Thursday 20 May 2010
RESPONSE TO SWALES & FEAK (pp.77-102).
Since Swales & Feak discuss fundamental language-related considerations at length in this chapter (as they do throughout the book), I will not elaborate on these, or on the information they provide relating to the interpretation of graphs, and will make a general observation regarding data commentary instead. The linguistic information provided by Swales & Feak speaks for itself and – being a comprehensive work – requires little elaboration. Data commentary involves – among others – discussing the implications of the data. This is however easier said than done since the meaning of data is bound to be colored (and even obscured) by our own perceptions and perspectives (and even our hidden bias). To this end it is important that our discussion of data within the research work be validated – especially so when our research draws on the words and perceptions of others. Participants need to be included in evaluating our writing prior to commencing with the writing of the final draft. This is a necessary step towards aiming for research work characterized by a greater sensitivity towards integrity.
RESPONSE TO SWALES & FEAK (pp.57-76).
Swales and Feak turn their attention to the argumentative and evaluative nature of problem-solution texts. Among others they discuss the use of verbs and indirect questions in constructing problem-solution texts. Of course, what is implied by the ‘problem-solution’ name is the creation of tension followed by the release of tension through rhetorical process. This can be related to the need for creating urgency (alluded to in the previous blog as ‘creating a hook’), and needs to be incorporated into the text from the outset. The problem is the need in existence and the solution is the manner in which that need is met. How this tension is resolved (if ever, since some good research is bound to end unresolved leading to more questions) can be thought of by drawing a parallel between the text between the introduction and conclusion as a journey. And when this tension eventually surfaces in the interested question of your reader – where is this going to end? – the research work validates itself as relevant.
RESPONSE TO SWALES & FEAK (pp.173-217).
In this section, Swales and Feak provide information relating to constructing five parts usually found at the beginning of the research paper. These introduction sections set the stage for what is to follow, and go a long way to establishing the context of the work from the start. They then go into a discussion of grammatical considerations (such as the use of connectors and negative openings). I think the most important consideration when it comes to writing the introductory section of your research work should be to use language that creates a sense of urgency (some refer to this as ‘creating a hook’). Of course, many people begin writing without really knowing in which direction the writing will take them. This may require that the researcher writes a tentative introductory section which can always be revised at a later point. I’ve found this going back-and-forth to be a liberating way of continuously refining one’s thoughts.
Tuesday 27 April 2010
Response to Swales & Feak (pp.155-172).
Once again Swales & Feak focus a large amount of attention discussing the basic grammatical tools and structures that should be present in English academic writing. Yet, in this section they discuss this in context to writing a section that covers the methods and materials to be used / being used during the research study. Due to the nature of my study, the issues presented will be explored by paying attention to several cases within the bounded system of the EFL teacher education class. On several occasions, information of a critical nature will be provided to teachers. These sessions will be recorded to allow for a later scrutiny of reactions within the class, physical cues, and the dynamic of interaction between teachers during the sessions. This case study will also use individual interviews to further elaborate on teacher perceptions so as map the course ahead.
Sunday 25 April 2010
The Glenfiddich Summary (In Response to Swales & Feak pp.105-130).
A good summary is like a good whisky! That's because a good summary is a distillation of premium substance - and in the case of writing, this "substance" is information. Distillation is both a process and a craft. The challenge in writing (as in good brewing and distillation) however remains to capture the same premium quality substance as one would hope to do in the creation of a good whisky. This can only be done through patience . . . taking time . . . time is needed to both digest the information and divide the important from that which is less important, as well as to capture the important information in a form that does justice to the unique qualities of the "raw material" / "ingredients" / source material that was used in the creation of the distilled product. In other words, the final product should never lose touch with the character of the uniqueness of its origin (as the latest product sourced from a chain of continuous origins, so to speak), and should be representative of 'balance' (p.105). In this sense, writing a good summary demands sensitivity - the hallmark of the great craftsperson.
Thursday 15 April 2010
A Random Thought on Definitions (In Response to Swales & Feak pp.33-55).
