Plagiarism and Research Misconduct

Plagiarism

Plagiarism, as defined by the World Association of Medical Editors, is “the use of others’ published and unpublished ideas or words (or other intellectual property) without attribution or permission, and presenting them as new and original rather than derived from an existing source.” There are four main forms of plagiarism: Direct plagiarism, duplicate or redundant publication, self-plagiarism (text recycling), and overlapping (“salami slicing”) publication.

Direct plagiarism, as defined by the Office of Research Integrity (ORI), is “the theft or misappropriation of intellectual property and the substantial unattributed textual copying of another’s work.” This includes “the unauthorized use of ideas or unique methods”.

Duplicate or redundant publication, according to ORI, is when content submitted for publishing, or content which has already been published, is a near verbatim of complete copying of one’s own content that has already been published elsewhere and not properly cited. This can include using the same dataset or materials and methods from a previous publication.

“Text recycling” or self-plagiarism is similar to duplicate or redundant publication. This occurs when one reuses portions of their previous work into a new manuscript and not providing a citation to the original source(s). At times this may be acceptable – such as when one is writing the Materials and Methods section of a paper - as long as the original source is appropriately cited.

“Salami slicing” or minor overlap, refers to the segmentation of one study into multiple publications with substantial overlap, where the overlap does not constitute clear recycling of a previous publication but nonetheless raises concerns regarding redundancy and transparency.

Fabrication and Falsification of Data

Data fabrication is defined as making up data or results and recording or reporting them as if they were real.
Data falsification involves manipulating research materials, equipment, processes, or data such that the research is not accurately represented in the research record. This includes altering, omitting, or selectively modifying data points or results to misrepresent findings.

Both fabrication and falsification are considered serious breaches of research integrity and are strictly prohibited.

Inappropriate Image Manipulation

Inappropriate image manipulation includes altering images in a way that misrepresents the original data. This may involve, but is not limited to, selectively enhancing, obscuring, moving, removing, or introducing features within an image. Adjustments to brightness, contrast, or color balance are permitted only if they are applied uniformly to the entire image and do not obscure, eliminate, or misrepresent any information.

Authors may be required to provide original, unprocessed image files upon request.

Selective Reporting

Selective reporting refers to the deliberate omission, suppression, or incomplete reporting of data, results, methods, or outcomes that could influence the interpretation of the research. This includes reporting only favorable results while withholding negative, null, or contradictory findings, or deviating from prespecified analyses without appropriate disclosure and justification.

Authors are expected to present their research findings transparently, accurately, and completely.

Investigation of Alleged Misconduct

Should a case of plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, inappropriate image manipulation, selective reporting, or duplicate/redundant/overlapping publication be suspected or reported, we will take the necessary steps to investigate the matter. These steps may include, but are not limited to, submitting the manuscript text to a screening tool such as the Crossref Similarity Check or iThenticate service, requesting original data or image files, and/or contacting the relevant institution(s). Investigations will be conducted in accordance with the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines and flowcharts.

For more information on plagiarism, please see the following websites, to which we also referred to when writing the above section: