Interesting can of worms Cara. The logical extension of this is that every time someone says that they are using a regression, Anova, correlation and so on, they should cite the person who wrote the original mathematics behind them.
But, I have seen written in statistical packages that the mathematics are considered "standard" and so do NOT necessarily need to be cited. I would think that the first paper on PCR could be cited as follows: PCR followed standard procedures (citation) at the following temperature and times (list temperatures and times). It just doesn't matter that all are similar, because now we might be able to call the procedure public domain information. Possibly we no longer need to cite the original either, if public domain. At any rate, this brings up another issue. I have revised papers in English in which the introduction was very poorly written, the methods and some of the results were much better, often in idiomatic English (that a foreigner would not know) and then the discussion again was poorly written. Clearly the authors cut and pasted the methods, modifying the details. Is that really a problem? Well, if methods are standard operating procedures, it is like a recipe and recipes can and should be repeated as uniformly as possible. How do we decide what is "recipe" and what is not? Is recipe plagiarism? One would hope not. Cheers, Jim On Sat, Jun 6, 2009 at 03:50, Cara Lin Bridgman <[email protected]>wrote: > Hi Jim, > > Actually, this 'encouragement' can be much more subtle. It's when their > advisor looks up at them, sighs, and says "Can't you do better?" Since they > can't do better without taking a few more years of English writing classes, > they copy. > > In Taiwan, at any rate, scientists are now being blacklisted from Taiwan's > National Science Council funding for various ethical problems, including > plagiarism. So, understanding of the problem has improved, but the ability > to solve the problem is still lagging behind. I tell my students they are > all English Handicapped, which means throughout their career they will need > extra time, effort, and money to write scientific papers. This is a burden > added to the problem we discussed last month: gaining access to published > papers. > > CL > > James Crants wrote: > >> Cara Lin, >> >> I was trying to craft a good response to your questions, but I think I >> should leave it to people with more experience publishing and editing than >> I >> have. I'll just mention that the issue of Science I just received >> yesterday >> has an article about blatant plagiarism in scientific papers and some of >> the >> tools people use to detect it. >> >> Unfortunately, it sounds like some Chinese scientists are being encouraged >> by their local writing experts to copy papers on work similar to their >> own, >> changing the details to fit their own research and results. The rationale >> is that this allows them to present their original research in far better >> English than they could manage if they were writing from scratch. I can >> certainly sympathize with concerns about writing intelligently in a >> foreign >> language, but it's really a shame that there are scientists being told to >> produce papers in a way that will put a big black mark on their >> international repuations. >> > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > Cara Lin Bridgman [email protected] > > P.O. Box 013 Shinjhuang > http://megaview.com.tw/~caralin<http://megaview.com.tw/%7Ecaralin> > Longjing Township http://www.BugDorm.com > Taichung County 43499 > Taiwan Phone: 886-4-2632-5484 > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > ------------------------------ James J. Roper Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute Bocas del Toro Marine Research Station MRC 0580-03 Unit 9100, Box 0948 DPO AA 34002-9998 Skype-in (USA):+1 706 5501064 Skype-in (Brazil): 41 39415715 E-mail - personal: [email protected] E-mail - consulting: [email protected] STRI Bocas del Toro<http://www.stri.org/english/research/facilities/marine/bocas_del_toro/index.php> Programa de Pós-graduação em Ecologia e Conservação<http://www.bio.ufpr.br/ecologia/> Educational Pages <http://jjroper.googlepages.com/> Ars Artium Consulting <http://arsartium.googlepages.com/> 9o21.122' N, and 82o15.390' W In Google Earth, copy and paste -> 9 21.122' N, 82 15.390' W ------------------------------
