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International Journal of Research Method in Education

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Will the real author come forward? Questions of ethics, plagiarism, theft

and collusion in academic research writing

Pat Sikes

To cite this ArticleSikes, Pat(2009) 'Will the real author come forward? Questions of ethics, plagiarism, theft and collusionin academic research writing', International Journal of Research & Method in Education, 32: 1, 13 24

To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/17437270902749247

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International Journal of Research & Method in Education

Vol. 32, No. 1, April 2009, 1324

ISSN 1743-727X print/ISSN 1743-7288 online

2009 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/17437270902749247

http://www.informaworld.com

Will the real author come forward? Questions of ethics, plagiarism,theft and collusion in academic research writing

Pat Sikes*

School of Education, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

TaylorandFrancisCWSE_A_375094.sgm

(Received March 2008; final version received December 2008)10.1080/17437270902749247InternationalJournalof ResearchandMethodin Education1743-727X (print)/1743-7288 (online)Original Article2009Taylor&Francis3210000002009Professor [email protected]

This paper raises some questions about academic authorial honesty under theheadings of Plagiarism (including self-plagiarism), Theft, and Collusion.Compared with the medical sciences, the social sciences in general and educationspecifically, lag behind in terms of critical attention being paid to the problem of

plagiarism, the peer review process and academic authorial ethics. The ubiquity ofthe Internet, the ever intensifying demand to publish or perish, and maybe, ageneral shift in perceptions of what constitutes bad plagiarism and collusionwhich challenge traditional notions of what constitutes authorial honesty, meanthat the time may be ripe for a consideration by academic writers and journaleditors of how they regard and deal with the whole area. This paper makes an earlycontribution to the discussion.

Keywords: research ethics; plagiarism; academic writing; authorial honesty; peerreview

Do you trust me? OR Should you trust me? OR What this paper is about

Do you know who wrote this paper? How do you know? Well, the name of the author

my name is an obvious clue. How important is it to you to know that I, Pat Sikes,wrote this piece? The people who reviewed it didnt know and they, and I, would prob-

ably have felt compromised if they had. Within academia we do tend to take the existence

and the value of anonymous peer reviewing with all of its acknowledged faults for

granted (Macnab and Thomas 2007). However, as Richard Smith writing in theBritish

Medical Journal, has pointed out, this is a practice based on custom not evidence (1999,4) and not that long a custom either, since research suggests that reviewing in general

and anonymous reviewing in particular only began to be used in a systematic fashionaround the time of the Second World War (Brock and Meadows 1998; Madden 2000).

Even so, although there are a few journals which dont use anonymity on the groundsthat transparency can lead to greater honesty and better, more critically constructive

reviews, the majority do on the basis of the belief that it best produces those outcomes.

Questions of the desirability of anonymity in reviewing aside, when the name of

an author is given, I assume that that person has written the text its affixed to. Even

if/when I am familiar with someones work and then read a piece which is markedlyout of character, I dont tend to question that they wrote it. I just think well, thats a

surprise, what a change from their usual stuff. An informal survey undertaken in the

*Email: [email protected]


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14 P. Sikes

common room of my institution reveals that most people share my position. But are

we right to always be so trusting?In this paper, I want to raise some difficult and uncomfortable questions about

academic authorial honesty (airing potentially dirty linen maybe?). The impetus for

writing it came from my experience of anonymously peer reviewing a paper that

considered writing styles and which highlighted major stylistic discrepancies in a

particular book. I knew a story about this text which cast doubts on it being a soleauthored work, although authorship was attributed to only one person, and that got me

to thinking more broadly about other matters. Thus, what follows is primarily

intended as a provocative think piece for me as writer and for you as reader. What

I have to say isnt based on systematic research but rather draws on numerous conver-sations with fellow academics as well as on close to 30 years of personal experience

of working in universities. Indeed, given the sub rosanature of the subject matter, it

is difficult to gain hard evidence about the extent or the specific nature of the sorts of

incidents I will describe. I am confident, nonetheless, that readers with similar back-

grounds to mine will recognize what I am talking about.So, here, I am going to look at some related issues under the headings of Plagiarism,

