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Editorial focusing "Ghost Writing and Plagiarism"
Journal of Rawalpindi Medical College; 2019;23(S-2): 64-65
64
Editorial
Ghost Writing and Plagiarism
Muhammad Khurram
Head of Department Medical Unit 1, Holy Family Hospital, Rawalpindi Medical University
According the International Committee of Medical
journal Editors (ICMJE) following four criteria needs
to be fulfilled for declaring a person authors; “1)
substantial contributions to the conception or design of
the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation
of data for the work, 2) drafting the work or revising it
critically for important intellectual content, 3) final
approval of the version to be published, 4) agreement
to be accountable for all aspects of the work in
ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or
integrity of any part of the work are appropriately
investigated and resolved”.1
The term non author contributor is used for persons
who don’t fulfill above mentioned criteria but may
have helped with reference to funding Supervision,
and editing etc. 1 An acknowledgement is to be made
for such contribution in the work, article or book.
Names of such helpers is not indexed in data bases
with reference to the concerned work, article or book.
.
Ghost writing means that an individual write for
another person who is considered to have written
these.2 It is also called contract cheating. Anything
especially autobiographies, books, assignments,
articles, and speeches can be ghost written. Why
someone opt for ghost writing is interesting. Some get
it as they don’t have time because of busy schedules,
others consider that although their narrative is
important and interesting but they do not have
sufficient time to write or what they will write will not
be impressive or up to mark. Economic gain, job and
friendship are common reasons for which a ghost
writer allows other to take credit of his work. As
everywhere, ghost writing culture is also there in
Pakistani scenario. Speeches of politicians and
government officials are written by persons who may
be hired or are employed in the concerned
department. It has been said that biographies of two of
the former Pakistani heads of state were written by
ghost writers.3
Medical ghost writer term has been used with the
context of studies or articles authored by someone else
for another particular person under the umbrella of a
pharmaceutical compny. 4 It is however one form of
plagiarism that has many components. In this context
one need to keep in mind plagiarism definition i.e.,
“wrongful appropriation, stealing and publication of
another author’s language, thoughts, ideas or
expressions and the representation of them as one’s
original work”.5 Interestingly a plagiarist is thieve who
steel someone’s work while in ghost writer willingly
gives credit of his work to some else.
Medical ghost writing and plagiarism as everywhere is
there in our scenario as well. It can be divided into
various forms. Commonest version is the cut paste
technique in which contents from someone else work
is used with plagiarists name. Another common form
practiced now a days is to get synopsis and
dissertation for post graduate examination preparation
by ghost writers. This kind of ghost writing has gained
popularity.6 Ghost writers get hefty payments in this
regard. In another case one requests colleagues or
friend working on some project or study to include
his/her name in the list of authors without any
contribution. In another scenario, seniors force juniors
who are conducting research to include their name in
research as authors. This may be up to such extent that
they want to be first author.
Morality and ethics compliance, monitoring, and
punitive actions are main mechanisms for avoiding
and controlling ghost writing/plagiarism. Plagiarism
trend is expected to decrease due to widespread use of
plagiarism scanning soft wares and policies of
controlling/regulatory bodies like Higher Education
Commission (HEC), Pakistan’s. It is to be noted that
Vice Chancellors and Rectors of Universities/Institutes
have been penalized in this regard.7, 8 There is
however long way to go for synopsis/dissertation
ghost writing, guest authoring, and forceful inclusion
in authors list free culture. Punishments cannot stop
this problem. This requires multiple interventions like
education, counseling, and facilitation.
Received Date: 02/10/2019 Revision Date: 05/10/2019 Accepted for Publication: 10/10/2019
Journal of Rawalpindi Medical College; 2019;23(S-2): 64-65
64
References
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and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-
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[Internet]. Dictionary.com, LLC. 2019 [cited 9 March 2019].
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memoirs to shed light? [Internet]. News.bbc.co.uk. 2006
[cited 9 March 2019]. Available from:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/5282618.st
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4. Langdon-Neuner E. Medical ghost-writing. Mens Sana
Monogr 2008;6:25773
5. Iqbal M B, Kambale T. Principles and practice of plagiarism:
Perpetrators' perspective. Med J DY Patil Univ 2015;8:681-
682
6. Altus MS. AMWA Ethics FAQs [Internet]. American Medical
Writers Association. 2013 [cited 9 March 2019] Available
from:
http://web.archive.org/web/20130716034114/http:/ww
w.amwa.org/amwa_ethics_faqs
7. Kaleem M. No action against FUUAST VC despite plagiarism
findings [Internet]. Daily Times. 2017 [cited 9 March 2019].
