Researchers at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute at Virginia Tech and collaborators have reportedly shown that a computer-based text-searching tool is capable of unearthing questionable publication practices from thousands of full-text papers in biomedical literature. The first step in the process is to find out what is restated before zeroing in on who may have crossed an ethically unacceptable threshold. The findings, published in PLoS ONE, are seen to offer hope for curbing unethical scientific publication practice, a growing problem throughout the world.
Although abstract search is an effective approach to detect potential plagiarism, full text analysis is needed to uncover all potential duplicate citations in the scientific literature. The researchers examined 72,011 full-text articles using the eTBLAST computer programme, which is reportedly only the tip of the iceberg for the number of published biomedical articles in the archives.
The current study revealed that the introduction section tended to be copied the most in similar citations. Also, review articles were confirmed as being particularly prone to repetition. The researchers went on to explain that the re-use of text in certain sections, such as the methods section of papers, where authors provide details on how the work was done, is not a bad thing because it is important to use the accepted and most consistent techniques.
The work was supported by the Hudson Foundation and the National Institutes of Health/National Library of Medicine. The paper is the 100th article funded by the US Department of Health & Human Services Office of Research Integrity.
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