The pitfalls
Another unfortunate bi-product of the pressure to publish has been a marked increase in plagiarism. Readers may have noticed that in Issue 98 we had to print a retraction of an article published in Issue 72. The fact that this example of plagiarism was spotted nearly five years after its publication should be a warning to all potential plagiarists that your sins will eventually find you out! This particular article got through my net, but there are many others that, fortunately, do not. A few weeks ago, a would-be contributor tried to pass off Chapter 10 of Teaching Reading Skills in a Foreign Language by Christine Nuttall as an article which she herself had written for ETp. I immediately pointed out that intellectual theft was a very serious offence and that the person concerned was risking her own reputation by attempting to get someone else’s work published under her own name. I also alerted several other editors in our field to what had happened (yes, we do talk to each other and compare notes). Later that day, she submitted the same ‘article’ to another magazine. As a result, nothing submitted by her in future will be accepted by ETp and she may well find it difficult to get published elsewhere. Plagiarism really isn’t worth it!