Available from: https://dailytimes.com.pk/4721/no-action-
against-fuuast-vc-despite-plagiarism-findings/
8. Haq R. CIIT pro-rector sacked over plagiarism of PhD thesis
[Internet]. The Express Tribune. 2016 [cited 9 March 2019].
Available from:
https://tribune.com.pk/story/1124706/ciit-pro-rector-
sacked-plagiarism-phd-thesis/
How to Cite this Article: Khurram, M. (2019). Ghost Writing And Plagiarism. Journal of Rawalpindi Medical College,
23(S-2), 64-65.
Authors Contributions
Muhammad Khurram: Conception of idea, Literature review and manuscript writing
... Ghost writing and contract cheating constitute serious facets of academic misconduct in higher education. Even though there are plagiarism techniques which are practiced, the gap in knowledge exists (Karnalim, 2019;Khurram, 2019;Vani & Gupta, 2018). Thus it has become a bane to the progress of the academic environment. ...
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Higher education in India is vibrant as it assumes greater role interns of building the nation. As enrolment ratio is less, Govt through Universities and colleges promote higher education and the reach is now in rural areas too. To enrol more number of the students has become a target for the colleges and faculties’ working there, as a result to increase the quantity, less attention is paid towards the quality of higher education. The higher education is associated with the tasks such as assignment writing, dissertations to full fill the requirements of the particular degree and these are graded to improve the research habits among the students and at the same time to enhance the quality of higher education which also contribute for the development of certain skills among student community. There are agencies and individual involved to assist the students by providing the service of writing the assignments and dissertations for certain prescribed amount of money. There are academic writers (Ghost writers) who provide such readymade assignments and dissertations to the students. In this paper attempt is done to find the students perception and at the same time their experiences of ghost writers are studied. The study is concentrated in Mangalore city of Karnataka State students those who perused higher education and undergone dissertation while perusing their master degree.
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In view of the editorial written by you in MJDYPU, March to April 2015, volume 8, issue 2 “Principles and practice of plagiarism: Perpetrator’s perspective.” We tend to differ slightly to the views put forward by the respected author like “crime and/or stealing.”[1] We want to humbly put forward our point that plagiarism and originality are separated by a very thin line. By what we know about the defi nition of plagiarism it states, “Wrongful appropriation, stealing and publication of another author’s language, thoughts, ideas or expressions, and the representation of them as one’s own original work.”[2] Our reason to believe otherwise is that although the author takes the material from some other source but the author always puts a reference in favor of his statement as to where from he has taken it; had it been otherwise and the author would not have mentioned any reference and made the statement look like his own, now that would mount for stealing, plagiarism or a crime.
Article
Any assistance an author receives with writing a scientific article that is not acknowledged in the article is described as ghost-writing. Articles ghost-written by medical writers engaged by pharmaceutical companies who have a vested interest in the content have caused concern after scandals revealed misleading content in some articles. A key criterion of authorship in medical journals is final approval of the article submitted for publication. Authors are responsible for the content of their articles and for acknowledging any assistance they receive. Action taken by some journals and medical writer associations to encourage acknowledgement is an uphill task in the light of disinterest from the pharmaceutical industry and ignorance or similar lack of interest by those who agree to be named authors. However, acknowledgment alone is not sufficient to resolve medical ghost-writing; issues of how the acknowledgement is formulated, permission to acknowledge and access to raw data also need to be tackled.
Defining the role of authors and contributors
International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Defining the role of authors and contributors. [Internet] Philadelphia, PA: The Committee; 2016 [cited 9 March 2019].
com -The world's favorite online thesaurus!
  • Thesaurus
Thesaurus.com -The world's favorite online thesaurus! [Internet]. Dictionary.com, LLC. 2019 [cited 9 March 2019].
No action against FUUAST VC despite plagiarism findings
  • M Kaleem
Kaleem M. No action against FUUAST VC despite plagiarism findings [Internet].
CIIT pro-rector sacked over plagiarism of PhD thesis
  • R Haq
Haq R. CIIT pro-rector sacked over plagiarism of PhD thesis [Internet]. The Express Tribune. 2016 [cited 9 March 2019]. Available from: https://tribune.com.pk/story/1124706/ciit-pro-rectorsacked-plagiarism-phd-thesis/