M. V. Dougherty 
Correcting the Scholarly Record for Research Integrity 
In the Aftermath of Plagiarism

This volume is the first book-length study on post-publication responses to academic plagiarism in humanities disciplines. It demonstrates that the correction of the scholarly literature for plagiarism is not a task for editors and publishers alone; each member of the research community has an indispensable role in maintaining the integrity of the published literature in the aftermath of plagiarism. If untreated, academic plagiarism damages the integrity of the scholarly record, corrupts the surrounding academic enterprise, and creates inefficiencies across all levels of knowledge production. By providing case studies from the field of philosophy and related disciplines, the volume exhibits that current post-publication responses to academic plagiarism are insufficient. It catalogues how humanities disciplines fall short in comparison with the natural and biomedical sciences for ensuring the integrity of the body of published research. This volume provides clarity about how to conceptualize the scholarly record, surveys the traditional methods for correcting it, and argues for new interventions to improve the reliability of the body of published research. The book is valuable not only to those in the field of philosophy and other humanities disciplines, but also to those interested in research ethics, meta-science, and the sociology of research.

Table of Content

Preface.- Introduction.- 1. Defining the Scholarly Record.- 2. What is Academic Plagiarism?.- 3. A Test Case for Published Corrections: The Discipline of Philosophy.- 4. Academic Whistleblowing.- 5. Publishing Corrections of the Scholarly Record: Some Test Cases.- 6. Contested Authorship, Self-Plagiarism, and the Scholarly Record.- Conclusion: Beyond the Published Retraction.- Index.

About the author

M. V. Dougherty is the Sr. Ruth Caspar Chair in Philosophy at Ohio Dominican University (USA). He is author of Moral Dilemmas in Medieval Thought: From Gratian to Aquinas (Cambridge University Press, 2011) and has edited Aquinas’s ‘Disputed Questions on Evil’: A Critical Guide (Cambridge University Press, 2016) and Pico della Mirandola: New Essays (Cambridge University Press, 2008). He has authored and co-authored articles on academic plagiarism, and his research interests include the history of ethics and research ethics. Since 2009, he has been involved in securing dozens of retractions, errata, and corrigenda for published articles in the discipline of philosophy and in related fields. His work in generating corrections for academic plagiarism and other authorship violations has been featured on Retraction Watch and on other academic news outlets.