A definition? “All birds can fly”. Not a true definition! This sentence is untrue since even if only one bird in the entire universe were unable to fly (as can be illustrated rather easily), the reality is that not all birds can fly. Thus, the property "can fly" cannot form a part of the definition of a bird. The lesson to be learned is that definitions must always aim for universality. They must apply to all the members / elements of a defined set, such as the set of "all birds" used in the previous example. Therefore, constructing a definition becomes more than using words to briefly describe something – it’s a matter concerned with recognizing and isolating similarities (or common-denominators). The skeptical nature of my personal feelings relating to fixed categories and “absolute” definitions aside, we (as humans) do require a certain degree of definition in order to speak about things . . . in order to both understand and be understood. A better definition of a bird therefore may be “An animal with feathered wings”. However, the challenge here is for the reader not to infer and equate wings with flight since this would extend the definition beyond the range of what was originally intended. Of course, inference is inevitable since reader and writer seldom, if ever, have contact (and inference is a necessary means of meaning construction). Ultimately, definitions are themselves vulnerable to semantic dynamics, and this often necessitates a more-detailed definition of the initial definition (especially as far as the context of the original wording is concerned).
Wednesday 14 April 2010
HERE' S ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE ON LIU'S "Plagiarism in ESOL Students: Is Cultural Conditioning Truly the Major Culprit?"
Rampant cheating hurts China's research ambitions
By GILLIAN WONG Associated Press Writer
11 April 2010
LIUZHOU, China - When professors in China need to author research papers to get promoted, many turn to people like Lu Keqian.
Working on his laptop in a cramped spare bedroom, the former schoolteacher ghostwrites for professors, students, government offices - anyone willing to pay his fee, typically about 300 yuan ($45).
"My opinion is that writing papers for someone else is not wrong," he said. "There will always be a time when one needs help from others. Even our great leaders Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping needed help writing."
Ghostwriting, plagiarizing or faking results is so rampant in Chinese academia that some experts worry it could hinder China's efforts to become a leader in science.
The communist government views science as critical to China's modernization, and the latest calls for government spending on science and technology to grow by 8 percent to 163 billion yuan ($24 billion) this year.
State-run media recently exulted over reports that China publishes more papers in international journals than any except the U.S. But not all the research stands up to scrutiny. In December, a British journal retracted 70 papers from a Chinese university, all by the same two lead scientists, saying the work had been fabricated.
"Academic fraud, misconduct and ethical violations are very common in China," said professor Rao Yi, dean of the life sciences school at Peking University in the capital. "It is a big problem."
Critics blame weak penalties and a system that bases faculty promotions and bonuses on number, rather than quality, of papers published.
Dan Ben-Canaan is familiar with plagiarism.
The Israeli professor has been teaching for nine years at Heilongjiang University in the northeastern city of Harbin. A colleague approached him in 2008 for a paper he wrote about the kidnapping and murder of a Jewish musician in Harbin in 1933 during the Japanese occupation.
"He had the audacity to present it as his own paper at a conference that I organized," Ben-Canaan said. "Without any shame!"
In a separate case, he gave material he had written to a researcher at the prestigious Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He said he was shocked to receive a book by the academic that was mostly a copy and translation of the material Ben-Canaan had provided - without any attribution.
The pressure to publish has created a ghostwriting boom. Nearly 1 billion yuan (more than $145 million) was spent on academic papers in China last year, up fivefold from 2007, a study by Wuhan University professor Shen Yang showed.
One company providing such a service is Lu's, in Liuzhou, a southern industrial city. His Lu Ke Academic Center boasts a network of 20 to 30 graduate students and professors whose specialties range from computer technology to military affairs.
Lu, a 58-year-old Communist Party member, is approached by clients through Internet chat programs. Most are college professors seeking promotions and students seeking help on theses. Once, 10 students from the same college class put in a collective request for him to write their papers, he said.
"Doing everything on your own, independently, should be possible in theory, but in reality it is quite difficult and one will always need some help," Lu said. "This is how I see it. I don't know if it is right."
Even in the business of selling research papers, there are cheats. Among the papers bought and sold in 2007, more than 70 percent were plagiarized, the Wuhan study found.
Early last year, Internet users found that the deputy principal of Anhui Agricultural University had committed plagiarism in as many as 20 papers. The university removed him from his post but allowed him to continue teaching.
In June, the principal of a traditional Chinese medicine university in the city of Guangzhou was accused of plagiarizing at least 40 percent of his doctoral thesis from another paper.
