This is an important issue raised by Dr Karim. The discrepancy may not necessarily be the result of academic dishonesty. It can be due to shear carelessness, that is, mixing the authors' names. It can also result from personal prejudices, i.e., interpretation of the contents of a paper in support of inference of one's paper. There may be other reasons. But I totally agree that such things should be curbed. It will be particularly bad if someone gives a wrong statement in inverted commas. We all need to stay careful and pay attention to detail.

This is true Kamal, I just notified all editors in my network .

Thank you for answers, In Geology false citation is very common, I hope that we can start campaign to stop false citation in all branches of Science and inform all journals to check the citations in their publications, it is urgent to inform publisher such as Elsevier, Springer, Wiley and others

"..........three radial fractures, three arms of the Neotethys Basin formed (Numan 2001) when one searches for sentence or its idea in the original paper, he can not find both of them.."

How, it is happening? Why authors include false citations?

This may be due to the ignorance or carelessness or to support the interpretations or copied citations from other papers without studying the original papers (Dr. Jan has also indicated). This is the lack of seriousness or bad practice. This creates negative impression about the authors and dilutes the contents of the work.

An in-depth review of the manuscript can prevent the same. Reviewers can point out the false citations from their experience in the subject matter. But, it is also true that reviewers cannot check references one by one.

Regards

The practice of false citation should be avoided.

Kenneth M Towe, Thank you for your reply and answer , the problem of some authors is that they mentioned about 60 references ( for example) but they have not seen or read most of them. So how they can ignore the false citation. if he ignore or delete false citation his paper will be refused for publication because the whole paper is built on false ideas and citation. So the severe punishment must be regulated against who decisive editors of journals.

More so, in a bid to avoid plagiarism, many authors turn sentences around in a way that the original meaning or message intended is lost. Another author could do the same but not using the original text. As successive misinterpretations continues, the whole message of citation is lost and false citation become glaring. Authors should endeavor to get original articles of reference publication and not just depend on recent publications that cite them. This is an important issue that should be taken very seriously.

Victor,

Good observation and suggestion.

My compliments!

An actual expert of a specific field of research has idea about the present stage of achievement in contemporary research. If such experts are selected as reviewer and they review the article strictly, such wrong references may not be there.

But problem is that such subject experts are very much busy in their works and they may not be interested for rendering FREE service.

The journals, even the journals with very high Article Processing Charges, do not pay money to the reviewers.

In some cases, some journal pay 1000 - 1500 USD to the review article writer, but not a single pice to the reviewers!

Sometimes the authors just don't double check to make sure they have all the information correct in the reference.

The article "

Discussion on “Dextral transpression in Late Cretaceous continental collision, Sanandaj–Sirjan Zone, western Iran”: " is actual real. The authors referenced it wrong. Article Discussion on ``Dextral transpression in Late Cretaceous con...

Dear Kraj, thank you for your reply, for the second sentence, i think it legal to cite the original research instead of who repeated the idea. The other sentences are not clear for me but, the true ( legal) citation must reflect the the original idea or finding or theory of the author without manipulation with the idea. But using synonyms of words and re-arrangement of words and sentence are legal

Dear Ales,

Reinterpretation of the original results - It can be done. It is not disrespect to the first cited works. But some can not accept this in open mind. Regards

This is because reviewers and editors are cheating and not doing their work properly. The function of the reviewer is to check for accuracy. They should cross check every citation and the relevance of each and every cited text. The editors must then check if the work of the reviewers was thorough enough. This is not happening with many journals.

Dear Borden,

The first sentence of your comment is too harsh. Most, if not all, reviewers and editors lend their time out of pleasure ; they do not get any remuneration.

What you are asking for is a really toll order and I am afraid it will take ages for a reviewer to check in detail every reference, its relevance, and correctness of reference to it in the paper under review.

I think that we as scientists should pay attention to the issue in our publications and avoid serving our vested interest.

Thank you.

Qasim

"Most, if not all, reviewers and editors lend their time out of pleasure" (Dr.Jan)

- Yes, it is totally true. The publications are enriched due to the contributions of reviewers and editors. Regards

Preventing false citation is not only the task of editors or reviewers but the authorities of institution and founding companies must check the researches that are achieved by their personals and consultants. I know persons published several papers in international journals but nearly half of the citations are false and it even contain false reference (reference that are never published)

Really an interesting issue Dr.Kamal H Karim.

