What Happened When CrossCheck Was Not Used for a Month in Journal of Neurogastroenterology and Motility?

TO THE EDITOR:

In this April, a letter from a reviewer was sent to Deputy Editor of Journal of Neurogastroenterology and Motility (JNM). The reviewer said that some sentences of a received manuscript for review were very similar to his previous article in JNM and asked the Deputy Editor to verify the corresponding author’s name. She investigated this case immediately. At first, the degree of similarity was checked. Five days later, the corresponding author of the manuscript withdrew the manuscript. She informed all assigned reviewers that there was no necessity to review the manuscript; however, the reviewer who reported the similarity requested the followings to the Deputy Editor: he would like to search the authors’ or their group’s work if there were further similar cases; to confirm the policy of publication ethics of JNM again; to guide the authors or latent authors how to cite the previous articles according to the international standard.

As an editorial consultant, I suggested the following opinion according to the request from the Deputy Editor, on how to treat this case.

First, why was there a request to review without screening with CrossCheck, a plagiarism screening tool? In April 4, 2014, the Korean Society of Neurogastroenterology and Motility changed the sponsoring publisher for digital object identifier (DOI) CrossRef XML deposition to Inforang Co. Ltd. Although there was a smooth migration for XML deposition, a new CrossCheck ID was not provided until then. This was why the editorial board members were not able to use CrossCheck for a month. In May 7, 2014, a CrossCheck ID was recovered temporarily with the help of CrossRef staff. If the manuscript had been screened before the request to review, such case would not have occurred.

Second, it should be properly investigated and screened to find whether the sentences that the reviewer indicated were plagiarized ones or not. I checked the manuscript with CrossCheck with setting options as excluding quotes, bibliography, methods, small match up to 6 words and small sources up to 1%. Repository searched included CrossCheck, Internet and Publications. Similarity was 29% consisting of 9% from one article and 3% each from 3 articles. There were frequent “cut and paste” from the article that was written by the reviewer. The problem is that the authors used sentences with references altogether as described in the reviewer’s article; therefore, the reference in the manuscript was not that of the reviewer which means an inadequate citation of the references. The authors should not have cited the references of articles without reading the primary sources completely. It is the reason why the manuscript was suspected as plagiarized. Also, when citing the text in other articles, the sentence should be paraphrased with authors’ own description. If authors want to cite as it is, there should be quotes of given sentence.

In this case, what is the appropriate treatment of the reviewer’s opinion? At first, editorial board appreciates him for his meticulous contribution for JNM. Without such affection towards JNM, the Journal could not be promoted to top-notch one. JNM kept the process of the Committee of Publication Ethics flow chart of “what to do if you suspect plagiarism (a) suspected plagiarism in a submitted manuscript.”¹ It is the policy of publication ethics of JNM to keep that flow chart. Since there was a withdrawal by authors, there is no need to inform this case to authors’ affiliated institutes or to others. Also, it is not JNM’s policy to expose the author to reviewers. There is a variety of review styles on the exposer of reviewers and authors: double-blind review, single-blind review and open review. JNM has adopted double-blind review. Editorial board members should keep the principle of review system until there is a change. Also, to guide the authors or latent authors according to reviewer’s request, this letter is prepared. This case was resolved without further problems.

What can we learn from this case? First, the correct citation of the published papers or books should be done by authors. When figures or tables are moved from other articles, the permission is required if those articles are not open access ones.² To cite certain part of the published articles even though those articles are open access ones, it is recommended to paraphrase according to authors’ understanding or interpretation. If paraphrasing is not possible since the sentence is a lucid conclusion, there should be quotation mark including cited phrases or sentences. Second, every author should understand that manuscripts submitted are screened routinely to know if there is “cut and paste” with CrossCheck.

Finally, I apologize to the editorial board members, reviewers and authors since I forgot to consult how to recover the CrossCheck ID immediately when a sponsoring publisher was changed. If editorial board members could have used CrossCheck without disruption, there must have been no occurrence of the above case. If there is “cut and paste” in the sentence, the manuscript is usually returned to authors without review process.