Theft and Collusion, before going on to raise some general questions about ethics and

academic research writing. My particular interest and focus is on research in the field of

education but, owing to the paucity of literature dealing with these topics in this area, Iwill be drawing on references from other disciplines and particularly from medicine.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is passing off others work, words or ideas as ones own by failing to

attribute them to their creator/originator and it is, perhaps, the commonest type ofauthorial offence. Although it can occur accidentally or because of negligence or

misunderstanding of citation conventions, dictionaries generally define plagiarism in

negative terms, using words such as unacceptable, unauthorized, theft and crime andeven if it is not explicitly stated, there seems to be an assumption that the appropria-

tion is deliberately and consciously fraudulent and is intended to deceive. Intention is

generally not easy to prove but, nevertheless and in this paper, my concern is with

instances of plagiarism where the person who does not acknowledge original sources

knows full well what they are doing and aims to mislead readers into thinking thework is all their own. I am not, therefore, talking about the sorts of creative borrowing,

collaging and re-mixing that, as Jonathan Lethem (2007) points out, have played acrucial and enriching role in music, literature and the arts in general. Nor am I refer-

ring to the ways in which researchers and academics build on extant knowledge todevelop new understandings. No. Im talking about the active use of unfair means in

order to achieve an outcome. This could also be described as cheating.

In this section, I am going to consider plagiarism and students; plagiarism and

academics; and also, what is often described as self-plagiarism, which is different in

that it doesnt involve another persons words and work but which can, nonetheless,be undertaken for similar fraudulent purposes.

Plagiarism and students

It may seem slightly odd to give attention to students here when my primary focus is

on academic publications but the reason why Im doing so is that students are major


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International Journal of Research & Method in Education 15

producers of academic writing: writing which, moreover, results in the qualifications

that enable them to become the academics of tomorrow. The attitudes and behavioursthat they adopt whilst students may, consequently, have some bearing on future norms

and practices within academia. Indeed, there are some grounds for this sort of normal-

ization argument in that it has been widely suggested that plagiarism within universi-

ties has its roots in students becoming used to the practice whilst they were pupils in

school. And it is certainly the case that plagiarism does appear to be on the increasewith 77% of the 500 plus UK academics who responded to a Times Higher Education

Supplement (THES) online poll saying that they saw plagiarism by students to be a

growing problem (Gill 2008, see also Park 2003) whilst a Higher Education Academy

and Joint Information Systems Committee report published in May 2008 (Tennant andDuggan 2008) states that in a survey of 93 UK higher education institutions, a total of

9229 cases of student plagiarism were recorded in one year.1These figures tell us

nothing about whether or not this is a higher incidence than in the past because there

are no figures for comparison: which in itself is significant. However, inter alia, the

growing frequency with which plagiarism seems to be being discussed in publicationslike the THESand the inauguration in 2004 of a biannual International Conference on

Plagiarism (http://www.plagiarismconference.com) contribute to the mounting

evidence that student cheating in general, and plagiarism in particular are becoming

more common and more widespread, encouraging Alschuler and Blimling (1995) tospeak of epidemic cheating (Park 2003, 471).

When I was a student, back in the mid-1970s, I saw plagiarism in much the same

light as torturing babies. That is, as a shocking, heinous, monstrous thing that a very

small number of wicked people did. Yes, I was nave and well-indoctrinated with

Catholic guilt too. I honestly never contemplated doing it and indeed, if I had, I

suspect that the effort required to track down sources within texts would have beenas great as writing the piece myself in the first place. I also attended a small teach-

ers training college so plagiarizing fellow, or even previous, students essays was a

bit of a non-starter because the same lecturer would be likely to mark, or to havemarked in the past, anything anyone might copy. I suppose that it is possible that

some students did pass off un-attributed quotes as their own and there may even

have been those who submitted work done by friends attending other institutions but

no cases ever came to light and I doubt that many occurred. The shame and disgrace

that would have been heaped on an offender would have warranted migration to theother side of the world. Things may have been different in other institutions or

amongst students in other fields but I have been unable to find any evidence tosuggest that plagiarism by students was seen as a significant problem in any quarters

at this time.Working in universities throughout the 1980s and 1990s I never, knowingly,

encountered any instances of plagiarism. Having said this, the large cohorts I was

concerned with would have made detection difficult (in those pre-plagiarism detection

software days) but even so, our elaborate systems of double marking would have been

likely to have turned up some cases, had there been much within-institution studentcopying going on. Of course, there was scope for failing to declare sources, but the

nature of the assignments set and the level of knowledge that tutors had of the relevant

content areas and associated texts meant that this was limited.