And in March, the state-run China Youth Daily reported a 1997 medical paper had been plagiarized repeatedly over the past decade. At least 25 people from 16 organizations copied from the work, and more doctors are expected to be named as the investigation by two students using plagiarism-detecting software continues, the report said.
Fang Shimin, an independent investigator of fraud, said he and his volunteers expose about a hundred cases every year, publicizing them on a Web site titled "New Threads."
"The most common ones are plagiarism and exaggerating academic achievement," Fang said.
The papers retracted by the British journal came from researchers at Jinggangshan University in southeastern China. The editors are checking other papers from the same institution, and say more retractions are expected. Calls and e-mails sent to Zhong Hua and Liu Tao, the two researchers named as lead authors of the papers, were unanswered. Other researchers contacted at the university too did not respond.
The journal, Acta Crystallographica Section E, publishes discoveries of new crystal structures, much of it from legitimate Chinese research.
"Chinese authors have submitted thousands of high quality structures to Acta E, which represent an important contribution to science," wrote Peter Strickland, managing editor of Journals of the International Union of Crystallography, which owns Acta E, in an e-mail. He said it was the first time fraudulent papers had been found in any of the journals.
Richard P. Suttmeier, an expert in Chinese science policy at the University of Oregon, said the problems can be traced to China's efforts to modernize its science system in the 1980s and early 1990s when research accountability and evaluation were still weak.
In trying to find ready measures of achievement, China emulated Western practices and began to focus on high-quality publications, but with mixed results, he said.
The problems could hurt the country's ambition of becoming a global leader in research, Suttmeier said.
"I suspect there will be less appetite for non-Chinese scientists to collaborate with Chinese colleagues who are operating in a culture of misconduct," he said.
Last month the Education Ministry released guidelines for forming a 35-member watchdog committee. Also, in a faxed reply to questions, it said it has asked universities to get tough.
Rao, the Peking University dean, remains skeptical.
Government ministries are happy to fund research but not to police it, he said. "The authorities don't want to be the bad guy."
The Israeli professor has been teaching for nine years at Heilongjiang University in the northeastern city of Harbin. A colleague approached him in 2008 for a paper he wrote about the kidnapping and murder of a Jewish musician in Harbin in 1933 during the Japanese occupation.
"He had the audacity to present it as his own paper at a conference that I organized," Ben-Canaan said. "Without any shame!"
In a separate case, he gave material he had written to a researcher at the prestigious Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He said he was shocked to receive a book by the academic that was mostly a copy and translation of the material Ben-Canaan had provided - without any attribution.
The pressure to publish has created a ghostwriting boom. Nearly 1 billion yuan (more than $145 million) was spent on academic papers in China last year, up fivefold from 2007, a study by Wuhan University professor Shen Yang showed.
One company providing such a service is Lu's, in Liuzhou, a southern industrial city. His Lu Ke Academic Center boasts a network of 20 to 30 graduate students and professors whose specialties range from computer technology to military affairs.
Lu, a 58-year-old Communist Party member, is approached by clients through Internet chat programs. Most are college professors seeking promotions and students seeking help on theses. Once, 10 students from the same college class put in a collective request for him to write their papers, he said.
"Doing everything on your own, independently, should be possible in theory, but in reality it is quite difficult and one will always need some help," Lu said. "This is how I see it. I don't know if it is right."
Even in the business of selling research papers, there are cheats. Among the papers bought and sold in 2007, more than 70 percent were plagiarized, the Wuhan study found.
Early last year, Internet users found that the deputy principal of Anhui Agricultural University had committed plagiarism in as many as 20 papers. The university removed him from his post but allowed him to continue teaching.
In June, the principal of a traditional Chinese medicine university in the city of Guangzhou was accused of plagiarizing at least 40 percent of his doctoral thesis from another paper.
And in March, the state-run China Youth Daily reported a 1997 medical paper had been plagiarized repeatedly over the past decade. At least 25 people from 16 organizations copied from the work, and more doctors are expected to be named as the investigation by two students using plagiarism-detecting software continues, the report said.
Fang Shimin, an independent investigator of fraud, said he and his volunteers expose about a hundred cases every year, publicizing them on a Web site titled "New Threads."
"The most common ones are plagiarism and exaggerating academic achievement," Fang said.