For minimizing these gaps, the main contribution should come from each contributing authors in addition to the editors. So, let us promise to ourselves to communicate genuine information and impact-full outputs and thereby minimize such unethical acts. Thank you once again Dr.Kamal H Karim for razing such an interesting issue.

It does not help when even the search engines have the information wrong. e.g. The search engine changed to title from "...Standard ISO 27002:2013..." to "...27002:2003..."

So what might be "appropriate consequences" that would clearly inform researchers the travesties (benefits) are not worth the consequences?

This is a concept that I tell my students often.

I agree with all comments above. But, sometimes authors might experience error while using citations managers and inappropriate citation may be happen in their paper.

Yes, dear Prof. Kamal, you are absolutely right!!. There are a lot of such citations; however, it is the responsibility of the reviewers to check for all given citations and even references. I have read many scientific publications dealing with subjects from Iraq and I was astonished about many such cases, because I know the given citation and/ or data is NOT correct. Moreover, I have found citations referring to my publications, but either by changing the correct data or just a fake reference. Occasionally, I have read or seen geological maps, which I have complied in different published articles in different geological journals with referring to the map as" Modified from Sissakian.... so what is the modification? just nothing, or adding a sample location on the geological map.

Thank you for dealing with this very interesting issue.

I would like to add to Varoujan Sissakian observation regarding some citations to maps. Not only the inadequate and false reference to maps, such as "modified after ABC, 2010" by authors XYZ, but even worse irony when I later refer to that map of ABC to be after XYZ!!!

Many thanks Mr. Jan, that is exactly what is happening in some published articles. I repeat again , it is the responsibility of the reviewer.

Thank you Prof. Ken Towe for your powerful contribution to this discussion.

I totally agree with you. As I said earlier, the basic responsibility lies on the writers. Reviewers and editors cannot check every reference in detail, let alone accuracy of statements and extent of modifications in figures.

Many of us are in a hurry or carefree, but some succumb to involuntary mistakes. For example, in my early years of research (1970s), we had very poor library facilities in Peshawar, Pakistan. On many occasions I borrowed and used geochemical discriminant diagrams from secondary, or may be tertiary, sources, i.e., from papers that had "supposedly' picked them from original sites. I have now seen that sometime the field boundaries are not reproduced faithfully by secondary/tertiary sources.

Regards, Qasim

I strongly agree with you professor Karin. On another hand, there are many citations registered on google scholar and didn't register on research gate.

All the wrong, unpleasant or unhealthy practices happening with respect to publication of papers in journals are due to over ambitiousness of the researchers to publish more and more NUMBER of papers and thereby to get promotions / recognitions. If you really examine the publications 25-30 years back, they were genuine publications and we had not even heard of the word "plagiarism", as widely and commonly heard in recent times.

I have my own experience where a scientist from a very reputed institution, who is crazy of increasing his 'number' of papers in journals, published a paper in a reputed international journal, which was earlier published by me in an international conference. Whether you believe it or not my conference paper was almost reproduced as it is (90%) by this scientist in the journal and very cunningly not cited my paper. Later, I complained this unethical practice to the Director of that Institution and the scientist retracted the publication from the journal.

I Know there are only very few researchers doing this type of unethical practices, but still they are enough to bring irreparable bad name to the scientific society. I feel the solution lies with the individual researchers, and their professional ethics.

A paper, about geology, published in an international journal contains word of """Porn"" six times a term which has no relation with geology but it has only sex meaning. Below are sentences which contain "porn" word with the page numbers of paper that contain "porn". This means that the paper neither checked by author nor reviewed by reviewers

I think some responsibility fall on the shoulders of the reviewers also. The have to read a paper carefully and point out such mistakes.

Reviewers could do 'spot checks' on a few (2-3) references just to make sure.

Dear, Eileen Robichaud

Your suggestion (spot or selected sample check) is very practical, thank you for your reply

I was the Track Administrator for the Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS). I worked the conference for 20+ years. I was in charge of the review process. Even at the conference level, I saw the issues that have been brought up here time and again. Sometimes these papers are originally presented at a conference then may be 'fast tracked' to a journal. The authors may not be a diligent for a conference proceedings but that is no excuse to has sloppy references. People have and will continue to utilize research from everywhere.