It wasnt until 2002 that I first knowingly encountered plagiarism when, within aweek, I read a book and then a masters dissertation which repeated the selfsame un-

attributed text word for word. Since then, I have, personally, come across five more


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16 P. Sikes

cases. Some people may consider this low, but my present institution only teaches

postgraduate courses and I myself, like the majority of my colleagues, only work withdoctoral, and masters, level students. I do not, therefore, come into contact with the

same sorts of numbers that are involved in most undergraduate courses. The greater

part of the work that my students do is around their own research in fields that I

know at least a little about and where I have some familiarity with the literature. In

addition, the close and personal nature of the supervisory relationship makes attempt-ing to plagiarize a more tricky business although not, of course, impossible. As a

department, we do use software that detects when students have taken material from

electronic sources and which can indicate significant discrepancies in writing style.

This has revealed a low, but none the less existing, level of plagiarism in relation tothe assignment components of courses, despite all of our attempts, through hand-

books, guidance notes and teaching sessions both to make it clear what plagiarism is,

and to spell out what the consequences of indulging in it are (see Brown and Howell

2001 on the (in)efficacy of such approaches). We havent (re)introduced exams under

traditional conditions of surveillance, which is the strategy that some courses haveadopted, although it has been discussed as a last resort possibility, were incidence of

plagiarism to rise even further.

Inevitably, the growth of the Internet bears a large part of the blame for much of

the increase because it makes plagiarism so easy (see Ashworth, Bannister, andThorne 1997; Park 2003; Roberts 2008), and not just through the straightforward

cutting and pasting of sections of writing. Now, as techniques for detection of such

cheating make it a risky option, there is evidence to show a rise in the numbers of web-

based advertisements for organizations and individuals who will, for a fee, write

bespoke essays and dissertations at all levels (Lancaster and Clarke 2008). Whilst

some might prefer to define the use of such services as straightforward cheating, it canbe considered plagiarism in that it involves claiming to be the author of words that

other people have actually written.

To check out the extent to which this sort of thing might be going on I did a Googlesearch, using the words, buy an essay which yielded 842,000 references. The first

mentioned agency, Oxbridge Essays Advice, proudly declared it was:

The UKs first and only provider of 1st Class and 2:1 essays and dissertations custom-edited by 1000+ experts from Oxford University and Cambridge University. We alsocustom-edit PhD theses, Masters dissertations and undergraduate essays. (http://www.oxbridgeessaysadvice.com/?gclid=CPjKw7O9gpICFQ6jQwod13IQ-Q)

Masterpapers (http://www.masterpapers.com/prices.php) in second position, andsomewhat less discreetly, provided sample prices with sliding scales for urgency and

a discount rate for frequent users. Here I learned that a 6000 word Masters level essay

would cost 307.94 if ordered 14 days in advance, rising to 541.15 if delivered

within 24 hours. I was not entirely surprised by this because, recently, a friend of mine

inadvertently and briefly became an employee of such a company when she appliedfor a job, advertised in The Guardian, as a researcher. She was asked to send in two

pieces of her academic research writing together with a scanned copy of her degree

certificate. Having done this she was informed all via email that she had got the

job and that rates of pay were 80 per 2000 words of 2:1 standard academic writing.Quicker delivery times would levy fees of up to 160 per 2000 words and higher stan-

dard work of up to 320 per 2000 words (private email, 2008). Recognizing what she


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had got herself into she immediately wrote back and said she was not prepared to work

as a cheat and just as promptly was informed that she was sacked. Clearly though, notevery one takes the same position as Nicky did and this means that some of us may,

on occasion, be reading and assessing work produced by someone other than the

person whose name or identification number is on it. Furthermore, we may be being

duped by fellow academics who are working for these agencies (although it is hard to

imagine how anyone currently employed in higher education would be able to find thetime to moonlight in this way).

