Friday, February 09, 2024

Worse than Plagiarism: False Firstness Claims and Dismissive Literature Reviews By Richard P. Phelps

Worse than Plagiarism: False Firstness Claims and Dismissive Literature Reviews By Richard P. Phelps
"...Of course, plagiarism is unethical—it misdirects credit for the work and misrepresents the accomplishments of the perpetrator. 
But I will argue it is not the worst sin scholars commit in reference to the wider research literature, though it is more likely to be punished...
  • With a dismissive literature review, an author declares at the outset of an article that previous research on the topic is either nonexistent or no good. Typically, no evidence supports the claim, such as where or how—or even if—the author looked for previous work.
  • Authors making a firstness claim boldly declare themselves to be the first in history to study a particular topic—as in “this is the first study of …”
How can they get away with it?...

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