Thousands of papers misidentify microscopes, in possible sign of misconduct
A study found 28% of SEM-related research papers misidentify microscopes, suggesting misconduct and oversight issues. Identical errors indicate text reuse, highlighting the need for improved academic integrity and journal practices.
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A recent study has revealed that approximately 28% of research papers involving scanning electron microscopy (SEM) misidentify the specific microscope used, raising concerns about potential misconduct in scientific research. The analysis, which examined over one million studies published in materials science and engineering journals since 2010, found that 2,400 papers incorrectly listed the microscope manufacturer or model. Researchers noted that many of these errors appeared to stem from a pattern of reusing text across multiple papers, suggesting a lack of attention to detail or possible involvement of paper mills that produce low-quality or fraudulent research. The study's coauthor, Reese Richardson, highlighted that some papers contained identical mistakes in microscope descriptions, indicating that they may have been generated without proper oversight. While some misidentifications could be attributed to researchers mistakenly naming the wrong instrument, the prevalence of these errors points to a broader issue of academic integrity. The study also noted that journals have a role in ensuring the inclusion of complete image metadata, which is often omitted in published papers. Overall, the findings underscore the need for improved scrutiny of scientific publications to maintain research quality and integrity.
- 28% of SEM-related papers misidentify the microscope used.
- Many errors suggest possible involvement of paper mills or lack of oversight.
- Identical mistakes across different papers indicate potential text reuse.
- Journals need to ensure complete image metadata is included in publications.
- The study raises broader concerns about academic integrity in scientific research.
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Thousands of papers misidentify microscopes, in possible sign of misconduct
A study found 28% of SEM-related research papers misidentify microscopes, raising concerns about academic integrity due to potential text reuse and involvement of paper mills, highlighting the need for better documentation.
5 comments2,400 out of "more than 1 million" is a much smaller fraction than 2,400 out of 8,515. Could there be an explanation along the lines of "neglecting to strip SEM instrument captions strongly correlates with quality issues elsewhere"? Is it a social norm to remove these metadata captions from images before publishing them in journals? I'd suspect something like that, since >99% of these >1 million papers did just that.
A grad student who is n-th author on the paper copied and pasted the instrument name from a previous paper, because (a) that paper used photos from the same SEM, (b) the grad student has never seen the SEM, (c) the name and model number of the SEM doesn't actually matter (gasp!) it's more included for tradition than anything else because the contents of the image are what matters - no one who tries to replicate the experiment in a lab will care what SEM model was used, they'll use the SEM they have at their own lab, period.
Of course copy-and-paste damage happens in an area that no one but this "researcher" cares about or bothers to read.
This is about turning data mining into drama factories, nothing more.
this is just the tip of the iceberg in the wonderful world of scientific papers
I love retraction watch
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Thousands of papers misidentify microscopes, in possible sign of misconduct
A study found 28% of SEM-related research papers misidentify microscopes, raising concerns about academic integrity due to potential text reuse and involvement of paper mills, highlighting the need for better documentation.