The papers retracted by the British journal came from researchers at Jinggangshan University in southeastern China. The editors are checking other papers from the same institution, and say more retractions are expected. Calls and e-mails sent to Zhong Hua and Liu Tao, the two researchers named as lead authors of the papers, were unanswered. Other researchers contacted at the university too did not respond.
The journal, Acta Crystallographica Section E, publishes discoveries of new crystal structures, much of it from legitimate Chinese research.
"Chinese authors have submitted thousands of high quality structures to Acta E, which represent an important contribution to science," wrote Peter Strickland, managing editor of Journals of the International Union of Crystallography, which owns Acta E, in an e-mail. He said it was the first time fraudulent papers had been found in any of the journals.
Richard P. Suttmeier, an expert in Chinese science policy at the University of Oregon, said the problems can be traced to China's efforts to modernize its science system in the 1980s and early 1990s when research accountability and evaluation were still weak.
In trying to find ready measures of achievement, China emulated Western practices and began to focus on high-quality publications, but with mixed results, he said.
The problems could hurt the country's ambition of becoming a global leader in research, Suttmeier said.
"I suspect there will be less appetite for non-Chinese scientists to collaborate with Chinese colleagues who are operating in a culture of misconduct," he said.
Last month the Education Ministry released guidelines for forming a 35-member watchdog committee. Also, in a faxed reply to questions, it said it has asked universities to get tough.
Rao, the Peking University dean, remains skeptical.
Government ministries are happy to fund research but not to police it, he said. "The authorities don't want to be the bad guy."
Early last year, Internet users found that the deputy principal of Anhui Agricultural University had committed plagiarism in as many as 20 papers. The university removed him from his post but allowed him to continue teaching.
In June, the principal of a traditional Chinese medicine university in the city of Guangzhou was accused of plagiarizing at least 40 percent of his doctoral thesis from another paper.
And in March, the state-run China Youth Daily reported a 1997 medical paper had been plagiarized repeatedly over the past decade. At least 25 people from 16 organizations copied from the work, and more doctors are expected to be named as the investigation by two students using plagiarism-detecting software continues, the report said.
Fang Shimin, an independent investigator of fraud, said he and his volunteers expose about a hundred cases every year, publicizing them on a Web site titled "New Threads."
"The most common ones are plagiarism and exaggerating academic achievement," Fang said.
The papers retracted by the British journal came from researchers at Jinggangshan University in southeastern China. The editors are checking other papers from the same institution, and say more retractions are expected. Calls and e-mails sent to Zhong Hua and Liu Tao, the two researchers named as lead authors of the papers, were unanswered. Other researchers contacted at the university too did not respond.
The journal, Acta Crystallographica Section E, publishes discoveries of new crystal structures, much of it from legitimate Chinese research.
"Chinese authors have submitted thousands of high quality structures to Acta E, which represent an important contribution to science," wrote Peter Strickland, managing editor of Journals of the International Union of Crystallography, which owns Acta E, in an e-mail. He said it was the first time fraudulent papers had been found in any of the journals.
Richard P. Suttmeier, an expert in Chinese science policy at the University of Oregon, said the problems can be traced to China's efforts to modernize its science system in the 1980s and early 1990s when research accountability and evaluation were still weak.
In trying to find ready measures of achievement, China emulated Western practices and began to focus on high-quality publications, but with mixed results, he said.
The problems could hurt the country's ambition of becoming a global leader in research, Suttmeier said.
"I suspect there will be less appetite for non-Chinese scientists to collaborate with Chinese colleagues who are operating in a culture of misconduct," he said.
Last month the Education Ministry released guidelines for forming a 35-member watchdog committee. Also, in a faxed reply to questions, it said it has asked universities to get tough.
Rao, the Peking University dean, remains skeptical.
Government ministries are happy to fund research but not to police it, he said. "The authorities don't want to be the bad guy."
Richard P. Suttmeier, an expert in Chinese science policy at the University of Oregon, said the problems can be traced to China's efforts to modernize its science system in the 1980s and early 1990s when research accountability and evaluation were still weak.
In trying to find ready measures of achievement, China emulated Western practices and began to focus on high-quality publications, but with mixed results, he said.
The problems could hurt the country's ambition of becoming a global leader in research, Suttmeier said.