Again, these outfits are not new: I remember being shocked and appalled over

30 years ago on hearing that a friend of a friend, a woman who had a brilliant PhD but

no job and a baby to support on her own, was doing such work. Rather, it is the easeof access to them courtesy of the internet that has changed things, as well as the

growth in the market for such services. Nowadays far more people are in higher

education, at all levels from bachelor through to doctorate. Undoubtedly too, more is

at stake for a greater number of folk, since credentialism and qualification inflation

and the associated consequences of widening participation in higher education tend tomake it increasingly important to possess better and higher degrees. These factors give

rise to demand that some are ready to satisfy.

And maybe as well, there has been a shift in moral and other values resulting in

different perceptions of what is acceptable. This supposition is given some supportthrough the findings of studies (e.g. Ashworth, Bannister, and Thorne 1997; Sheard

et al. 2002; Briggs 2003; Park 2003; Smith and Ridgway 2008) which have sought to

investigate students perceptions and understandings of cheating and plagiarism.

These various projects have found: that there are multiple and complex reasons as to

why students plagiarize; that it is a mistake to suppose that the meaning of plagia-

rism is unequivocal; that different cultural groups take a very different perspectiveon using other peoples work without attribution, sometimes seeing this as a respect-

ful thing to do; that some instances of plagiarism are viewed as being more serious

than others; that students do not expect to be caught; that students will often justifyand rationalize the plagiaristic activities of themselves and their friends; that help-

ing friends pass assignments is seen as honourable and ethically acceptable if not

actually, commendable; that there is considerable uncertainty about what constitutes

plagiarism; and that students often consider the punitive action taken when plagia-

rism is detected, as excessively severe. We cannot know whether or not such find-ings would have been obtained were similar studies to have been conducted back in

the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s and given the relatively small numbers of students inhigher education in those days, the grounds for comparison would be limited.

However, my gut reaction is that a more straightforward, clear cut and shared notionof what was right and acceptable practice would have been expressed, even if this

did not accurately represent personal experience and belief or the incidence of

plagiarism either.

Plagiarism and academics

The studies quoted above revealed confusion about what plagiarism actually consists

of and my own experience is also that some students do appear to have genuine diffi-

culties understanding what is involved, even after detailed explanation. Academics,however, do not really have credible recourse to the same excuse. Nevertheless, every

so often a high-profile case hits the headlines, plagiarism is revealed and someone is


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18 P. Sikes

disgraced and suspended or sacked (e.g. see the case of a dean of a prestigious busi-

ness school reported in Tahir 2008; and the story of the celebrity psychiatrist, RajPersaud, in Jenkins 2008). Each person who plagiarizes no doubt has their own,

specific reasons for why they do it, but it seems reasonable to assume that wanting to

get on and to advance career and reputation, lack of faith in ones own ability, and

some confidence that they will get away with it usually play a part. Plagiarism by

academics of other academics writing seems a much more chancy business than it isfor students though. This is because the probability of detection is so much greater

given that peers interested in a particular field are likely to read much of the

published work connected with it and hence will be in a good position to spot

offences. Many ills are already blamed on the Research Assessment Exercise (e.g.Sparkes 2007), but in the UK and other countries which use similar publications-

based systems of rating and funding of higher education, the pressure they place on

academics to produce papers and books could well lead some people to take short-

cuts and to plagiarize. Criteria for tenure and promotion can also have the same

consequences.Stories go the rounds about academics who plagiarize or steal the work of

research assistants, junior colleagues and students either outright or more subtly by

claiming co-authorship. Conversations with older academics suggest that, in the past

and particularly in the natural, physical and medical sciences, this sort of thing wasconsidered to be normal and was seen, in some laboratories, as part of the appren-

ticeship process rather than as nefarious practice. Understandings and conventions

regarding what is meant by where names are placed when there are multiple authors,

can also come in to play here but coming second to a well-known name is certainly

preferable to not being acknowledged at all.

