Plagiarism in peer-review reports could be the ‘tip of the iceberg’

Researchers say swathe of copied text could indicate a widespread problem.
By
  1. Jackson Ryan

    1. Jackson Ryan is a freelance science journalist in Sydney, Australia.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

A photo illustration of a street sign contrasting the words ORIGINAL and FAKE.

Time pressures and a lack of confidence could be prompting reviewers to plagiarize text in their reports. Credit: Thomas Reimer/Zoonar via Alamy

Mikołaj Piniewski is a researcher to whom PhD students and collaborators turn when they need to revise or refine a manuscript. The hydrologist, at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences, has a keen eye for problems in text — a skill that came in handy last year when he encountered some suspicious writing in peer-review reports of his own paper.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-01312-0

Updates & Corrections

  • Correction 21 May 2024: An earlier version of this story neglected to cite reference 3.

References

  1. Piniewski, M., Jarić, I., Koutsoyiannis, D. & Kundzewicz, Z. W. Scientometrics https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-024-04960-1 (2024).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Liang, W. et al. Preprint at arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2403.07183 (2024).

  3. Day, A. Scientometrics 127, 5965–5987 (2022).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Subjects

Latest on:

Nature Careers

Jobs

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing