[Coral-List] plagiarism in coral reef science in India

Michael Newkirk michaeljnewkirk at gmail.com
Sat May 19 14:05:35 EDT 2018


Hi Doug,

I'm really sorry to hear this. I have to say, unfortunately, that I
encounter plagiarism on a regular basis. Some of you whom I've interacted
with know that I'm a professional editor and the chief editor of WordsRU.
We have always had a strong academic integrity policy, which I formally
published it to the website a few years ago. Interestingly, and sadly, it
still does not encourage some authors to write and publish ethically. I see
all levels of it: from poor citation and summarization to completely
copy-pasted theses and dissertations. For the former, we advise. For the
latter, all I can do is send them on their way and basically say in the
nicest way possible that we don't want their business.

There are also companies that pose as editing companies but actually
rewrite previously published material for students or ghostwrite entire
manuscripts up to the dissertation/thesis level---for a hefty fee. If I
read your post correctly, Doug, it sounds like perhaps the book you are
referring to had a team of authors, with introduction author being more
genuine or perhaps a hired ghostwriter. Then, the folks that wanted to copy
and paste could just fill up the book after getting some face validity from
the intro writer. Who knows!

I've taught at the uni level as well (language education and research
communication), so I've dealt with the matter in both academia and in
business. There is a lot that is being done, and not being done, on both
sides that contributes to plagiarized work being published and degrees
being awarded to individuals who simply copy-paste and/or blatantly fail to
acknowledge the work of others.

Hopefully, running into something like this won't become the norm for you!
:)

Best,

Michael.

On Fri, May 18, 2018 at 12:15 AM, Douglas Fenner <
douglasfennertassi at gmail.com> wrote:

