What to and What not to do: A Primer on Research Misconduct

 

Hari Krishna G L

Assistant Professor, Govt. College of Nursing, Alappuzha.

 

 

ABSTRACT:

Good research practice is vital to the scientific community. An awareness of what constitutes poor practice is important. Research misconduct means Fabrication, Falsification, Plagiarism and, violation of authorship rules in proposing, performing, or reviewing research, or in reporting research results. Willful manipulation is called falsification. Generating/creating/inventing Cook up data or Inferring from incomplete data sets is fabrication. Plagiarism means using someone else’s intellectual property (content, idea, language) without giving due credit. Article discussed about types of plagiarism, penalties as per UGC regulations and how to avoid plagiarism.

 

 

INTRODUCTION:

Good research practice is vital to the scientific community. An awareness of what constitutes poor practice is important.

 

Scientific misconduct in fact research misconduct can be seen across disciplines. It may be misconduct in tool construction, data collection, data processing or reporting.

 

Why do we need an understanding of Scientific Misconduct?

Consequences of Scientific Misconduct can be¹

·      Loss of credibility and reputation (individual, lab, institutional)

·      Grants may be stopped

·      Withdrawing honor/ degree (example –medal, awards, recognition)

·      Lowers citation

·      Retraction

·      Corrupt process leads to questionable outcomes

 

·      Investigating false leads wastes time, effort, resources.

·      Affects the scientific community and the field

·      Undermines public and policy makers’ trust

 

Research misconduct means Fabrication, Falsification, Plagiarism and, violation of authorship rules in proposing, performing, or reviewing research, or in reporting research results.

 

Level of seriousness in Research Misconduct

Seriousness level I:

·      Fabrication: Intentional mis-representation of research results by making up data  or cases

·      Falsification: willful distortion of data.

·      Plagiarism: copying of ideas, data or words without attribution.

·      Failing to get consent from an ethics committee for research.

 

Seriousness level II:

·      Not admitting that some data are missing.

·      Ignoring outliers without declaring it.

·      Not including data, on side effects, in a clinical trials.

·      Conducting research in humans without informed consent.

Seriousness level III:

·      Publication of post hoc analysis without declaration that they were post hoc.

·      (Post-hoc: Latin phrase means “After the event”)

·      Gift authorship (Gift authorship is defined as co-authorship awarded to a person who has not contributed significantly to the study.

·      Not attributing other authors.

·      Redundant publication.

·      Not disclosing a conflict of interest.

 

Seriousness level IV:

·      Not attempting to publish completed research.

·      Failure to do adequate search of existing research before beginning new research

 

Falsification and fabrication occurs in proposing, performing, reviewing and reporting phase of research.

Plagiarism occurs in proposing and reporting phase of research²

 

Falsification:

Willful manipulation is called falsification.

In Proposal –problem selection; Review; Rationale

In Data collection- Manipulating tools- wrong calibrations; Not checking validity; reliability, objectivity and impersonation

 

In Data analysis: Alteration/distortion

·      21, 22, 23, 23, 23, 45, 56-(Omission)

·      21, 22, 23, 23, 23, 45, 65, (Addition/flipping)

 

Suppression, disregarding negative cases; outliers

In Reporting- Overstating/understating- creating hype to support hypothesis or claims²

 

Fabrication:

It means Generating/creating/inventing ²

·      Cook up data

·      Inferring from incomplete data sets

 

Commonly fabricated documents  are data and consent forms to support hypothesis or claims or ease of doing.

Some common falsification and fabrication practices are

·      Convenience samples claimed as random samples

·      References omitted to enhance originality

·      Percentages used to mask number of observations

·      Controls not matched

 

Plagiarism:

Plagiarism means using someone else’s intellectual property (content, idea, language) without giving due credit.

Plagiarism means unacknowledged use of work or ideas of the original source

·      It can be:

§  Unintentional (lack of knowledge about correct referencing)

§  Intentional (Act of deliberate coping of work or ideas).

 

Plagiarism is a type of intellectual theft.

Common types of plagiarism:³

•      Coping- Using the same or very similar words to the original text or idea without acknowledging the source or using quotation marks.