"I suspect there will be less appetite for non-Chinese scientists to collaborate with Chinese colleagues who are operating in a culture of misconduct," he said.
Last month the Education Ministry released guidelines for forming a 35-member watchdog committee. Also, in a faxed reply to questions, it said it has asked universities to get tough.
Rao, the Peking University dean, remains skeptical.
Government ministries are happy to fund research but not to police it, he said. "The authorities don't want to be the bad guy."
---
Associated Press researcher Xi Yue contributed to this report.
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20100411/API/1004110508?p=1&tc=pg
By GILLIAN WONG Associated Press Writer
11 April 2010
LIUZHOU, China - When professors in China need to author research papers to get promoted, many turn to people like Lu Keqian.
Working on his laptop in a cramped spare bedroom, the former schoolteacher ghostwrites for professors, students, government offices - anyone willing to pay his fee, typically about 300 yuan ($45).
"My opinion is that writing papers for someone else is not wrong," he said. "There will always be a time when one needs help from others. Even our great leaders Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping needed help writing."
Ghostwriting, plagiarizing or faking results is so rampant in Chinese academia that some experts worry it could hinder China's efforts to become a leader in science.
The communist government views science as critical to China's modernization, and the latest calls for government spending on science and technology to grow by 8 percent to 163 billion yuan ($24 billion) this year.
State-run media recently exulted over reports that China publishes more papers in international journals than any except the U.S. But not all the research stands up to scrutiny. In December, a British journal retracted 70 papers from a Chinese university, all by the same two lead scientists, saying the work had been fabricated.
"Academic fraud, misconduct and ethical violations are very common in China," said professor Rao Yi, dean of the life sciences school at Peking University in the capital. "It is a big problem."
Critics blame weak penalties and a system that bases faculty promotions and bonuses on number, rather than quality, of papers published.
Dan Ben-Canaan is familiar with plagiarism.
The Israeli professor has been teaching for nine years at Heilongjiang University in the northeastern city of Harbin. A colleague approached him in 2008 for a paper he wrote about the kidnapping and murder of a Jewish musician in Harbin in 1933 during the Japanese occupation.
"He had the audacity to present it as his own paper at a conference that I organized," Ben-Canaan said. "Without any shame!"
In a separate case, he gave material he had written to a researcher at the prestigious Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He said he was shocked to receive a book by the academic that was mostly a copy and translation of the material Ben-Canaan had provided - without any attribution.
The pressure to publish has created a ghostwriting boom. Nearly 1 billion yuan (more than $145 million) was spent on academic papers in China last year, up fivefold from 2007, a study by Wuhan University professor Shen Yang showed.
One company providing such a service is Lu's, in Liuzhou, a southern industrial city. His Lu Ke Academic Center boasts a network of 20 to 30 graduate students and professors whose specialties range from computer technology to military affairs.
Lu, a 58-year-old Communist Party member, is approached by clients through Internet chat programs. Most are college professors seeking promotions and students seeking help on theses. Once, 10 students from the same college class put in a collective request for him to write their papers, he said.
"Doing everything on your own, independently, should be possible in theory, but in reality it is quite difficult and one will always need some help," Lu said. "This is how I see it. I don't know if it is right."
Even in the business of selling research papers, there are cheats. Among the papers bought and sold in 2007, more than 70 percent were plagiarized, the Wuhan study found.
Early last year, Internet users found that the deputy principal of Anhui Agricultural University had committed plagiarism in as many as 20 papers. The university removed him from his post but allowed him to continue teaching.
In June, the principal of a traditional Chinese medicine university in the city of Guangzhou was accused of plagiarizing at least 40 percent of his doctoral thesis from another paper.
And in March, the state-run China Youth Daily reported a 1997 medical paper had been plagiarized repeatedly over the past decade. At least 25 people from 16 organizations copied from the work, and more doctors are expected to be named as the investigation by two students using plagiarism-detecting software continues, the report said.
Fang Shimin, an independent investigator of fraud, said he and his volunteers expose about a hundred cases every year, publicizing them on a Web site titled "New Threads."
"The most common ones are plagiarism and exaggerating academic achievement," Fang said.