> Abstract:  A group in India has published several articles with long lists
> of names of coral species in the Andaman Islands.  Those lists contain the
> names of several Caribbean corals.  In 2010 the same group published a book
> on the corals of the Andaman Islands.  The text describing every species
> was copied verbatum from Veron (2000) with no quote marks and no citation
> of the source.  The introductory text was also copied verbatum from sources
> without quotes or attribution, so nearly the entire book was copied
> verbatum.  I provide the references to these works, and detailed quotes
> from the book and the sources below my signature.  (this post is long, so I
> provide an abstract)
>
>      A few years ago, I spotted an article about corals in the Andaman
> Islands, which are part of India.  I looked through it and found it had an
> amazingly long list of coral species.  I thought to myself, “the authors
> must be really good at coral identification!”  As I looked at the list,
> though, a species caught my eye.  *Montastrea annularis*.  Then
> another, *Siderastrea
> siderea*.  Huh?  Those are Caribbean species.  They are not in the
> Indo-Pacific as far as anyone knows, and there have been a lot of people
> who would have noticed them.  If the authors knew how startling and
> important a find those were, they would have made a big deal out of it,
> worth a big paper in a major journal.  But no mention of that.  Sure looks
> like they didn’t realize that they were Caribbean corals, or maybe didn't
> realize that there are no Caribbean corals in the Indo-Pacific.  Made me
> wonder what else was wrong in their list.  I found two species that were
> listed twice each in the table, and the two entries indicated that the same
> species was found in different places.  Hmmm.
>
>       Then recently, I was looking at a book (Ramakrishna et al, 2010) that
> some of the same people had published.  The English was perfect, I could
> find no grammatical errors.  The paper with the long list of corals had
> quite a few grammatical errors.  This book had a long and well written
> introduction with many references, sure looked like whoever wrote it knew a
> lot about corals.  Then it had descriptions and photos of a group of coral
> species that had not been reported from the Andaman Is. before.  Again,
> perfect English.  On a whim, I looked in Veron, 2000 to compare what they
> said about one species.  Lo and behold, the wording was exactly the same,
> every single word.  I checked several other species, every single one was
> an exact match to the description in Veron, 2000.  No quote marks, and no
> citation at the end of the paragraph to Veron or any other source.  Also,
> the “key characters” in this book for each species are identical to those
> in a key to species in the back of Veron, 2000.  No quotes, no citation.  A
> search on the first paragraph of the introduction produced the identical
> wording from a Reefs at Risk document, no quotes, no citation.  The Reefs
> at Risk document is at https://portals.iucn.org/libra
> ry/sites/library/files/
> documents/1993-038.pdf
> <https://portals.iucn.org/library/sites/library/files/documents/1993-038.pdf>
> Essentially the entire book was plagiarized.  It
> has another list of the corals of the Andaman Islands at the end which
> includes some Caribbean species.  It is easy for anyone to compare any
> description in the book with Veron, 2000 and see for themselves if the
> wording is exactly the same, and whether quote marks were used or a
> citation given.  I provide quotes for comparison between this book and the
> Reefs and Risk and Veron (2000) documents in the additional information
> below my signature below.
>
>          There is no information in the journal papers with which one can
> check the accuracy of their species identifications, nor for most of the
> species in the checklist in the book (Ramakrishna et al, 2010).  However,
> there were photographs of living colonies of some of the Caribbean species
> they reported included in the Ramakrishna et al (2010) publication.
> Inspection
> of the photographs indicates that their “*Agaricia fragilis*” colony
> appears to be *Leptoseris mycetoseroides* (an Indo-Pacific species),
> their “*Leptoseris
> cucullata*” appears to be *Pavona varians* (another I-P species) their
> “*Mycetophyllia
> danaana”* appears to be *Symphyllia* sp. (an I-P coral), their
> “*Solenastrea
> bournoni*” appears to possibly be *Cyphastrea agassizi* (an I-P species)
> (but surely not *S. bournoni*), their “*Diploria strigosa*” appears to
> be *Platygyra
> daedalea* or perhaps *Platygyra sinensis* (both I-P species), their
> “*Porites
> porites*” is instead an octocoral, as can be easily seen by counting the 8
> tentacles on each polyp (very large and obvious in the picture).  From the
> texture of the colony surface, it appears to be *Heliopora* *coerulea*.