Ironically perhaps, given its supposed role in upholding standards, the anonymouspeer reviewing process can itself provide plagiarizing opportunities. This is because

unscrupulous individuals can take ideas and also sections of writing from papers they

have been asked to review and then pass them off as their own. Furthermore, theycan advise that editors reject the paper they came from, thus further clearing the

decks for themselves. As there is a time lag between submission and publication, and

because the original author may not read the journal in which the plagiarized piece

appears, the chances of detection of this type of theft are low. And having identified

a potential incident, proving it is likely to be a protracted and extremely difficultprocess. Something of this nature happened to a friend of mine who, a number of

years ago and at the start of his career, submitted a paper to a leading journal. Majorrevisions were recommended but because other projects were pressing, my friend did

not have the time required for reworking. A couple of years later, he was surprised toread a very slightly altered version of the paper in another publication. Because the

greater part of the piece was word for word what he had written nearly three years

previously, there seemed little chance that this was co-incidental. At the time he

chose to do nothing, taking comfort in the moral high ground. Looking back,

however, he realized that he probably should have written to the editor of the journalhe had originally sent his paper to, enclosing copies both of that paper and of the

recently published one, highlighting the plagiarized sections and asking who had

been the reviewer.

The whole issue of plagiarism is complicated by the way in which we unwittinglyquote others all the time in our speaking and writing (anonymous reviewers

comment) because we like the work that particular words and phrases do and


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consequently incorporate them in our own vocabularies. Then there is the possibility

of simultaneous discovery, that is, when two or more people come up with the sameidea and/or way of expressing it at the same time. This happens in all areas of

academia and there have been literary cases too. Academic work is social work

conducted within communities, it is subject to zeitgeist and the influence of fashion

and perhaps the wonder is really that there are relatively few instances where there is

conflict about original generation, origin and re-presentation. Nowadays, intellectualproperty and copyright legislation are there to register and protect ownership but for

most academics and particularly, perhaps, for those working in the social sciences and

the arts and humanities, these sorts of protection come in to play quite a way down the

line. For instance, people may write a number of drafts which may be presented atconferences or in teaching sessions before they finally publish and each stage offers

opportunities for appropriation. In any case, in such instances, proving deliberate

plagiarism undertaken with a view to deceive is by no means easy as the collapse of

legal challenges against authors like Dan Brown, Ian McEwan and Thomas Keneally

demonstrate.

Self-plagiarism

Self-plagiarism can seem to be an offence of quite another order to that committed

when passing off somebody elses words as ones own. After all, reworking anddeveloping ideas plays an important part both in the advancement of knowledge and

in the construction of an academic career. Many people have re-crafted their doctoral

theses as books, chapters in edited collections and papers for journals. In addition,

established academics and specialists in particular areas are often asked to write on

their field, and, over the years, it can become difficult to say things in a significantlydifferent and innovative fashion. Then there are times when the same content needs

either to be presented in different ways or in different places in order to make it acces-

sible to different audiences. However, these sorts of expert comment, incremental

development and stylistic tailoring are substantially different from people reproducingand republishing their own work either in entirety or in substantial sections without

acknowledging its original appearance. Most, if not all, journals state that papers must

not be simultaneously submitted elsewhere, and permissions have to be obtained for

reproductions in other texts and forms since without these copyright laws can beviolated. (The whole area of copyright and who it serves is complex and I have chosen

not to discuss it further here.)Once again, it is probably fair to say that it is the pressure to publish that is one of

the key influences that can lead people to indulge in dubious practices such as:

textual re-use; multiple publication; redundant publication; dual publication; duplicatepublication; re-using text from previous published papers; fragmented publication;salami-slicing (data fragmentation); chain of textual re-use self-plagiarism (piecingtogether 10% or more of any one previously published paper to create an original

paper). (Bretag and Carapiet 2008, slide 19)

but, breaking copyright laws aside, does it matter if people self-plagiarize?

Leila Green (2005) suggests that it does because it:

is detrimental to scientific progress and bad for our academic community. Floodingconferences and journals with near-identical papers makes searching for information


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20 P. Sikes

relevant to a particular topic harder than it has to be. It also rewards those authors whoare able to break down their results into overlapping least-publishable-unitsover thosewho publish each result only once. Finally, whenever a self-plagiarised paper is allowedto be published, another, more deserving paper, is not.

