A CASE OF PLAGIARISM
A paper with five authors was submitted from a university hospital in a Middle-Eastern country. One of the reviewers complained that it extensively plagiarised one of his own publications. Examination showed that about 30% of the text and tables had been copied. The results were original, and in some cases had simply been slotted into the plagiarised text.
The paper was rejected by email and the corresponding author was told that under COPE procedures the editor was required to take further action, and the author was invited to comment on the allegations within four weeks. Close to the deadline the corresponding author replied, blaming an MSc student co-author, and saying that they would like to correct the paper according to the comments.
Having consulted his editorial board, the editor wrote separate letters to each author outlining the case and telling them that the journal would not consider further submissions from them for three years. The hospital’s website showed that one of the authors was the head of department, and had a British PhD. Copies of the submission were sent to him and to the corresponding author, with the plagiarised passages marked.
COPE advice
The three year ban was harsh and perhaps not appropriate. Banning an author is not good policy and could lead to legal problems. The plagiarism may be unintentional as authors may be less familiar with publication procedures. Hence there is a case here for educating the author, by keeping the lines of communication open, thus also arguing against a ban. The only other course of action would be to write to the authors’ institution informing them of the situation and asking them to investigate.
