RE: Covert Article Republishing Discovered in Emerald/MCB UP 1989-2003

[Phil Davis <pmd8@cornell.edu>]

Lisa, you are confusing the unethical acts of individual authors, to a
systematic and highly organized unethical operation performed by a
publisher.

Authors occasionally submit the same article to more than one journal.  
This is heavily frowned upon in the academic world and grounds for severe
reprimand when discovered.  Researchers discovered to have republished
articles to pad their resumes are often denied tenure.  In the sciences,
they may lose any hope of future grant money and may be blackballed from
publishing again in certain journals.  There is almost nothing worse you
can do (maybe killing your grad students) than covertly republishing your
work in different journals.

Whether or not article duplication is easier or harder is not the point of
the article and I encourage you to read the full manuscript.  This may be
the first article to document what may have been a systematic and
unethical practice of a single publisher.  I hope that publishers such as
yourself will conduct your own internal review and ensure a management
structure so that this never happens again.

http://people.cornell.edu/pages/pmd8/

--Phil Davis


At 06:08 PM 11/10/2004 -0500, you wrote:
>I actually think this could easily happen, and yes, it happens when the
>author doesn't tell you.  Variations on this theme are the kind of "salami
>science" articles that are virtually identical and published in different
>journals (editors usually discover these by looking at the reference list
>and finding the previously published articles and comparing them--but this
>takes a suspicious mind and some work).
>
>I don't know why anyone would think such a thing would be THAT difficult
>to do, esp. in certain fields.  With the proliferation of journals, it's
>incredibly easy actually.
>
>Lisa
>
>Lisa Dittrich
>Managing Editor
>Academic Medicine
>lrdittrich@aamc.org (e-mail)