Plagiarism Allegations Account for Most Retractions in Major Latin American/Caribbean Databases

Abstract

This study focuses on retraction notices from two major Latin American/Caribbean indexing databases: SciELO and LILACS. SciELO includes open scientific journals published mostly in Latin America/the Caribbean, from which 10 % are also indexed by Thomson Reuters Web of Knowledge Journal of Citation Reports (JCR). LILACS has a similar geographical coverage and includes dissertations and conference/symposia proceedings, but it is limited to publications in the health sciences. A search for retraction notices was performed in these two databases using the keywords "retracted", "retraction" "withdrawal", "withdrawn", "removed" and "redress". Documents were manually checked to identify those that actually referred to retractions, which were then analyzed and categorized according to the reasons alleged in the notices. Dates of publication/retraction and time to retraction were also recorded. Searching procedures were performed between June and December 2014. Thirty-one retraction notices were identified, fifteen of which were in JCR-indexed journals. "Plagiarism" was alleged in six retractions of this group. Among the non-JCR journals, retraction reasons were alleged in fourteen cases, twelve of which were attributed to "plagiarism". The proportion of retracted articles for the SciELO database was approximately 0.005 %. The reasons alleged in retraction notices may be used as signposts to inform discussions in Latin America on plagiarism and research integrity. At the international level, these results suggest that the correction of the literature is becoming global and is not limited to mainstream international publications.

A survey of retracted articles in dentistry

“…In the same vein, other studies have found that errors in reported research are a global issue [5, 13]. However, a survey of the general biomedical literature showed that the origin of the authors was related to the reason for retraction: the rates of retractions due to fraud was higher in the United States, German, Japan and China, whilst plagiarism was more common reason in India and China [5].…”

“…Previous studies investigating characteristics of retracted papers focused on general medicine [12, 13], mental disorders [14], pharmacology [15], radiology [16], and biomedical literature [17], as well as specific topics such as retraction differences across countries [18], scholarly literature in PubMed [10, 19, 20], and noncompliance with human rights in retracted medical papers [11]. However, specific studies about trends and factors associated with retractions in dentistry are still lacking [21].…”

“…Systematic identification and assessment of retracted papers in biomedical literature is important to provide information for researchers and readers on this relevant ethical issue, providing guidance and warning against major ethical lapses [22] by thoroughly exploring indexing databases in addition to the “mainstream international publications” [13]. Thus, the aim of this study was to investigate the occurrence of publication retractions in the dental literature and to assess the characteristics of the retracted papers surveyed.…”

Plagiarism in the Context of Education and Evolving Detection Strategies

“…Examining the motivation and context in such cases is critical for preventing misconduct in the future. Although the number of retractions due to plagiarism is not high (81 [1.6%] of documents in Scopus), the high prevalence of such cases in the medical literature, primarily affecting rapidly developing disciplines and emerging scientific powers, is worrying (67). …”

Plagiarism, Cheating and Research Integrity: Case Studies from a Masters Program in Peru

“…Discussing plagiarism in Latin America is an important issue, given the dramatic growth of research activities in the region in the last two decades (Van Noorden 2014; Catanzaro et al 2014). In particular, sporadic reports have highlighted the occurrence of plagiarism in research conducted in Latin America (Vasconcelos et al 2009; Alfaro-Tolosa et al 2013), and the reaction of scientific journals (Alfaro-Tolosa et al 2013; Almeida et al 2015). In addition, Latin American countries share many cultural features, arising from their common colonial history, that may affect how plagiarism and cheating are perceived (Martin 2012; Salter and Guffey 2001), including collectivism, high uncertainty avoidance, high power distance, high indulgence, and a short-term orientation (Hofstede 2011).…”