Submitted academic papers commonly contain minor errors
the verdict
INSUFFICIENT LEANING
refutedsupported
the weight of evidence
2 sources for · 0 against
AS REPORTEDno primary record reached; this is what the reporting says
Available academic discussions and specialized citation studies partially indicate that manuscripts and publications commonly contain minor errors or imperfections, though comprehensive statistical evidence covering all academic papers is limited.
PurposeIn scholarly publications, citations play an essential epistemic role in creating and disseminating knowledge. Conversely, the use of problematic citations impedes the growth of knowledge, contaminates the knowledge base and disserves science. This study investigates the presence of problematic citations in the works of business ethics scholars.Design/methodology/approachThe authors investigated two types of problematic citations: inaccurate citations and plagiarized citations. For this, 1,200 randomly selected citations from three leading business ethics journals were assessed based on: (1) referenced journal errors, (2) article title errors and (3) author name errors. Other papers that replicated the same title errors were identified.FindingsOf the citations in the examined business ethics journals, 21.42% have at least one error. Of particular concern are the citation errors in article titles, where 3.75% of examined citations have minor errors and another 3.75% display major errors – 7.5% in total. Two-thirds of minor and major title errors were repeatedly replicated in previous and ensuing publications, which confirms the presence of citation plagiarism. An average article published in a business ethics journal contains at least three plagiarized citations. Even though business ethics fares well compared to other disciplines, a situation where every fifth citation is problematic is unacceptable.Practical implicationsBusiness ethics scholars are not immune to the use of problematic citations, and it is unlikely that attempting to improve researchers' awareness of the unethicality of this behavior will bring a desirable outcome.Originality/valueIdentifying that problematic citations exist in the business ethics literature is novel because it is expected that these researchers would not condone this practice.
# How common is it for submitted papers to have minor errors?
Tags: publications, errors-erratum
- Score: 25
- Views: 9014
- Answers: 5
- Answered: yes
- Asked by: Ulderique Demoitre (3320 rep)
- Asked: 2016-05-14
- Edited: 2016-05-14
- Site: academia
## Question
I am going to submit a paper in these days. I dedicated to it a lot of time, and a lot of effort to check that all the theoretical results in it are correct. Anyway, I am still afraid of having written something wrong without even realizing it, as the deadline is very sharp.
So my question is: how common is in the academia to find submitted papers with minor errors? If there is a minor error that is not invalidating the results, will the paper be rejected, even if the content is considered interesting?
## Answers
### Answer by Wolfgang Bangerth (score: 25)
That's what peer review is there for: to tell the author about the minor, but correctable mistakes in the paper.
The way I see it is that, of course, I spend a lot of time writing my papers and making sure that everything is correct. But pragmatically, you will have to come to terms with the fact that no paper will ever be perfect. There comes a point where you
Everything we examined (2)
This check searched the claim as stated. It did not run a separate search for evidence against it.