•      Inappropriate paraphrasing- Changing a few words and phrases while retaining the original structure and/or progression of ideas of the original, and information without acknowledgement

•      Collusion- Presenting work as independent work when it has been produced in whole or part in collusion with other people             

•      Inappropriate citation - Citing sources which have not been read, without acknowledging the 'secondary' source from which knowledge of them has been obtained

•      Self Plagiarism-an author republishes their own previously written work and presents it as new findings without referencing the earlier work, either in its entirety or partially       (Lane 2018)       

 

Ways to avoid plagiarism?

Understand the basics of referencing.

•      Citation –Proper citation is one of the effective ways to avoid plagiarism. Follow the document formatting guidelines (i.e. APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard etc.) used by your educational institution.

There are two main parts to referencing: 

(i)  The first part is called In-text citation. It is within your text.

(ii) The second part to referencing is the construction of a reference list. The reference list shows the complete details of everything you cited and appears in an alphabetical list on a separate page, at the end of your work.

 

APA example:  In-text citation : (Whitney &Rolfes, 2011).

In text:

Water is a necessary part of every person’s diet and of all the nutrients a body needs to function, it requires more water each day than any other nutrient (Whitney &Rolfes, 2011).

 

Reference:

Whitney, E., and cRolfes, S.(2011). Understanding nutrition (12th ed.). Australia: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.

 

Direct Plagiarism:

Direct or verbatim (in exactly the same words as were used originally.) Plagiarism occurs when an author copies the text of another author, word for word, without the use of quotation marks or attribution, thus passing it as his or her own. In that way, it is like complete plagiarism, but it refers to sections (rather than all) of another paper.

•      Solution: Never do it.

 

Complete Plagiarism:

Complete plagiarism is the most severe form of plagiarism where a researcher takes a complete manuscript or study that someone else created, and submits it under his or her name. It is tantamount to intellectual theft and stealing.

•      Solution: Never commit this mistake.

 

Source-based Plagiarism:

Plagiarism may occur because of the different types of sources.For example,  (i) when a researcher references a source that is incorrect or does not exist, it is a misleading citation.

(ii) Plagiarism also occurs when a researcher uses a secondary source of data or information, but only cites the primary source of information.

•      Solution:

(i)   Never put incorrect or misleading citation.

(ii) If the information you wish to use is cited by another author, acknowledge the source you have read, showing it is a secondary source. This demonstrates you have not read the original source but read about it in a secondary source. Within the text citation, use the words “as cited in” to indicate this is a secondary source. In the reference list, include the author and details of the source you actually read.

(Example: In text): -Fawcett (as cited in Polit & Beck, 2008) outlined the four main concepts.

 

Self or Auto Plagiarism:

Auto-plagiarism, also known as self-plagiarism or also termed as “Recycling Fraud”, happens when an author reuses significant, identical, or nearly identical portions of one's own work significant portions of his or her previously published work without attributing/acknowledging the previous publication.

·      Articles of this nature are often referred to as duplicate or multiple publications.

·      In addition there can be a copyright issue if copyright of the prior work has been transferred to another entity.

 

Solution for Self plagiarism:

Must cite yourself. Treat the text the same as you would if someone else wrote it. It may sound odd, but using material you have used before is called self-plagiarism, and it is not acceptable.⁴

 

UGC public notice on self plagiarism (20 April 2020):

Reproduction, in part or whole, of one's own previously published work without adequate citation and proper acknowledgment and claiming the most recent work as new and original for any academic advantage amounts to 'text-recycling' (also known as 'Self Plagiarism') and is NOT acceptable.

 

UGC has also clearly mentioned that Self-citations do not add any number/s to the individual’s citation index or h-index in global academia.

 

Inaccurate Authorship:

Inaccurate authorship or misleading attribution can happen in two ways:

·      In one form, when all the authors contribute to a manuscript, but do not get credit for their work.

·      The second form is the opposite: when an author gets credit without contributing to the work.

 

This type of plagiarism, whichever way it occurs, is a violation of the code of conduct in research.

Solution: Be careful and never do it.

 

Mosaic Plagiarism:

Mosaic plagiarism interlays someone else’s phrases or text within its own research. It is also known as patchwork plagiarism and it is intentional and dishonest.

