Research Misconduct and Plagiarism

What is Research Misconduct?

Fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism in proposing, performing, or reviewing research or in reporting research results.

• Fabrication: Making up data or results and recording or reporting them.
• Falsification: Manipulating research materials, equipment, or processes; or changing or omitting data or results such that the research is not accurately represented in the research record.
• Plagiarism: The appropriation of another person's ideas, processes, results, or words without giving appropriate credit.

Note: Research misconduct does not include honest error or differences of opinion.

What do I do if I know about Research Misconduct?

All Ball State faculty, staff, and students have an obligation to report any Research Misconduct they know about. Research Misconduct can be reported to Stephanie Simon-Dack, our Research Integrity Officer (RIO), in person (WQ100D), over the phone (765-285-8856), or via e-mail (View Email).

You can also make an anonymous report via EthicsPoint.

Case Studies

Case Study Number One

Academic avoids jail after being found guilty of fraud for falsifying Parkinson's disease research to obtain $700,000 in research funding

Summary of misconduct

• P.I. falsified Parkinson's research to obtain a $700,000 research grant.
• Guilty of five charges of fraud and attempted fraud.
• Attempted to user others' research as her own for grants and fellowship.
• Was in a relationship with her superior who asked for the assistance.

Discussion

What implications does this have?

Case Study Number Two

Leading scientist suspended amid 'research misconduct' investigation

Summary of Misconduct

• P.I. is under investigation for falsifying data (using rotated and reflected images in his papers)
• Received about $12 million in funding for research of Cystic Fibrosis
• Collaborated with universities across the world that are now having their credibility questioned

Discussion

Are researchers basing new research off of these findings?

Ethical Writing

The Federal Office of Research Integrity (ORI) recognizes the importance of Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) training. The information provided will help explain the Office of Research Integrity's guideline and offer additional tips for ethical writing. The guideline offers writing best practices for Professionals and Students within this area. 

Many guides already exist that can help individuals with their writing. One guide is theIntroduction, Methods, Results and Discussion (IMRaD). Few, if any, exist that cover responsible writing. Responsible writing requires clear expression, conciseness, accuracy, and honesty. In most cases, good scientific ethical writing is missing one of the aspects of responsible writing. 

Written work includes an implicit contract between the Authors and Readers. Within the contract, the Reader assumes: work created is that of the author, if any material is borrowed form another text, it uses all established writing conventions to indicate borrowing, and all information presented is accurate to the best of the Authors' knowledge. Despite writing best practices, human errors do occur. Some of the biggest examples of human errors can be from copying and pasting another source. 

Text Recycling and Grant Writing

 Read the guidelines 

“Text recycling is the reuse of textual material (prose, visuals, or equations) in a new document where (1) the material in the new document is identical to that of the source (or substantively equivalent in both form and content), (2) the material is not presented in the new document as a quotation (via quotation marks or block indentation), and (3) at least one author of the new document is also an author of the prior document” (TRRP 2020)

Developmental Recycling

“The reuse of material from unpublished documents. This is common in research and generally considered acceptable.” 

“The reuse of portions of a previously published document in a new work that makes an original intellectual contribution clearly distinct from that of the source. Whether it is ethical or legal depends on the specifics of the case. 

“The republication of an entire document or of its central part(s), but modified to fit a different context. The new context may, for example, be different in the target audience (different language or expertise) or genre. Whether this is ethical or legal depends on obtaining publisher permission and transparency with editors and readers. 

“The publishing of a work that is the same in genre, content, and intended audience as a previously published source document. This is widely considered unethical; in most publishing situations it would be illegal as well—whether as copyright infringement or a violation of author-publisher agreements.” (updated January 2020), taken from textrecycling.org  

The National Science Foundation (NSF) found examples of text-recycling to occur 1%-1.5% in an internal study of received grants (Mervis 2013). In another study looking at 800,000 grant applications to 5 different agencies, 167 duplicates were found and potentially 12,441 pairs of grants contained some form of text recycling (Garner, Mclver and Waitzkin 2013).  

• Grant proposals are usually considered unpublished work and the researchers hold the copyrights in their work if it has not been published. Recycling in these cases has been both common and appropriate.   

• Text recycling from unfunded proposals to a new agency with a new grant is acceptable  

• Text recycling in funded grant application to a new or existing agency is generally acceptable as long as the main focus of the grant is different now, it is not looking to fund the exact same endeavor. Reusing some introductory and background literature material would be ok in these cases.   

• Text recycling in which you are restating your research question from previously published papers do not have to be re-written or put in quotes in these contexts.   

• Text recycling should be permitted in cases that need consistency in the language in order to make the most sense to readers. To describe methods, or statistics, these areas of a study may not have any changes although they are now used in a new study you are doing. In these cases, the changes may further alter the text in a way that can make it harder for readers to understand.   