The papers retracted by the British journal came from researchers at Jinggangshan University in southeastern China. The editors are checking other papers from the same institution, and say more retractions are expected. Calls and e-mails sent to Zhong Hua and Liu Tao, the two researchers named as lead authors of the papers, were unanswered. Other researchers contacted at the university too did not respond.
The journal, Acta Crystallographica Section E, publishes discoveries of new crystal structures, much of it from legitimate Chinese research.
"Chinese authors have submitted thousands of high quality structures to Acta E, which represent an important contribution to science," wrote Peter Strickland, managing editor of Journals of the International Union of Crystallography, which owns Acta E, in an e-mail. He said it was the first time fraudulent papers had been found in any of the journals.
Richard P. Suttmeier, an expert in Chinese science policy at the University of Oregon, said the problems can be traced to China's efforts to modernize its science system in the 1980s and early 1990s when research accountability and evaluation were still weak.
In trying to find ready measures of achievement, China emulated Western practices and began to focus on high-quality publications, but with mixed results, he said.
The problems could hurt the country's ambition of becoming a global leader in research, Suttmeier said.
"I suspect there will be less appetite for non-Chinese scientists to collaborate with Chinese colleagues who are operating in a culture of misconduct," he said.
Last month the Education Ministry released guidelines for forming a 35-member watchdog committee. Also, in a faxed reply to questions, it said it has asked universities to get tough.
Rao, the Peking University dean, remains skeptical.
Government ministries are happy to fund research but not to police it, he said. "The authorities don't want to be the bad guy."
The Israeli professor has been teaching for nine years at Heilongjiang University in the northeastern city of Harbin. A colleague approached him in 2008 for a paper he wrote about the kidnapping and murder of a Jewish musician in Harbin in 1933 during the Japanese occupation.
"He had the audacity to present it as his own paper at a conference that I organized," Ben-Canaan said. "Without any shame!"
In a separate case, he gave material he had written to a researcher at the prestigious Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He said he was shocked to receive a book by the academic that was mostly a copy and translation of the material Ben-Canaan had provided - without any attribution.
The pressure to publish has created a ghostwriting boom. Nearly 1 billion yuan (more than $145 million) was spent on academic papers in China last year, up fivefold from 2007, a study by Wuhan University professor Shen Yang showed.
One company providing such a service is Lu's, in Liuzhou, a southern industrial city. His Lu Ke Academic Center boasts a network of 20 to 30 graduate students and professors whose specialties range from computer technology to military affairs.
Lu, a 58-year-old Communist Party member, is approached by clients through Internet chat programs. Most are college professors seeking promotions and students seeking help on theses. Once, 10 students from the same college class put in a collective request for him to write their papers, he said.
"Doing everything on your own, independently, should be possible in theory, but in reality it is quite difficult and one will always need some help," Lu said. "This is how I see it. I don't know if it is right."
Even in the business of selling research papers, there are cheats. Among the papers bought and sold in 2007, more than 70 percent were plagiarized, the Wuhan study found.
Early last year, Internet users found that the deputy principal of Anhui Agricultural University had committed plagiarism in as many as 20 papers. The university removed him from his post but allowed him to continue teaching.
In June, the principal of a traditional Chinese medicine university in the city of Guangzhou was accused of plagiarizing at least 40 percent of his doctoral thesis from another paper.
And in March, the state-run China Youth Daily reported a 1997 medical paper had been plagiarized repeatedly over the past decade. At least 25 people from 16 organizations copied from the work, and more doctors are expected to be named as the investigation by two students using plagiarism-detecting software continues, the report said.
Fang Shimin, an independent investigator of fraud, said he and his volunteers expose about a hundred cases every year, publicizing them on a Web site titled "New Threads."
"The most common ones are plagiarism and exaggerating academic achievement," Fang said.
The papers retracted by the British journal came from researchers at Jinggangshan University in southeastern China. The editors are checking other papers from the same institution, and say more retractions are expected. Calls and e-mails sent to Zhong Hua and Liu Tao, the two researchers named as lead authors of the papers, were unanswered. Other researchers contacted at the university too did not respond.
The journal, Acta Crystallographica Section E, publishes discoveries of new crystal structures, much of it from legitimate Chinese research.