Dear all, I agree with the most comments above. Thank you for this very good question and all for discussion of this question. I think and this is reflected by the different answers there are many causes for the processes of wrong citations. My impression is this process is boosted exponentially during the last decades. During my study at the university and my first scientific work in the 1980s I have learned by my old professor that I have to read all literature sources entire, not only the summary and I have to read always the primary sources of literature, the original paper, not only the cited extracts in a secondary source. I worked so in this way over all the years and I’m doing it in this way today. But this means, I’ not able to write and publish 10 or more papers in the year as some researchers do. However the evaluation of researchers and the allocation of funds for projects often depend on the quantity of published papers. That’s not a good development and it might contribute to false citation and plagiarism.

It is quite easy to point fingers at the editors for supposedly not doing enough to checkmate these kind of citation. However, it is practically impossible to do that for all submitted manuscript even for the most efficient editors (so to say).

This tells more about the moral decadence ravaging the academic sector in many scenarios. And in some cases, re-misinterpretation of previous citation in a bid to avoid plagiarism is also a culprit (as i have earlier stated). If everyone strive to maintain a high academic standard, we could avoid the incident of these in many cases.

This is what is really expected as stated clearly by "Petra Seidel"

"I have to read always the primary sources of literature, the original paper, not only the cited extracts in a secondary source".

But the consequence is clear which many researchers try to avoid and she continues by saying

" I’ not able to write and publish 10 or more papers in the year as some researchers do".

Its not the number of publications that matters but academic integrity.

Kudos "Petra Seidel"

Maybe it is time for the faculty who are teaching/training the future researchers to do exactly what Petra's 'old professor' taught - carefully read the original research and make their own conclusions instead of relying on others to do it for them.

There has been a culture change in universities of the past 2 decades (at least in the US).. It the past, students were expected to spend a number of years doing coursework, followed by the comprehensive exams after which they would start working on their dissertation research. Now, students are expected to start doing research in their first year. In some cases, they are required to have publications before graduating. This puts more pressure on students to do things faster. They feel they don't have the time to spend doing things the 'long' way.

"......evaluation of researchers and the allocation of funds for projects often depend on the quantity of published papers. That’s not a good development and it might contribute to false citation and plagiarism (comment of Dr Petra)"

This is true and I support this view. For a researcher, two quality publications (in a year) may be considered as 'good performance'. Regards

There is a PhDComics (http://phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1568 ) that basically describes exactly that. An 'untenured professor' discusses what she did over spring break - got a grant application finished, a book review done, three papers submitted and put together an exam. The tenured professor when skiing in Colorado.

I’m afraid that you’re (Eileen, Kenneth) description of the situation at universities is true. I can understand the motives and also the dire straits of some. I have decided to follow the advice of my old professor for me. Everyone for himself has to take the decision. However, what can we (we all, the society, and the research community) do create better conditions to realize the long, but correct way of the old professor? Actual economical circumstances produce the short way of success. But this means to act short-sightedly. The consequence is a further and continuous switch from quality to quantity. Is it this what we want really? Moreover this phenomenon we can observe in all areas of the modern society, not only in the field of science and research (key word: fake news discussed above). Science and research have special responsibility for future and should be reputable. So I ask again, dear all: What can we (we all, the society, and the research community) do create better conditions to realize the long, but correct way of the old professor?

There are three main reasons for this problem. The popular one is attributed, as you said, to dishonesty of some of the authors (probably a students). The second reason is less popular and it is attributed to errors during the proofreading of the manuscript by the journal; renumbering of references for correcting situations such as repeated reference or rearranging the reference for following the journal criterion. The third reason is due to the reviewers, but it will be really difficult for a reviewer to check each reference at each instance of its use!

Dear Dr EL-Shimy,

Please, please, let us not throw the blame on the next generation, i.e., students. They are as good, or as bad, as we are. Other than that, I learnt from your comments.

Best,

Qasim

Thank you Dr. Qasim for your feedback; however, that comment is based on a personal experience with some careless postgraduate students. I really struggle to learn them the basics of scientific writing and the related ethics. Anyway, we all have to do that task. I just tried to list all possible reasons of false citations.

Best regards,

M. EL-Shimy

One best solution is imposing on authors to right page and line number (e.g. P33, L7) of each cited sentences or idea. it possible that the editor of journal ask for these number in a separate list for the cited sentences.

The problem of false citation is very very common and worse in Middle east where I live, but, i think , in west it is less common and the condition is better. So please, all we must try to impose very strict regulations on authors of papers to stop false citation forever.