> That
> is unlikely to be a mistake a person who is knowledgeable about coral
> taxonomy would make.  There are a number of other species that appear to be
> misidentified as well.
>
>       A recent news article relates that the Indian government has just
> banned plagiarism in all universities there and specified a range of
> punishments:
>
>   India creates unique tiered system to punish plagiarism.
> http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/04/india-creates-
> unique-tiered-system-punish-plagiarism
>
>       I have been in contact with the authors and the agency in which they
> work or worked, the Zoological Survey of India.  The authors have not
> publicly admitted anything as far as I know, though I have urged them to do
> so.
>
>        I felt duty bound to report this to the scientific community, since
> the information contained in these works may be unreliable and/or
> plagiarized.
>
> Cheers,  Doug
>
> References
>
> Mondal, T., Raghunathan, C., Venkataraman, K.  2013.  Status of
> Scleractinian diversity at Nancowry Group of Islands Andaman and Nicobar
> Islands.  Middle-East Journal of Scientific Research 14(5): 587-597.
>
> Mondal, T., Raghunathan, C.  2011.  An observation on the coral bleaching
> in Andaman Islands.  International Journal of Environmental Science 1:
> 37-51.
>
> Ramakrishna, Mondal, T., Raghunathan, C., Raghuraman, R, and Sivaperuman.
> 2010.  New Records of Scleractinian Corals in Andaman and Nicobar
> Islands.  Records
> of the Zoological Survey of India, Occasional Paper No. 321, 1-144.
>
> Veron, JEN.  2000.  Corals of the World, Vol. 1-3.  Australian Institute of
> Marine Science.
>
>
>
> More details:
>
>        It came to my attention some time ago that a couple of articles
> published about corals in the Andaman Islands have a curious mistake in
> them.  The articles presented lists of coral species that the authors found
> in the Andaman and/or Nicobar Islands that were extensive, and indicated
> that the authors had a significant knowledge of the coral species there and
> knowledge and ability to identify them.  One, Mondal et al (2013) listed
> 274 species of corals.  On inspection of the table of coral species in that
> paper, I found a surprising mistake.  Namely, that two species of Caribbean
> corals were listed as being in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, *Montastrea
> annularis* and *Siderastrea radians*.  In another paper (Mondal &
> Raghunathan, 2011), they listed 293 species of coral, and I found 9 species
> listed that are Caribbean corals, *Montastrea annularis*, *Montastraea
> cavernosa*, *Siderastrea radians*, *Siderastrea siderea*, *Dichocoenia
> stokesi*, *Scolymia cubensis*, *Diploria strigosa*, *Colpophyllia
> natans*, *Porites
> porites*,  and one species that doesn’t exist, *Porites ankeli* (there
> is a *Pocillopora
> ankeli*).  In a third reference (Ramakrishna et al, 2010), the authors
> presented a checklist of 419 species of corals, and detailed information
> including descriptions and photographs of 83 coral species from the
> Andamans and Nicobars, including 6 Caribbean coral species: *Agaricia
> fragilis*, *Leptoseris cucullata*, *Mycetophyllia danaana*, *Solenastrea
> bournoni*, *Diploria strigosa*, and *Porites porites*.  They also
> reported *Tubastrea
> mesenterina*, *Tubastrea peltata*, and *Tubastrea reniformis*.  There are
> no such three species, though there are species named *Turbinaria
> mesenterina*, *Turbinaria peltata*, and *Turbinaria reniformis*.  It is
> surprising that they would report Caribbean species, because those species
> are known only from the Caribbean, they have never been found outside of
> the Caribbean or Atlantic Ocean.  A person who knows coral species well
> enough to identify all those species would know that those species are not
> in the Indian Ocean and would not want to report them from the Indian Ocean
> without significant documentation proving their presence, such as photos of
> living corals and skeletons, and detailed descriptions of the skeletons
> that match published descriptions of the same species.  It is a mistake
> which even a person that read the Veron (2000) books which these
> identifications were based on would have noticed if they had noticed the
> ranges shown for these species in that book.  This suggests that maybe
> their knowledge of corals may not be as extensive as one would have
> thought, and raises the question of the accuracy of the identifications of
> the many species they report.  There is no information in the journal
> papers with which one can check the accuracy of their species
> identifications, nor for most of the species in the checklist in
> Ramakrishna et al (2010).  However, there were photographs of living
> colonies of some of the Caribbean species they reported included in the
> Ramakrishna et al (2010) publication.  Inspection of the photographs
