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差一点就在Nature上发“文章”了
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差一点就在Nature上发“文章”了
对于Nature 上发表关于某中国期刊投稿中31%的剽窃（抄袭）率和国人的这种剽窃（抄袭）行为与中国古代文化相关的观点，我曾经进行过评论。主要观点是：1）一个中国期刊不能代表所有的中国期刊（好像现在改为International了）；2）抄袭和剽窃行为，是个人学术修养问题，不能怪罪中国古代文化。
为此，我们一起讨论了一篇Correspondence 投往Nature, 表达了这种观点，希望Nature能发表进行澄清。Nature 编辑开始还是很积极反应的，等收到编辑后的校样时，已经删减得只剩下几行字了，看到编辑的这种剪裁能力时，当时我就笑了，非常佩服这种文字精简能力。就这几句话，我觉得除了题目可以接受外，内容尚有模糊和值得商榷的地方。因此，我们又进行了讨论，对校样进行了补充和修改。又过了一段时间，收到了Nature 的决定：拒发修改稿。这样到手的Nature“文章”，泡汤了。
整个投稿、修稿的过程，我们整理了一下，发表在了Scientific Ethics上了。
*******************
B、先看Nature 拟发表的编辑后的校样稿
Plagiarism not rooted in culture
Don’t blame ancient Chinese culture for modern evils in science (Nature 467, 153: 2010). Plagiarism is becoming more common in China, as it is elsewhere. But this problem cannot be rooted in Chinese culture, otherwise it would have existed widely in ancient China and still be evident across Chinese communities today.
Copying out of respect in order to learn, with appropriate citation, is not the same as plagiarism, which is copying to steal credit.【请英语高手准确翻译这几句话，谢先。】
校样：
[收到校样时，我的修改意见 （王德华）：
没有想到修改得如此简练！我觉得《自然》的题目（修改）还是可以的。
有一句话，需要慎重：“otherwise it would have existed widely in ancient
是否是想说明古代和中国的作品中，“抄袭”很严重？
我的观点：古人说的“熟读唐诗三百首、不会作诗也会吟”， “读书破万卷，下笔如有神”等等，是一种教育方式和学习方式，不是教学生抄袭。
抄袭和剽窃现象，是世界现象，不是中国文化，更不是东方文化。]。
这是我几次在相关文章中反复强调的观点。不管他人什么观点，我现在就是不理解为什么将部分人的剽窃和抄袭现象要归结于中国古代文化呢？读书人做小偷在中国是 more common 吗？
A、原稿：
Don’t blame ancient Chinese culture for modern evils in science
We are surprised that Nature published a Correspondence titled “Chinese journal finds 31% of submissions plagiarized” (Nature 467, 153; 2010). It reflects author’s poor understanding of plagiarism and editor’s inappropriate handling of a very sensitive matter and thus has caused an outrage among Chinese scientists.
First of all, a journal run by a university in China may not represent (all) Chinese journal(s) and thus the title of the Correspondence is misleading the world if not insulting (all) Chinese.
Secondly, the so-called plagiarized submissions may not necessarily be “unoriginal” as the detection of “plagiarism” was based on comparing “identical or paraphrased chunks of text”, the normal function and capability of CrossCheck (Nature 466, 167; 2010). Nature’s editors should be fully aware of a critical distinction between copying text and stealing content as its Editorial had even emphasized a need of human judgment for the “plagiarism” detection by CrossCheck (Nature 466, 159; 2010).
Unfortunately, Nature allowed this unsubstantiated claim of detecting “unoriginal material in a staggering 31% of papers submitted” published with a truly staggering title. But this 31% “plagiarism” found by this particular Chinese journal is not much more “staggering” than the “plagiarism” found by other journals (Nature 466, 167; 2010).
Interestingly this Chinese journal is an INTERNATIONAL journal, as pointed out by an online comment posted under the Correspondence. Thus, without a detailed analysis on the originality and the authorship of the submissions, how could the author reach a conclusion that seemed at blaming only Chinese for submitting “plagiarized” papers with “unoriginal materials”? We DEMAND the author to provide us the related raw material for an independent analysis.
Even if all the alleged cases of Chinese plagiarism were true, we still cannot believe this particular university-run journal can represent typical Chinese journals. We could not buy the argument that Chinese scientists are more likely to commit plagiarism than other scientists.
It is true that some severe problems including escalated lagiarism exists in modern China. However, all of these modern evils are unlikely results of ancient Chinese culture. As Chinese we have been told generation by generation that honesty is an essential character for a good human being. We also have a long history of respecting others’ work by faithfully reproducing them, including verbatim copying other’s statement with citation and reference. But such respectful treatments of prior arts should not be miss-identified as “plagiarism”. Plagiarism is “substantial unattributed textual copying of another's work” (http://ori.dhhs.gov/policies/plagiarism.shtml). It is a behavior driven by greedy for stealing credit and thus gaining undeserved benefits including financial benefits. Such an evil behavior in science happens also and may be more often in societies cheerishing capitalism.
So please don’t blame ancient Chinese culture for some modern evils introduced into China AFTER its door is open. We need to fix these modern evils by promoting our good ancient culture.
C、返修稿（被拒发）：
Opinions on origin and solution for plagiarism
In some recent publications (Nature 467, 153, 252, and 261, 2010) ancient Chinese culture has been blamed for the increasingly spreading of plagiarism in the mainland of China. This understanding may not be correct and may even prevent the discovery of a right solution for the problem.
In fact plagiarism was derived from a Latin word plagiarius and introduced into English around 1615–25 (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiarism). It refers to “wrongful appropriation, close imitation, or purloining and publication, of another author's language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions, and the representation of them as one's own original work”. This stealing without respect is totally different from coping with respect, which is a way of learning and promoting others’ work..
To combat plagiarism, we need to find a way to efficiently and reliably identify true plagiarism and establish a mechanism to effectively and powerfully deter plagiarists. CrossCheck is helpful in detecting similarity but human intelligence is needed for differentiating respectful copying and credit-robbing plagiarism.
Publishing directly in English may not form a solution for plagiarism. Opening every publication for unrestricted scientific criticism may intimidate temptation for making false claims including plagiarism. However, to achieve that, some publishers need to change their culture of allowing only very limited space for scientific criticism and exposing unethical plagiarism just occasionally after misconduct is established.
相关链接：
中国期刊投稿31%剽窃？
https://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-41757-373348.html
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