Volume 24 - Article 17 | Pages 407–407  

An editorial on plagiarism

By Nico Keilman, Andrew Hinde, Joshua R. Goldstein

Abstract

In January this year, we were confronted with a case of plagiarism. One paper that had been submitted last year by a certain person turned out to be written by three other persons. It was presented by the three true authors at a conference in 2010, where they distributed copies of their paper. One of the reviewers of the paper informed us about that fact. We asked the three authors for a copy, which turned out to be identical with the submission, except for a few minor details. When confronted with these facts, the person who had submitted the paper was unable to give us a satisfactory explanation.

This is a case of serious scientific misconduct. The editors and the publisher of Demographic Research cannot and will not accept any form of plagiarism. Nor will we accept any other form of misconduct in science, including fabrication, falsification, or other practices that seriously deviate from those that are commonly accepted within the scientific community for proposing, conducting, or reporting research. With Long et al. ("Responding to possible plagiarism", Science 6 March 2009), we are of the opinion that the responsibility for research integrity ultimately lies in the hands of the scientific community: educators, students, authors, and those who provide peer reviews. Journal editors must take appropriate action and verify the originality of suspected manuscripts. The Office of Research Integrity provides useful guidelines (http://ori.dhhs.gov/).

We have decided that any future submission to Demographic Research that lists the plagiarist as an author or co-author will be rejected automatically.

Author's Affiliation

Other articles by the same author/authors in Demographic Research

Berkeley Unified Numident Mortality Database: Public administrative records for individual-level mortality research
Volume 47 - Article 5

Editorial: The past, present, and future of Demographic Research
Volume 41 - Article 41

Mortality shifts and mortality compression in period and cohort life tables
Volume 41 - Article 40

The geography of changing fertility in Myanmar
Volume 41 - Article 2

On the pace of fertility decline in sub-Saharan Africa
Volume 37 - Article 40

Fertility Reactions to the "Great Recession" in Europe: Recent Evidence from Order-Specific Data
Volume 29 - Article 4

Probabilistic household forecasts based on register data- the case of Denmark and Finland
Volume 28 - Article 43

Historical Addendum to "Life lived equals life left in stationary populations"
Volume 26 - Article 7

Keeping a learned society young
Volume 20 - Article 22

Unusually small sex differentials in mortality of Israeli Jews: What does the structure of causes of death tell us?
Volume 20 - Article 11

Life lived equals life left in stationary populations
Volume 20 - Article 2

Formal Relationships: Introduction and Orientation
Volume 20 - Article 1

Fertility and union dissolution in Brazil: an example of multi-process modelling using the Demographic and Health Survey calendar data
Volume 17 - Article 7

The proximate determinants of fertility and birth intervals in Egypt: An application of calendar data
Volume 16 - Article 3

Found in translation?: A cohort perspective on tempo-adjusted life expectancy
Volume 14 - Article 5

Why population forecasts should be probabilistic - illustrated by the case of Norway
Volume 6 - Article 15