"Kamal" there is no monopoly to the subject matter in terms of region. There are bad eggs everywhere. While your recommendation may work, they are too stringent and unworkable in real life. Should any journal implement such individually, it would be starved of manuscript submission over time as author would likely avoid such journals (No matter the impact factor).

The truth remains that most submission (above 60%) are extract from student research. If every supervisors and Professor implement grass root tutoring strategy experience by "Petra Seidel" then we must have played a large part in solving the problem. It actually not an easy task but a necessary one.

I support the views of Kenneth Towe and Victor Okomoda.

Dear Kamal Karim, You have now received plenty of good comments and suggestions to your very good question. Why don't you please sum them up in an essay/paper for the benefit of all. I am serious!

Regards to all,

Qasim

"M. Qasim Jan" Many of the question here are asked out of curiosity and not really from a research point of view. I agree with the fact that so many valid points have been made so far and could be formally sum up as a scientific paper. However "Kamal Karim" may not have such intention or skilled enough to metamorphose all that is said to a scientific paper (I don't mean to be derogatory, just making a point please). If you are passionate about your suggestion, kindly team up with him to coauthor such manuscript. However, I think you may need other secondary data to make it a much justified and acceptable submission. All assumption in my write up are speculation and not in a direct attempt to belittle anyone. I hope you all read with understanding.

It is Author credibility and also one of the peer reviewer responsibilities. Most impacted peer-reviewed journals watch carefully this serious issue, others put the responsibility on the Authors behalf.

"Abdallah Hussien Fathy" if you had taken time to read through previous answers, you would have seen a mention of your point and "many rebuttals" on the fact that it is not a realistic solution. It is practically impossible for journals to be that efficient and careful. Why we acknowledge the problem, true solution would have to depend on grass root tutoring of young researchers by experienced senior once and authors personal credibility struggle. It is a complicated issues. Some times we are even culprit but not because we intended it but misinterpretation caused it.

Ok, the comment of Victor Okomoda is true, longley I can not manage such a critical review and essay. if One thinks deserves a paper and can mange the problem, he can be the first name. He can select a group of work and assign a project

Dear @Victor Okomoda,

Why it is not a realistic solution?, I disagree with You. Additionally, Why it is practically impossible for journals to be that efficient and careful?, I know many journals do this. As a peer reviewer, I carefully revise all the in-text citations and the end-of-text references to be sure that all references are valid and correctly cited. I tell the Authors about any similar issues to revise and make the possible corrections.

Regarding your last point, young researchers already work with other collaborators, they are all responsible.

Regards,

@" Abdallah Hussien Fathy" we have had comments from chief editors and reviewers alike. That's why i said "take time to read through previous comments. This points have been justified with facts already. I still maintain it is "practically impossible" Imagine doing this for 5000 submissions (for very highly patronized journal) not forgetting that editors and reviewers are NOT full time staffs. They have to manage reviews with their main activity (research or lecturing). There are numerous roadblock that suggest the impracticality of your approach to the latter. Even a suggestion on page and line references of cited manuscript have also be rebutted.

Please note: Am not saying these are not efficient solutions, they are just not implementable in practical terms. It would require a lot not just from the editors but from the authors. And if a journal invoke such "difficult" measures individually, there is a very high probability that it would be starve of submission over time. This is because many person do not want "too" tedious process when submitting their manuscript for publication.

I wonder what would happen if higher tier journals stated that they are start putting 'reference checking' as part of their review process. Requiring reviewers to check a minimum of 2 of the references. This is, of course, actually training PhD students. If they know journals require it (as well as their professors) would things start to change after a few years (one 'cycle' of students)?

My ex made full chaired professor in 10 years. I watched how is checked each reference. His hard work and diligence made him well respected in his field. He works with PhD students, helping them to learn the correct why to do things. (This may have something to do with the fact his undergraduate degree is in computer science and his professors taught him the correct way to program and cataloguing changes to existing programs)

Primary responsibility definitely lies with the researcher. Yes the reviewers have a responsibility to examine the quality and contents of the text submitted, but they may sometimes fail to trace the unethical practices. One of the ways to control this unpleasant practice by the authors may be by retracting the papers from the journal on receiving complaints by the readers and also by informing their institution on blacklisting the researcher from the journal. As at present no such punishment is perhaps not there, this unethical and unprofessional practices will continue.

