New research shows that some researchers may be more concerned with getting their research published than generating new and original data.
The Australian article, In Research, more is less, highlights the controversial issue of researchers plagiarizing their own work and "salami-slicing" their research in order to become published in scholarly journals. Numerous studies prove that these two methods compose up to 22% of published articles. For those of you who are not familiar with self-plagiarism, researchers have been known to modify previously published articles, present the data in a slightly different light and get their articles published again and again. The author explains salami-slicing as picking a part data and publishing articles about individual pieces of the puzzle to get more publicity.
Personally, I was extremely surprised by this number. I have been warned in class and on the web that researchers oftentimes have an "agenda" but I never knew that some researchers took it this far. While this is definitely not a positive aspect of the research world, it is good to remember that some researchers have ulterior motives.
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