• BE TRANSPARENT. If not sure, indicate with a footnote that this contains recycled material. If there are any problems with this submission, changes can be requested. This transparency can solve most if not all of the problems encountered in this field.  

• There are agency specific requirements (e.g. NIH). Find out if you are submitting a new grant or resubmission. Check for any other specific requirements regarding any resubmissions.  

• Cannot resubmit after a second time. But can resubmit same and recycled materials for a new NIH grant with a different focus in mind. 

Works Cited
1. Garner, H. R., McIver, L. J., & Waitzkin, M. B. (2013). Research funding: Same work, twice the money? Nature, 493, 599-601.  
2. Hall, S., Moskovitz, C., and Pemberton, M. 2021. Understanding Text Recycling: A Guide for Editors. Text Recycling Research Project. Online at textrecycling.org  
3. “Text Recycling: Best Practices for Researchers” by the Text Recycling Research Project is licensed under CC BY 4.0.  
4. This document is a modified version of “Text Recycling: Best Practices for Researchers” by the Text Recycling Research Project used under CC BY 4.0. Modifications were made to items [list numbers of items with changes].  
5. Mervis, J. (2013). NSF Audit of Successful Proposals Finds Numerous Cases of Alleged Plagiarism. ScienceInsider, March 8th, http://news.sciencemag.org/2013/03/nsf- auditsuccessful-proposals-finds-numerous-cases-alleged-plagiarism.  

Guidelines for writing 

• Avoid copy and pasting materials to a draft document with the intention of going back to rewrite.  

• Always highlight (or mark somehow) any text that is copy and pasted so you can come back to it and cite properly  

• Always acknowledge, cite, describe, contributions of others in your work as part of ethical writing.  

• Block text off if longer than 4 lines, no quotations.  

• If you are not sure what you are writing is common knowledge, provide a citation.  

• Some common knowledge is discipline specific. Can confer with us or colleagues when unsure.  

• Any words or phrases taken verbatim without any changes must be enclosed in quotation marks.  

• This must also include a citation next to it to show its origination.  

• Some examples of this include copying a portion of text from a source and then only changing or inserting select words, then continuing to not give credit and not enclose in citations.  

• Taking verbatim text and changing it should only include paraphrasing and summarizing. 

Paraphrasing Examples

Example 1

Because the intracellular concentration of potassium ions is _ high, potassium ions tend to diffuse out of the cell. This movement is triggered by the concentration gradient for potassium ions. Similarly, the concentration gradient for sodium ions tends to promote their movement into the cell. However, the cell membrane is much more permeable to potassium ions than to it is to sodium ions. As a result, potassium ions diffuse out of the cell more rapidly than sodium ions enter the cytoplasm. The cell therefore experiences a loss of positive charges, and as a result the interior of the cell membrane contains a surplus of negative charges, primarily from negatively charged proteins.1 (p. 204).

Incorrect

Example 2

A textbook of anatomy and physiology1 reports that the concentration of potassium ions inside of the cell is relatively high and, consequently, some potassium tends to escape out of the cell. Just the opposite occurs with sodium ions. Their concentration outside of the cell causes sodium ions to cross the membrane into the cell, but they do so at a slower rate. According to these authors, this is because the permeability of the cell membrane is such that it favors the movement of potassium relative to sodium ions. Because the rate of crossing for potassium ions that exit the cell is higher10 than that for sodium ions that enter the cell, the inside portion of the cell is left with an overload of negatively charged particles, namely, proteins that contain a negative charge.

Correct

Example 3

The concentration gradient for sodium (Na) ions tends to promote their movement into the cell. Similarly, the high intracellular concentration of potassium (K) ions is relatively high resulting in K’s tendency to diffuse out of the cell. Because the cell membrane is significantly more permeable to K than to Na, K diffuses out of the cell faster than Na enters the cytoplasm. The cell therefore experiences a net loss of positive charges and, as a result the interior of the cell membrane now has an excess of negative charges, primarily from negatively charged proteins.1 (p. 204).

Incorrect

Case Studies

You are a researcher beginning a sixth year as assistant professor. Your research is going well, you are publishing papers and winning grants. You expect to reach a promotion with no issues.

One afternoon, your graduate student approaches you with two papers written by a senior colleague in your department. This colleague is on your promotion and tenure review. Your graduate student shows you that there are two identical figures in two different papers. It looks like the same graph is being reported as two different experiments. After reviewing the data from each paper you agree that something is definitely wrong.

• Do you ask the senior colleague about the graphs?
• Ask your department chair?
• Report it to the office of research integrity?
• Encourage the graduate student to report?
• Wait until your promotion is settled?

Adapted from Chapter 2