 

Accidental Plagiarism:

·      Plagiarism may be accidental if it occurred because of neglect, mistake, or unintentional paraphrasing.

·      Whether intended or unintended, there is no excuse for plagiarism and the consequences are often the same.

 

Understand the concept of Quoting, Paraphrasing and Summarizing

Quoting

Taking the exact words from an original source is called quoting.

·      Put double/Single quotes (As per citation style) “abcdefghijklmnop”

·      After quoting, give proper in-text citation.

·      Never and never include or exclude any word in the original text you have taken. It must be “Exact words/sentence/s.”

·      Example: “Water is a necessary part of every person’s diet and of all the nutrients a body needs to function, it requires more water each day than any other nutrient.” (Whitney &Rolfes, 2011).

 

Paraphrasing:

This is the most common type of plagiarism. It involves the use of someone else’s writing with some minor changes in the sentences and using it as one’s own.

Solution:

·      The key to successful paraphrasing is to use as few words as possible from the original text without changing the central idea. Then cite your paraphrase.

·      Remember 4 R's of Paraphrasing Strategy:.  Read, Restate, Recheck, and Repair 

·      For example, "The signal was red" might be paraphrased as "The train was not allowed to pass because the signal was red.” (Ram, 2020)

·      Some Paraphrasing Tools: Quillbot ((http://quillbot.com/)

 

Prepostseo (https://www.prepostseo.com/paraphrasing-tool)

Summary is a condensed version of the original text that highlights the main or key ideas in your own words.  So if you were going to summarize a chapter, it might be a page. If you were going to summarize a paragraph, it might be a couple of lines.

·      A summary contains only the ideas of the original text. Do not insert any of your own opinions, interpretations, deductions or comments into a summary.

·      Needs  citation.⁴

 

Penalties as per UGC Regulations:

Penalties in case of plagiarism in submission of thesis and dissertations

Institutional Academic Integrity Panel (IAIP) shall impose penalty considering the severity of the Plagiarism.

·      Level 0: Similarities up to 10% - Minor Similarities, no penalty.

·      Level 1: Similarities above 10% to 40% - Such student shall be asked to submit a revised script within a stipulated time period not exceeding 6 months.

·      Level 2: Similarities above 40% to 60% - Such student shall be debarred from submitting a revised script for a period of one year.

·      Level 3: Similarities above 60% -Such student registration for that programme shall be cancelled.

 

Penalties in case of plagiarism in academic and research publications.

·      Level 0: Similarities up to 10% - Minor similarities, no penalty.

·      Level 1: Similarities above 10% to 40%

i)    Shall be asked to withdraw manuscript.  

·      Level 2: Similarities above 40% to 60%

i)    Shall be asked to withdraw manuscript.

ii) Shall be denied a right to one annual increment.

iii) Shall not be allowed to be a supervisor to any new Master’s, M.Phil., Ph.D. Student/scholar for a period of two years.

·      Level 3: Similarities above 60%

i)    Shall be asked to withdraw manuscript.

ii) Shall be denied a right to two successive annual increments.

iii) Shall not be allowed to be a supervisor to any new Master’s, M.Phil., Ph.D. Student/scholar for a period of three years.

Software for plagiarism check:

·      URKUND,

·      Turnitin,

·      ithenticate

·      DrillBit

 

How to avoid plagiarism?

·      Reflect and Rethink on the work

·      Makes reading as a habit for deeper understanding

·      Acquired summarizing and paraphrasing as good academic practices

·      Writing 

·      Discover the way people talk, think and articulate in the subjects you are studying

·      Time management and academic discipline

 

REFERENCES:

1.     Chaddah P. Proposed Function of a University’s Plagiarism Cell. Current Science. 2014;7(1) pp. 927-928

2.     Lane L. Academic Writing Guide for Social Science Research. University of Gothenburg pp. 2-18

3.     Eckstein G. Perspectives on Plagiarism. Writing on the Edge. 2013; 23(2)

4.     Eberle M. E. Paraphrasing, plagiarism, and misrepresentation in scientific writing. Transactions of the Kansas Academy of Science.2013; 116 (3)

 

 

Received on 03.07.2022           Modified on 15.11.2022

Accepted on 18.03.2023          © A&V Publications all right reserved