citations, so Persaud claims anyway.

The cut-n-paste temptation strikes again, this time at the career of "Britain's most ubiquitous psychiatrist".

The death of yet another plagiarist! The Author writes back with a vengeance to re-claim what writefully belongs to him.


References

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Chittaranjan Purandare

Orange: High Risk

Leadership and research in India in the field of gynaecology

A leading gynaecologist in India has been suspended from the Medical Education Department after it was revealed that he might have been complicit in a plan to assist his students by dishonestly "certifying the plagiarised theses of six students of the prestigious College of Physicians and Surgeons" (Marpakwar, P. "Top Doctor Suspended for Signing on Copied Theses").

As a teacher for students preparing to take the CPS exam in midwifery and gynaecology, Dr. Purandare was also responsible for overseeing the students as they prepared theses toward their medical qualifications.

However, instead of submitting original theses which they themselves had researched and written, these medical students of Dr. Purandare had "copied entire theses of MD (Gynaecology) students from Mumbai University" as the external examiner Dr. Rekha Daver would confirm after having "a hunch she had seen the [students'] work before". As a result of Dr. Daver's discovery, Dr. Purandare was suspended from the Medical Education Department and his students have been "debarred from appearing for any examination conducted by CPS for two years" (Marpakwar, P. "Top Doctor Suspended for Signing on Copied Theses").

For his part, Dr. Purandare maintains his innocence, claiming that he had no idea his students had copied theses from Mumbai University. "How was he to know?" seems to be his attitude as he promptly took a 3 month medical leave after the scandal surfaced. Other professionals are not convinced that Dr. Purandare has been fully forthcoming about the details of this case, suggesting that his "actions were still quite doubtful" as did Sudhakar Sane of the College of Physicians and Surgeons ("Doctor Accused of Abetting Plagiarism May Sue College").

Is this an isolated instance? How many such students have been able to slip by the external examiners without their fraudulent work being found out? This case involving Dr. Purandare and his students would seem to lend strong support to S.M. Sapatnekar's description of the dissertation ritual in India which indicts both students and faculty:

In India, quite often the ritual of dissertation for a Master's degree in Medicine or Surgery begins with a search of library archives for copy of a dissertation older than three years, and ends with a typist to make a ditto copy. And yes, there are faculty members who actively encourage such practices ("Plagiarism". JAPI, vol. 52, 527-530).

Shameful! Downright shameful that medical practitioners in training would resort to such means of getting their degrees and that any faculty member would be a part of such dishonest connivance.


Note: c.f. the case of the 3 V's below.

References

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Vijay
Soman (and co-author Philip Felig)

Research in endocrinology under the supervision of Dr. Philip Felig; Known also for one of the most serious and blatant instances of plagiarism and scientific fraud--the scientific fraudster who "shook the world of science" (Morton Hunt 1981, New York Times).

The case of Vijay Soman (and co-author Philip Felig) is known as the case of plagiarism and fraud that "shook the world of science" (Morton Hunt 1981, New York Times) back in the late 1970s and early 1980s. What was most appalling about the particular aspects of the plagiarism in this case was the way in which an article was first rejected for publication by Soman and his supervisor, Philip Felig, and then copied for publication in another journal.

NIH endocrinology researcher Dr. Helena Wachslicht-Rodbard had submitted an article for publications consideration to The New England Journal of Medicince under the title of "Insulin Receptors in Anorexia Nervosa." One of the reviewers was Dr. Philip Felig, then the head of endicronology research at Yale University's School of Medicine. Felig evidently showed Vijay Soman the paper, or perhaps even asked him to review the paper as well, and Felig then recommended against the paper's publication, the only reviewer to do so, and doing so without declaring the obvious conflict of interest (i.e. an identical study being conducted by Soman and Felig).