"Chinese authors have submitted thousands of high quality structures to Acta E, which represent an important contribution to science," wrote Peter Strickland, managing editor of Journals of the International Union of Crystallography, which owns Acta E, in an e-mail. He said it was the first time fraudulent papers had been found in any of the journals.
Richard P. Suttmeier, an expert in Chinese science policy at the University of Oregon, said the problems can be traced to China's efforts to modernize its science system in the 1980s and early 1990s when research accountability and evaluation were still weak.
In trying to find ready measures of achievement, China emulated Western practices and began to focus on high-quality publications, but with mixed results, he said.
The problems could hurt the country's ambition of becoming a global leader in research, Suttmeier said.
"I suspect there will be less appetite for non-Chinese scientists to collaborate with Chinese colleagues who are operating in a culture of misconduct," he said.
Last month the Education Ministry released guidelines for forming a 35-member watchdog committee. Also, in a faxed reply to questions, it said it has asked universities to get tough.
Rao, the Peking University dean, remains skeptical.
Government ministries are happy to fund research but not to police it, he said. "The authorities don't want to be the bad guy."
Early last year, Internet users found that the deputy principal of Anhui Agricultural University had committed plagiarism in as many as 20 papers. The university removed him from his post but allowed him to continue teaching.
In June, the principal of a traditional Chinese medicine university in the city of Guangzhou was accused of plagiarizing at least 40 percent of his doctoral thesis from another paper.
And in March, the state-run China Youth Daily reported a 1997 medical paper had been plagiarized repeatedly over the past decade. At least 25 people from 16 organizations copied from the work, and more doctors are expected to be named as the investigation by two students using plagiarism-detecting software continues, the report said.
Fang Shimin, an independent investigator of fraud, said he and his volunteers expose about a hundred cases every year, publicizing them on a Web site titled "New Threads."
"The most common ones are plagiarism and exaggerating academic achievement," Fang said.
The papers retracted by the British journal came from researchers at Jinggangshan University in southeastern China. The editors are checking other papers from the same institution, and say more retractions are expected. Calls and e-mails sent to Zhong Hua and Liu Tao, the two researchers named as lead authors of the papers, were unanswered. Other researchers contacted at the university too did not respond.
The journal, Acta Crystallographica Section E, publishes discoveries of new crystal structures, much of it from legitimate Chinese research.
"Chinese authors have submitted thousands of high quality structures to Acta E, which represent an important contribution to science," wrote Peter Strickland, managing editor of Journals of the International Union of Crystallography, which owns Acta E, in an e-mail. He said it was the first time fraudulent papers had been found in any of the journals.
Richard P. Suttmeier, an expert in Chinese science policy at the University of Oregon, said the problems can be traced to China's efforts to modernize its science system in the 1980s and early 1990s when research accountability and evaluation were still weak.
In trying to find ready measures of achievement, China emulated Western practices and began to focus on high-quality publications, but with mixed results, he said.
The problems could hurt the country's ambition of becoming a global leader in research, Suttmeier said.
"I suspect there will be less appetite for non-Chinese scientists to collaborate with Chinese colleagues who are operating in a culture of misconduct," he said.
Last month the Education Ministry released guidelines for forming a 35-member watchdog committee. Also, in a faxed reply to questions, it said it has asked universities to get tough.
Rao, the Peking University dean, remains skeptical.
Government ministries are happy to fund research but not to police it, he said. "The authorities don't want to be the bad guy."
Richard P. Suttmeier, an expert in Chinese science policy at the University of Oregon, said the problems can be traced to China's efforts to modernize its science system in the 1980s and early 1990s when research accountability and evaluation were still weak.
In trying to find ready measures of achievement, China emulated Western practices and began to focus on high-quality publications, but with mixed results, he said.
The problems could hurt the country's ambition of becoming a global leader in research, Suttmeier said.
"I suspect there will be less appetite for non-Chinese scientists to collaborate with Chinese colleagues who are operating in a culture of misconduct," he said.
Last month the Education Ministry released guidelines for forming a 35-member watchdog committee. Also, in a faxed reply to questions, it said it has asked universities to get tough.
Rao, the Peking University dean, remains skeptical.
Government ministries are happy to fund research but not to police it, he said. "The authorities don't want to be the bad guy."
---
Associated Press researcher Xi Yue contributed to this report.
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20100411/API/1004110508?p=1&tc=pg
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