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1/ I reached a new academic milestone last week when I read a published journal article about firearm suicide and realized it was my and my colleague's writing!
Except that the authors on the paper were these two other guys we don't know....
Except that the authors on the paper were these two other guys we don't know....
2/ One was the editor who had solicited a piece from us (I had written something for him before); the other was a retired judge with not a publication to his name. We'd submitted a draft to the editor, then done a few rounds of revisions, but eventually pulled the paper...
3/ ...because it became clear that he had very little knowledge of the subject matter (firearm suicide) and either wanted us to say things that weren't accurate, or made suggestions that we couldn't interpret at all.
4/ The published version was OUR case vignette, OUR epi section, OUR clinical interventions, OUR tips on how to counsel patients, and OUR bibliography, then some weird, unscientific section at the end about psychotherapizing the violence right out of people (NOT ours).
5/ About 40% of it was verbatim from our draft, and 30% was 7th grade level plagiarism: change "big" to "large", "almost half" to "48%", rearrange some clauses.
You would seriously be kicked out of middle school for this; it was not subtle. By the MANAGING EDITOR OF THE JOURNAL
You would seriously be kicked out of middle school for this; it was not subtle. By the MANAGING EDITOR OF THE JOURNAL
6/ Here's a pic of our draft where I started highlighting in yellow for exact text and blue for pretty darn close to ours. I quit after the second page. Most of the white is info from our references, but slightly reworded.
7/ My colleague and I are both female; she is young and I'm... sub-elderly. I can imagine this old white guy, who has been an editor at major psychological journals for decades, is just used to nice young women doing his work for him with no expectation of credit.
8/ But get this...HE SENT US THE PAPER! With an email saying, "thought you two might be interested to see what we came up with"!
(narrator: they were VERY interested)
(narrator: they were VERY interested)
9/ When I contacted the Editor in Chief and showed the extent of the plagiarism, he said he needed to hear "the other side of the story" before making any decisions. Then he waited a week to respond, didn't apologize, and offered us co-authorship.
10/ When I said I'd be reaching out to Springer about it, he requested that we not involve "external parties", so it didn't complicate things for me and my colleague.
Because, of course, issues of plagiarism by the managing editor of a journal would be best handled internally.
Because, of course, issues of plagiarism by the managing editor of a journal would be best handled internally.
11/ Here's the email I sent him in response to his offer for co-authorship with two guys who don't know what they're talking about - because we are nationally recognized experts, not unpaid secretaries.
12/I'm curious if anyone else has had this kind of experience of something so egregious....especially if it was with a certain editor of prominent psychology journals....
OK this thread really blew up and I'm grateful for all the support in comments and DMs, and sorry to hear from so many others who've experience similar.
But please don't dox these guys! I don't know the distribution of responsibility between them, nor how it happened....
But please don't dox these guys! I don't know the distribution of responsibility between them, nor how it happened....
...retraction is in progress, Springer is aware, I'm working with an attorney, appropriate legal steps will be taken so they don't have any opportunity to do this again.
It sucks that this happened to me, my colleague, and so many others - let's watch each others' backs!
It sucks that this happened to me, my colleague, and so many others - let's watch each others' backs!
