The high price of plagiarism

Plagiarism dates back to the 1600s, derived from the Latin word ‘plagiarius,’ which means to kidnap. Reviewers of medical articles often determine plagiarism; if found inadvertent, the author can write an apology to the concerned author

MUMBAI: An investigation from the ‘New York Times’ alleges research misconduct against a prolific scientist who has authored more than 1000 research articles and has received many awards and honours. He also received $86 million in federal grants. An anonymous complainant contacted federal authorities in 2013, reporting that more than 30 of his articles contained falsified data. The university considered the matter closed and refused to investigate.

The high price of plagiarism

Since the ‘NYT’ contacted the university, the university says it will revisit these allegations. A number of this researcher’s articles were co-authored by an Italian Cancer Researcher who is under investigation for scientific misconduct. A former editor of the ‘British Medical Journal’ stated that there was a tremendous conflict of interest and a terrible temptation to bury it all. The blamed researcher felt he was unduly singled out because of his prominence and that with some figures, honest errors did not accrue to plagiarism.

Today, thanks to the internet, plagiarism is easy to find.

An article by researchers Natasha Das and Monica Panjabi in ‘Perspectives in Clinical Research’ -- a peer-reviewed medical journal -- addresses the issue of plagiarism. It defines plagiarism as the wrongful presentation of somebody else’s work or idea as one’s own without giving credit to the author.

In this country, most research work is self-funded, and for the many papers my colleagues and I have done, no funding was forthcoming. In fact, research is poorly paid in this country, so not many doctors pursue pure research. Lately, hospitals accept projects and provide funds if they find the subject will add to existing knowledge. A pointless research paper written by a postgraduate medical student is a thesis. Most of these are based on previously done work with minor additions. Knowing full well that no great kudos will be given to a well-researched thesis, students dish it up with the bare minimum effort or interest.

I feel this should be replaced by research papers in an indexed journal, with peer reviewers as the referee.

According to Das and Panjabi, whose work on plagiarism is superb, there are several types of plagiarism. Plagiarism of ideas includes a postgraduate student taking data from a previous thesis on the subject and the author using the idea. Plagiarism of text is word for word plagiarism without giving credit to the author. Mosaic plagiarism is changing a few words here and there, and self-plagiarism is where the author uses his own published copy as material elsewhere.

This issue of overlap occurs in various articles; ethics committees consider that the amount of overlap between two articles should not be more than a third.

I was also intrigued to find an editorial on the subject in the journal of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. It refers to Tom Lehrer’s brilliant satirical song about plagiarism in which he portrays an academic who explicitly declares that the secret to success in research and mathematics is to ‘plagiarise’.

It is obvious that certain medical facts may be the subject of research by various authors. But where does one draw the fine line between plagiarism and reviewing?