By preferring the term recycling fraud, and likening the offence to the sort ofdeception used by a used car dealer who changes a cars mileage counter to make it

appear to be far less used, Irving Hexham (2005) casts self-plagiarism in quite a

serious, and an illegal, light. Whilst acknowledging most writers do some legitimate

recycling, Hexham focuses on the attempt to deceive which:

happens when no indication is given that the work is being recycled and an effort is madeto disguise the original text. The issue is one of the extent of the deception. Disguising atext occurs when an author makes cosmetic changes that cause the same article, chapter,or book to look significantly different when in reality it actually remains unchanged inmost of its wording and its central argument. Changing such things as paragraph breaks,

capitalization, or the substitution of technical terms using different languages that leadsreaders to believe they are reading something completely new is recycling fraud whensuch changes are the only ones an author makes to a text.

Many academics reading about self-plagiarism may find themselves feeling a tad

uncomfortable. It is easy to find oneself re-using phrases and even paragraphs which

we may feel are especially eloquent, in subsequent texts without citing their original

placement. If the recycled sections are short then that may be acceptable. However,consider the following:

A pilot study by Tracey Bretag and Saadia Carapiet from the University of South Australia

found that 60 per cent of authors in a random sample of 269 papers from the Web ofScience social science and humanities database had self-plagiarised at least once in the

period 200306. Self-plagiarism was defined quite generously as occurring when 10 percent or more text from any single previous publication was reused without a citation.

The truth is that if these authors had self-cited in each case, it is unlikely that the editorswould have published their work because they would have seen that it had all been

published before, Dr Bretag said. (Attwood 2008)

On the basis of Bretag and Carapiets (2008) study, self-plagiarism would seem to be

common practice. And furthermore and when it comes to books, what of the case of

second, third and so on, editions of what is essentially the same text? It may feel good

to have achieved the sorts of sales which make a new version possible but often anychanges that are made are really very minor. Then there is the rise in collections of

previously published papers. Given that these works usually go under a new and over-

arching title, they can offer scope for substantial double counting and for boosting/

padding CVs at the cost of minimal effort.

Theft

Plagiarism, as I have been using the term, is clearly a form of theft in that it involves

stealing other peoples words and ideas. Throughout this paper, I have been talking

about the ways in which the Internet makes it possible for people to cut or rather,take an exact copy of words from one piece of writing and paste them into another

place. In days gone by, when people wrote with pens on paper, one would occasionally


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hear of the physical theft of work, of filing cabinets being broken into or of papers

being taken from desks. These stories often concluded with the appearance, some timein the future, of an academic work appearing under the chief suspects name, which

contained remarkably similar ideas and or, sections of writing very like those

purported to be in the stolen document. Making copies of work, however easy the

current technology makes this, is something that people are often lax about but in pen

and paper days it was definitely so complicated as to be almost unheard of, thus proofthat work had been stolen was likely to be lacking. Nor would it usually be easy to

interest the police in investigating such an alleged crime. In mentioning physical theft,

rare though I suspect it is and has been, my intention is simply to indicate that some

people will go to desperate lengths and that academic dishonesty occurs in the realworld and not just in Inspector Morses Oxford.

Collusion

As I have said, I was prompted to write this paper having been reminded of an inci-dent of academic collusion over the writing of a book. That case came about because

someone decided to help a colleague who had got themselves into a mess and was not

able to meet final deadlines. Had the book in question not been produced, the conse-

quences would have been serious and could even have resulted in dismissal. In similarvein, I have also heard tales of senior staff writing papers which were then published

under the name of junior colleagues, the aim being to produce a stronger CV and

hence jobs and/or promotion. And then there is the work that supervisors may do to

bring their students theses up to scratch. These activities could all be described as

collusion.

The studies of attitudes towards cheating and plagiarism which were referencedearlier (Ashworth, Bannister, and Thorne 1997; Park 2003) found that some students

saw collusion as honourable and in terms of being loyal to, and supportive of, friends

and hence as being ethically and morally justifiable. No doubt academics colludingwith students or colleagues would say the same. The point can be seen but neverthe-

less, deception and dishonesty are involved and people get qualifications, certifica-

tion, critical acclaim, promotion, continued employment or whatever, on false

pretences and on the basis of some other persons work. It is not just an issue of altru-

ism and even though there may be unique and even extenuating circumstances, thecheat and fraud have still, strictly speaking, been perpetrated.