The problem is definitely aggravating now a days. Even this week, l have found two articles with wrong citation's. To add some more points in my previous response, it is also good to incentivise reviewers so that to contribute in minimizing the gaps. Moreover, editors are also expected to manage these things to improve the quality and impact of their journal. If implemented properly, the problem might be resolved.

It is not citations alone, it is a broader practice (unethical /dishonest /unprincipled) of increasing ones' number of publications by any means, that what we describe as "copy, cut & paste" culture. As Dr. Seidel has explained, many references are listed without reading even the abstracts !! The high principles of earlier generation has faded away in the present day race for "quantitative" (numbers alone counts in many places) achievements. It is not only high profile journals, all the journals should recognize the malpractices associated with any of the publications and retract the publication (at least after receiving the complaint).

Nothing is pardonable. The mistakes done are not from innocents, they are carried out by the so called intellectuals.

I agree with Kenneth M Towe, it is difficult for reviewers to identify the false citations. Reviewers may be able to catch some false citations in case the reviewers are familiar with the topic. However, it is the ultimate responsibility of authors to check for accuracy of the citations.

Dear Kenneth M Towe , the question remains should reviewers or editor be blamed for this? I have a huge problem with those whose answer would be "Yes"

N B Narasimha Prasad been called "so called intellectuals" does not immune one from costly mistakes. We are humans, and mistakes is part of our nature. Like Kenneth M Towe rightly puts it "Deliberate mistakes are unpardonable. There are numerous that can be over looked.

Certainly yes, mistakes can be excused if it is typographical or un-intentional. It is well understood at this level. But, I am only addressing those who are into all sorts of malpractices to increase their number of publications. Though the editors have a role to play, but I don't blame them entirely, as it is difficult to check everything.

I agree with all what has been said before that this kind of error should be reduced and later eliminated. One way to achieve a correct list of references is to create an application which can use on line resources to check the credibility and correctness of these references or based on a reliable and trustworthy database.

That’s a good idea M. Awad, but how it can be realized? This app has to be usable by the authors to control themselves during the writing process to avoid typos or other mistakes. This app has also to be usable by reviewers during reviewing process. It may be helpful for them to see if the author has used this app for self-control and the use of this app should be self-explaining and quickly. This app has also to be usable for the editors. The usage of the app by these three groups (authors, reviewers and editors) has to be visible for all also the readers of the paper after publishing. Last but not least the app has to be capable to grab and screen all sources of literature: worldwide, all kinds of journals, books, conference papers, grey literature to check whether each literature source is cited correct. Will it be possible?

One important point which has not been mention about unintentional false citation is "citations of article in press". Some journal would have articles in press for 2years before finally listing them for an issue. Once, they are inserted in a regular issue, the link for the corrected manuscript becomes inactive. Hence, any earlier paper that have cited such paper could be perceived to have indulge in false citation. Copy-paste without prior going to the original papers further complicate this issue. Also, retraction of articles of authors for different reasons are part of the culprits too. The list is just endless. However, it is important to put up modalities to reduce this to the minimum.

Dr. Victor - ".......unintentional false citation is "citations of article in press".

It's a good point. Regards

It is really useful discussion. Important information provided by Dr. Victor Okomoda

Following

Too much thanks for your valuable suggestions and discussions,I hope your argument continue about the issue

"Publish or perish" is still alive (Dr.Kenneth) - It's true. Regards

I suppose the reviewers are not being diligent enough

True... No one who once served as a reviewer or a regular editor would put blame on themself. Too many expectation.

I agree with Kenneth and Victor. But I believe the discussion has come full circle now (see above).

The baddest unethical false citation is ""Self False Citation"" in which one author refer to important scientific idea in this previous papers but when one searches for the idea he can not find that idea. I know several of this type of authors and their papers published in international journals.

Kamal, let me share a little opinion to add the point of view of colleagues: It's not just about research papers and publications, in think. In my experience as a reviewer of Doctoral Theses, I had the unpleasant experience of rejecting a Doctoral thesis in Geology from a prestigious university in Argentina for having faithfully proved academic plagiarism.

The thesis was written literally copying an existing publication in many paragraphs, and I probed the intellectual plagiarism not once, but many pages and figures. Nevertheless, the "Director of the thesis", the Academic team, and the "Director" of the School of Geology, accepted the thesis. So, this guy became Doctor of Geology, just "copying and pasting"....

Scrutiny has to be done strictly either it is research publication or Ph.D. thesis. Reviewers are the persons who can improve the whole system. Regards