ALLEGATION OF FRAUDULENT PUBLICATION
Case
Journal A published a paper 1. After 2 years the Editor of Journal A was contacted by a reader, who expressed his doubts as to the integrity of one of the authors. The reader suggested that the author in question had been involved in the fraudulent publication of a paper 2 published in Journal B. The reader had noted that the article 2 published in Journal B was almost an exact copy of an article 3 published in Journal C.
The Editor of Journal A examined copies of the articles from Journals B and C and concluded that this appeared to be a case of plagiarism.
COPE advice
The committee questioned if there had been any attempt to contact the editor of journal B and make him/her aware of the situation. Write to the author and ask for an explanation and if that is not satisfactory contact the author’s institution. Also journal A should check the article 1 to make sure it is not plagiarised.
Follow up
The editorial followed COPE’s advice and have sent a letter to the author expressing concerns that the papers in question are very similar and asking for an explanation. Also written to the Editor-in-Chief of the journal B in which the paper 2 was published to alert him to the situation.