> indicates that their “*Agaricia fragilis*” colony appears to be *Leptoseris
> mycetoseroides*, their “*Leptoseris cucullata*” appears to be *Pavona
> varians*, their “*Mycetophyllia danaana”* appears to be *Symphyllia* sp.,
> their “*Solenastrea bournoni*” appears to possibly be *Cyphastrea agassizi*
> (but surely not *S. bournoni*), their “*Diploria strigosa*” appears to
> be *Platygyra
> daedalea* or perhaps *Platygyra sinensis*, their “*Porites porites*” is
> instead an octocoral, likely a soft coral, an Alcyonacean, as can be easily
> seen by counting the 8 tentacles on each polyp.  Strangely, most of the
> Caribbean species covered in detail with descriptions and pictures do not
> appear in their checklist of species from the Andamans and Nicobars.  Some
> of the Indo-Pacific species appear to be correctly identified, many cannot
> be identified from the pictures, and a few are clearly incorrectly
> identified, such as *Montipora grisea* (which has papillae, the photo shows
> tuberculae instead), *Montipora delicatula* (which has thin delicate plates
> while the photo shows thick fusing structures), *Montipora porites* (which
> has obvious ridges on the surface while the photo shows a smooth
> surface), *Acropora
> gomezi* which has long, thick tubular radial corallites while the photo
> shows short thin radial corallites, *Seriatopora aculeata* (which has
> short, sharply tapering branches, while the photo shows long gradually
> tapering branches), *Fungia fralinae* (which has extended tentacles with
> purple tips, while the photo shows no tentacles), *Fungia taiwanensis*
> (which has many small mouths concentrated in the center while the photo
> shows two large mouths), *Favia lacuna* (which has large corallites while
> the photo shows small corallites and looks more like *Coeloseris
> mayeri*), *Leptoria
> irregularis* (which has much thinner ridges, the photo is of *Merulina
> ampliata*), and *Goniopora norfolkensis* (the photo shows white oral discs
> and appears to be an encrusting gorgonian).
>
> Clearly, the editors of the Zoological Survey of India did not choose
> internationally recognized experts in coral taxonomy to review this
> publication.
>
>       A second surprise came to me when I began to read the introduction to
> the  Ramakrishna et al (2010) monograph.  First, the introductory material
> was very well presented and the authors appear to be very well informed
> about corals.  The standard of English was very good indeed, while in the
> Mondal et al (2013) article, it was quite poor with many grammatical
> errors..
> That made me wonder.  I tried a search on a couple of the first sentences
> of the introduction, and a website popped up, Reefs at Risk (
> https://portals.iucn.org/library/sites/library/files/documen
> ts/1993-038.pdf
> ).  I found text that looked familiar.  Here is a direct quote from that
> Reefs at Risk website:
>
>  “Coral reefs and biodiversity
>
> Coral forms range from compact brain corals found in areas of high wave
> energy, through heavy branching and plate corals in deeper water, off the
> reef edge, to smaller finely branched corals found behind the reef crest
> and in the lagoon.  Coral reefs are generally divided into four main types:
> atolls, barrier reefs, platform reefs, and fringing reefs. Atolls, where
> reefs form a ring around a lagoon, are mainly found in the Indian and
> Pacific Oceans. In the Pacific they are grouped into long island chains
> such as those of Micronesia and Central Polynesia. Barrier reefs are
> separated from the mainland by a deep channel or lagoon, in which are found
> platform reefs. Fringing reefs are directly attached to land or separated
> only by a shallow lagoon.  On an individual reef, the total count of fish
> species and smaller marine organisms may exceed several thousand, but the
> number of individual coral species is much lower.”
>
> For comparison, here is the opening text in the Ramakrishna monograph:
>
> “Coral forms range from compact brain corals found in areas of high wave
>
> energy, through heavy branching and plate corals in deeper water, off the
>
> reef edge, to smaller finely branched corals found behind the reef crest
> and
>
> in the lagoon. Coral reefs are generally divided into four main types:
> atolls,
>
> barrier reefs, platform reefs, and fringing reefs. Atolls, where reefs form
> a ring
>
> around a lagoon, are mainly found in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. In the
>
> Pacific they are grouped into long island chains such as those of
> Micronesia
>
> and Central Polynesia. Barrier reefs are separated from the mainland by a
>
> deep channel or lagoon, in which are found platform reefs. Fringing reefs
>
> are directly attached to land or separated only by a shallow lagoon. On an
>
> individual reef, the total count of fish species and smaller marine