Discussion

When I first began to work on this paper, in March 2008, my literature searches turned

up numerous references to university students and school children and plagiarism,

with many of the articles, papers or reports dealing specifically with IT- and

computer-related subjects or business studies. When I turned my attention to focus on

academics and plagiarism, the peer review process and academic authorial ethics moregenerally, the overwhelming majority of publications were in the fields of medicine

and medical sciences (as Macnab and Thomas 2007 have also noted). And there were

a lot of them.

My search also turned up organizations concerned with helping journaleditors uphold ethical standards in the conduct and publication of bio-medical research

and scholarly papers such as the World Association of Medical Editors (http://


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22 P. Sikes

www.wame.org/), The Office of Research Integrity (http://ori.dhhs.gov/) and the

Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) (http://www.publicationethics.org.uk/).Members of these associations could seek advice and view and contribute case studies

on various types of plagiarism, fabrication, publication frauds and issues relating to

peer review. I could find nothing comparable in the field of education specifically or

the social sciences more generally and that is why so much of what I have had to say

in this paper has been anecdotal. However, since March, four major journal publishinghouses (including Taylor and Francis, publishers of this journal) have joined COPE,

enabling all of their respective journal editors to make use of its guidelines, and access

its services and database. Around 5300 editors representing a wide range of disciplines

now belong to this organization alone (http://www.publicationethics.org.uk/). Andthey belong because, as the Senior Vice-President of Wiley-Blackwell said: Instances

of plagiarism, false authorship, and unethical publishing behaviour are now, unfortu-

nately, becoming more frequent (see http://www.publicationethics.org.uk/).

Within educational research, questions of truth and lies have tended to focus on

informants and what they tell to researchers, although even with regard to this area,little attention has been paid to what authors should do if they uncover deception

(Sikes 2000, is an exception). Compared with the medical sciences, we do seem to be

somewhat lagging behind, not least with regard to detection of dishonesty and promo-

tion of integrity in writing but also in terms of actively working to make the peerreview process as effective as it could be. I recall receiving my first paper to review

and being extremely nervous about how to go about the job: I only really had the

reviews I had had of my own papers to go on. This is not unusual. A journal editor

once told me a story about being horrified by the vicious and unconstructive

comments that a reviewer wrote. These were so unpleasant that the editor decided to

speak to the person who had written them. She then told him that shed done it likethat because, on the basis of her own experience of being on the receiving end, she

thought this was what was required. There clearly is a need for education here and one

that is beginning to be addressed through, for example, workshops at the BritishEducation Research Associationconference.

Human nature being as it seems to be, all editors of academic publications need

to actively attend to authorial honesty if their journals and publishing houses are to

be able to claim that they are maintaining the highest academic standards and that

their endeavours support the quest for advancing knowledge. The ubiquity of theInternet, the ever-intensifying demand to publish or perish, and maybe, a general

shift in perceptions of what constitutes bad plagiarism and collusion which chal-lenge traditional notions of what constitutes authorial honesty, mean that the time

may be ripe for a consideration by academic writers and journal editors of how theyregard and deal with the whole area. As Macnab and Thomas note, at the present

time the education community has no formal procedures for dealing with

misconduct (2007, 341). Given the significant role that journal editors do appear to

play in shaping fields of study (Wellington and Nixon 2005), they would seem to

have considerable responsibility for developing some. Maybe membership of COPEwill help.

Finally, I want to return to the questions which I posed at the start of this piece:

Do you know who wrote this paper? How do you know? Well: I can only promise you

that I did; that I have had no reason in this instance to disguise my identity; that it isall my own work; and that it has not appeared in any other publication. This is what I

expect when I read work which does not make it clear that other circumstances pertain


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(e.g. statements to the effect that a similar version of the piece has been published

elsewhere). Its important too, for me to be able to trust authors if I am going to makeuse of, refer to, or quote from, their work in my own writing. I dont like to be fooled

and I dont think many of us do.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the two reviewers whose comments on an earlier version have led towhat I believe is a better paper. As one of them wrote: there is also the interesting case ofinternational students being helped with their English byfellow students going through theirwork improving their English but perhaps in the process improving the quality of theirargument. This is sometimes done by fellow academics in relation to articles to be submittedfor publication (2008, anon). Indeed. Thank you.

Note

1. These figures tell us nothing about the intentions of the reported plagiarizers and conse-quently will probably include people who made genuine mistakes as well as those whointended to deceive.

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