Shortly after receiving her paper back from The New England Journal of Medicince, Dr. Wachslicht-Rodbard set about revising her paper according to the recommendations of the reviewers who had advised for publication of her paper. While she was working on these revisions, her supervisor, Jesse Roth, asked her to review a paper sent from The American Journal of Medicine. To her great surprise, that paper closely resembled her own manuscript both in language content and in a "formula she had devised for working out the number of receptor sites per cell." In a fury,
Dr. Helena Wachslicht-Rodbard accused the Yale researchers of plagiarism, "a shy, soft-spoken Brazilian, had been transformed into a feminine version of Dumas's vengeful Edmond Dantès"(M. Hunt 1981).

Attempts were made to reach a settlement satisfactory to both Dr. Helena Wachslicht-Rodbard and Yale researchers Philip Felig and Vijay Soman. As part of the investigation into the similarity of the two papers, Editor Arnold Relman of The New England Journal of Medicine called Felig to find out how and why Felig and Soman had submitted a paper so close in content to Wachslicht-Rodbard's manuscript "after Felig had received and read her paper [emphasis in original]" (M. Hunt 1981). Felig claimed that he and Soman had indeed completed a similar study, but acknowledged that he should have declared his conflict of interest. Felig offered to add a reference to Wachslicht-Rodbard's paper, giving her the claim to precedence, withholding publication of their own paper until the questions had been resolved. Wachslicht-Rodbard would have none of it, refusing to sign the agreement worked out between her supervisor and Felig, and even claiming to have been intimidated and threatened with dismissal by Dr. Jesse Wroth.

Back at the lab, Felig confronted his junior researcher, and Vijay Soman admitted having lifted various phraseology and the important formula from a copy he had made of Wachslicht-Rodbard's manuscript. He claimed to be uncomfortable "with the English language and felt under pressure to get his paper published soon" (M. Hunt). But he still claimed to have conducted the relevant research, and Felig believed him. Meanwhile, Wachslicht-Rodbard continued to exert pressure, demanding an independent audit of Felig and Soman's work, and also threatening to publicly denounce the duo at an upcoming meeting of the American Federation of Clinical Research.

That review was finally conducted by Harvard endocrinologist Dr. Jeffrey Flier, and the results of this review revealed that Soman could not back up his research findings with experimental data. The data were missing. The evidence was lacking for insulin-binding claims made in Soman's plagiarized paper. In other words, he had "fudged", "trimmed" or otherwise "cooked" the data on which his paper was based. As this "fudging" and falsification came to light, Dr. Flier reported that "The situation had begun to seem strange and unreal to me. Vijay grew more and more disordered and irrational in his thinking and started to say peculiar things" (M. Hunt 1981).

When further investigations began to investigate 14 other papers which Soman had written, it came out that Soman had destroyed the records and data books for the experiments upon which these articles and reports were based. As J.W. Grove (1996) observes, it was the language plagiarism which actually resulted in the discovery of the more serious instances of data falsification in Soman's research record.

Had not a determined woman kept insisting on an independent audit, the extent of this incident of fraud at Yale University's School of Medicine would likely have gone undiscovered. And what this case seems to indicate is that minor instances of language plagiarism might be a strong indicator of further problems with reported scientific research. In the 1990s, genetics researchers at Peking University also claimed, like Soman, to have actually done the research as reported. And also like Soman, they claimed that it was a difficulty with the English language which influenced their decision to appropriate text from another published article.

Whenever language plagiarism is discovered in scientific discourse reporting the results of research which has supposedly been conducted, other information becomes immediately suspect, because as the Vijay Soman case demonstrates, fudging and falsification of data may lurk beneath the surface structure of the derivative language used to report experimental results.

References

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A.V.

Research at the Institute of Sleep Medicine (India)

When Eve Van Cauter, Professor of Medicine at the University of Chicago, and the co-authors of an article on "Sleep in Type II Diabetes: A Survey Study" complained to the Journal of the Association of Physicians of India that their article had been plagiarized by A.V., they must have felt like someone who has had a prank pulled off on them while their back was turned.

