A Commentary suggesting widespread duplicate publication (Nature 451, 397–399; 2008) has caused a storm of responses. Reactions across the NPG blogs and forums are captured on Nautilus.
The Publishing in the New Millennium forum on Nature Network reports an informed and passionate debate among scientists about whether duplicate publication is a problem in their fields and, if it is, how it can be stemmed. And at the Nature Precedings forum, Hilary Spencer asks whether posting papers on a preprint server — previously suggested to serve as a possible check and balance in the peer-review system — may encourage plagiarism. Publishers can search for duplicates among manuscripts submitted to their own journals, but a plagiarism-detection system across all publishers, currently in trial, might be more useful. It will, however, add to publication costs.
For authors wishing to submit to Nature journals, the editors provide guidance on issues including plagiarism and due credit for unpublished data at our Authors & Referees’ website.
Nature 451, xi; 7 February 2008