> organisms
>
> may exceed several thousand, but the number of individual coral species is
>
> much lower.”
>
>  This text which I have put quote marks around to indicate that I have
> copied it verbatim from the Ramakrishna monograph, has no quote marks
> around it in the Ramakrishna monograph and no attribution of what the
> source was.  In addition, the monograph has no acknowledgement section at
> all that I can find.
>
>     This stimulated my curiosity further.  I looked at the species
> descriptions.  For the first family of corals presented, Acroporidae, the
> monograph has:
>
>
>
>  “Description : Colonial, zooxanthellate and mostly extant. Colonies have
>
> most of the growth forms known for zooxanthalate corals. Corallites (except
>
> *Astreopora) *are small with septa in two cycles or less and columellae are
>
> seldom developed.”
>
> I wondered how that compared with the Veron (2000) book.  The Veron book
> has:
>
> “Colonial, zooxanthellate and mostly extant.  Colonies have most of the
> growth forms known for zooxanthellate corals.  Corallites (except
> *Astreopora*) are small with septa in two cycles or less and columellae are
> seldom developed.”
>
> Huh.  For the first genus, *Montipora*, the monograph has:
>
> “Colonies are submassive, laminar, encrusting or branching.
>
> Many species are conspicuous. Corallites are small. Septa are in two cycles
>
> with inwarding projecting teeth. Columellae are absent. Corallite walls and
>
> coenosteum are porous and may be highly elaborated. Tentacles are usually
>
> extended only at night.”
>
> Veron (2000) has:
>
> “Colonies are submassive, laminar, encrusting or branching.  Many species
> are inconspicuous.  Corallites are small.  Septa are in two cycles with
> inward projecting teeth.  Columellae are absent.  Corallite walls and the
> coenosteum are porous and may be highly elaborated.  Tentacles are usually
> extended only at night.”
>
> That’s quite a coincidence, so I checked the first species the monograph
> presents, *Montipora cebuensis*, and here is what the monograph says:
>
> “Colonies composed of contorted and dissected laminae.
>
> Coenosteum ridges are prominent. They are irregular on larger fronds, but
>
> are usually perpendicular to the margins of small fronds. Corallites occur
>
> irregularly, between the ridges.”
>
> Here is what Veron (2000) writes for the same species:
>
> “Colonies are contorted dissected laminae.  Coenosteum ridges are
> prominent.
> They are irregular on larger fronds, but are usually perpendicular to the
> margins of small fronds.  Corallites occur irregularly, between the
> ridges.”
>
> Then I picked a random species, *Mycedium robokakai*.  Here is what
> Ramakrishna et al (2010) wrote:
>
> “Colonies
>
> are composed of small,
>
> thin, unifacial laminae,
>
> usually with non-wavy margins. Corallites are small, strongly inclined on
> the laminae and are
>
> sometimes arranged concentrically. Septo-costae are compact and have
>
> ornamented spines.”
>
> And Veron (2000) has this for the same species:
>
> “Colonies are composed of small, thin (5-8 mm thick), unifacial laminae,
> usually with non-wavy margins.  Corallites are small (4-6 mm diameter),
> strongly inclined on the laminae and are sometimes arranged concentrically.
> Septo-costae are compact, in 2 or 3 orders and have ornamented spines.”
>
> By that point, I was beginning to pick up a pattern.  Sadly, much of the
> contents of the Ramakrishna et al (2010) book is identical with that in
> other previously published sources, such as the Reefs at Risk website and
> particularly the Veron (2000) books.  If these passages were in quotes and
> the references given indicating where they were taken from, that would be
> no problem.  But that is not the case.  This is plagiarism.  It is passing
> off the text as though it was original and written by the authors.  It was
> not, it was copied verbatim.
>
>
> --
> Douglas Fenner
> Contractor for NOAA NMFS Protected Species, and consultant
> PO Box 7390
> Pago Pago, American Samoa 96799  USA
>
> New online open-access field guide to 300 coral species in Chagos, Indian
> Ocean
> http://chagosinformationportal.org/corals
>
> Even without El Nino, 2017 temperatures soared.
>
> http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/01/even-without-el-
> ni-o-2017-temperatures-still-soared?utm_campaign=news_
> weekly_2018-01-19&et_rid=17045989&et_cid=1800664
>
> Coral reefs are bleaching too frequently to recover
> https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/01/the-
> global-scourge-on-coral-reefs/549713/?utm_source=atlfb
>
> How to save the "tropical rainforests" of the ocean
> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/theworldpost/wp/2018/
> 01/09/coral-reefs/?tid=ss_tw-bottom&utm_term=.80ce291c546b
> _______________________________________________
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