But this wasn't India's Bollywood version of "The Three Stooges". A.V., A.V., and A.V. were actually researchers at the Institute of Sleep Medicine in Hyderabad, India, and they were guilty of much more than poking people in the eyes and slapping the tops of their collegues' heads as Larry, Curly and Mo became famous for in their comedy routines.

Nyuck, nyuck, nyuck! If it was a prank at all, the dishonest trick nearly pulled off by the three V's was a plagiaristic sort of tomfoolery thwarted by the authors' complaint. The publication of a lifted medical paper in the Journal of the Association of Physicians of India was discovered by the true authors of the article, and after Van Cauter's complaint was received, JAPI Editor Dr. Shashank R. Joshi and the editorial board published a "Notice of Retraction (JAPI, vol. 52, July 2005, P. 530) following "scrutiny of the claim & [obtaining of a] third party opinion." Part of this retraction reads as follows:

. . . the article entitled "Sleep in Type II Diabetes" by {A.V., A.V., A.V.] of Institute of Sleep Medicine . . . ammounts to overt plagiarism. The board therefore has decided to retract the article and follow a course of action as a deterrent against such misconduct in research.

Therefore, the plagiarized article stands retracted. Journal of the Association of Physicians of India has placed ban on accepting any communication for Publication by all the authors of the tainted article till further notice. The matter is now referred to the Governing Body of Association of India for appropriate disciplinary action by the organization.

 

In the same journal, just prior to this retraction notice, a generally insightful editorial on "Plagiarism" by S.M. Sapatnekar (JAPI, vol. 52, 527-530) analyzed the state of scientific discourse in India. In a form of written English which is common to English texts published in India, replete with localized expressions and "Hinglish" [Hindi + English = Hinglish] phraseologies, Sapatnekar correctly characterized plagiarism as a "dishonest practice that has become trendy after digital revolution".

He further noted that "To do it [plagiarism] efficiently qualifies as an expertise; since ultimate success of a theft essentially lies in the theft passing undetected."

In other words, the less expert plagiarists are found out for their plagiaries, while the more skillful ones seem to be getting away with their thefts. Just how pervasive these thefts are is anyone's guess--but such forms of plagiarism seem to be fairly widespread within India's scientific and medical communities. Sapatnekar's description of a dissertation ritual indicts both students and faculty:

In India, quite often the ritual of dissertation for a Master's degree in Medicine or Surgery begins with a search of library archives for copy of a dissertation older than three years, and ends with a typist to make a ditto copy. And yes, there are faculty members who actively encourage such practices. [!!!]

Speaking of faculty, consider the case of a professor at Vardhman Open University where eight cases of plagiarism occurred under the supervision of one professor. Curiously, eight students under this professor managed to write exactly the same article under slightly different titles! ("Researchers' Plagiarism", Khaleej Times).

Well before Sapatnekar's 2004 JAPI editorial, a number of other plagiarism cases had made a few ripples within India's scientific community as reported in "The Sucheta Dala Column". In this column, cases such as the following were listed:

• The plagiarism of a graduate student's thesis by a professor in the Cardiology Department of Safdarjung Hospital
• Plagiarism of a research paper by two professors at Poona University--the lifted paper featured in the Indian Journal of Microbiology.
• Further professorial plagiarism of a chapter from a student thesis by a "scholar" from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research
• Plagiarism of thesis content by the head of Delhi University's geology department for an article which was submitted to the Journal of the Geological Society of India (the professor was supposed to be evaluating this student thesis!)

The Hindu as well, India's national newspaper, lamented the "despondent picture of our research community" and the danger of "further chaos in Indian science" in a 2001 article on "Plagiarising Research Data".

But one has to read between the lines to understand the full implications of this article in The Hindu. Names of the offending plagiarists and other fabricators are "withheld to avoid embarrassment". Those familiar with some of the institutions and basic history of Indian science might be able to connect the dots, realizing, for example, that the "fossil fraud perpetrated by a geologist of Punjab University (Chandigarh) . . . [which] tarnished the scientific prestige of the country before the international scientific community", is a reference to the case of Vishwa Jit Gupta of Panjab University, whose fossil forgeries and falsifications spanned nearly an entire career's worth of professional fakery brought to light in the late 1980s by John Talent of Macquarie University.

