Correction to: Sci Eng Ethics https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-017-0008-y

The correct legends of figures 1, 2, 5, 12, 13 and 14 read:

  • Fig. 1 First page of The New England Journal of Medicine article showing authorship as a research group rather than as individual authors. From RTS,S Clinical Trials Partnership (2011). Reprinted with permission from Massachusetts Medical Society.

  • Fig. 2 Appendix from The New England Journal of Medicine article listing authors. From RTS,S Clinical Trials Partnership (2011). Reprinted with permission from Massachusetts Medical Society.

  • Fig. 5 Images of top of first page for journal article and conference proceedings. Reproduced by permission of The Electrochemical Society.

  • Fig. 12 Example of exact duplication of visual. Photographs of test system in two publications: conference proceedings (ECS Transactions) on left; journal article (Journal of The Electrochemical Society) on right. Reproduced by permission of The Electrochemical Society.

  • Fig. 13 Example of recycling of a table. Composition of synthetic urine in two publications: conference proceedings (ECS Transactions) on left; journal article (Journal of The Electrochemical Society) on right. Reproduced by permission of The Electrochemical Society.

  • Fig. 14 Example of recycling figure with new data. Conference proceedings (ECS Transactions) on left; journal article (Journal of The Electrochemical Society) on right. Note difference in data presented: 5% vs. 2% fecal matter. Reproduced by permission of The Electrochemical Society.

The correct Footnote 8 should read: An additional paper on text recycling (Horbach and Halffman 2017) was published as the present article was undergoing revision. This paper is limited, in this author’s view, in its approach to text recycling as inherently problematic, framing the practice as “academic misconduct” and “a new way to game the reward system of science” rather than as a neutral practice that can be used either properly or improperly. Nevertheless, it is a valuable contribution to the limited scholarship to date.


Acknowledgements I want to thank Susanne E. Hall for her insightful comments and useful suggestions on an earlier draft of this manuscript. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation Cultivating Cultures for Ethical STEM program under grant no. CCE-1737093.


The original article has been corrected.