Y.P. Gupta's (probably no relation to V. Gupta) article in The Hindu, while publicizing the fact that "in India, such dubious practices [plagiarism/fabrication/falsification] have mostly gone unchallenged though not unnoticed and mostly . . . unpunished", falls short of outright condemning these "dubious practices" by failing to publicly name plagiarists for what they are for fear of "embarrassment" [this decision to maintain plagiarists' anonymity is apparently an editorial decision by The Hindu and not Y.P. Gupta].

This fear of publicly condemning textual re-incarnation specialists, except when the threat to international prestige requires otherwise, serves only to ameliorate the consequences of plagiarism. Scientists who plagiarize, fabricate, or falsify the research data as reported in the ongoing discourse of the scientific community deserve at the very least a very public, and a very audible dis-honorable mention . . . and the resultant embarrassment.

Note: Profile anonymized upon request of these young researchers who write:

We would like to bring to your notice certain facts about this. We were medical students, volunteering at the Institute of sleep medicine during summer vacations; and our only role was to observe at the Institute. We were young and enthusiastic students and did not even know the nitty gritties of compiling an article let alone plagiarizing it. Our names were included in the article without our permission, by the Institute. We had no knowledge that the mentioned article was published, let alone our names included in it. Honestly we "felt like someone had pulled a prank off, while our backs were turned"

After finding the article on your website, we took action against the Institute of sleep medicine. It took us two years to obtain a verdict. The court declared in its judgment that the publication of the article titled "Sleep in Type 2 Diabetes" published in the JAPI in May 2003 was "illegal, bad, not binding on our names and that our names are not to be associated with the institute of sleep medicine or the article" in September 2007. These proceedings were also reported to the JAPI.

We are young people, yet to start our careers .We understand that plagiarism is bad and you are doing a great job of bringing to light such misdeeds people commit. We have had major repercussions in our careers and have undergone a lot of stress, anxiety, mental and professional instability over the last 5 years. We are writing to you because we understand that you are a compassionate, understanding person, and have helped people in similar plights. This has given us the courage to write to you. We have learnt a valuable lesson of ethical and moral conduct and shall never forget it. As mentioned on your Webpage "If medical practitioners rely on the information reported in such a skewed/falsified report, lives might literally hang in the balance", we understand and value the meaning this conveys.

We request you to understand our plight and help us start anew, both emotionally and professionally . . .

References

End Profile SCMD-2003-AV/AV/AV

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Reiner Protsch von Zieten

Red: Severe Risk

Anthropological research on Neanderthals, excavations in East Africa

Skulduggerer extraordinaire! Caught in the act of trying to sell the University of Frankfurt's ape skull collection to buyers in the US, Professor Reiner Protsch von Zieten has apparently been involved in other underhanded dealings as well, including plagiarism and data falsification/fabrication. His name itself--von Zieten being added to sound more "aristocratic"--would appear to be a concoction, a bogus component of the identity constructed by a flamboyant professor with a penchant for Porsches, Cuban cigars, and association (if only in his students' minds) with celebrities and aristocracy.

Every twist that unravels in this case only compounds the confusion. According to those familiar with the case, von Zieten didn't even know how to operate his own Carbon-14 dating machine! So instead of accurately reporting the data, he made it up as he went along, dates included! Anthropologists are dismayed by these fabrications--billed as the "German Piltdown" in some reports. A complete revision of the history of man will now be required since many interpretations of this history were based on certain "sensational finds" of Professor von Zieten.

The bizarre antics of this dishonest academic seem to have resulted from base greed, ambition, and a lust for professional recognition. Missing skulls, mysteriously shredded documents from Nazi era "scientific" experiments, and plagiarized texts combine to make this a rather intriguing case study in the pathological behaviors which frequently accompany plagiarism.

References

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