How the Grinch ruined reviewing

 

Everyone who has ever published scientific results knows about the dread Reviewer Two: The reviewer who is unduly harsh, or just doesn’t get it, or who is inappropriately negative. Yet although we all complain about having been harshly judged by reviewer two, we never talk about the reviews we dish out. So, because it is Christmas, I am posting my harshest ever review below. I actually had to do it twice- I was a naive sucker, and I sheepishly went along when they asked me to do their dirty work for them. Here is part one:

Dear G&G editors:

This paper appears to be plagiarized from Haggerty 2014 Carbonado: Physical and chemical properties, a critical evaluation of proposed origins, and a revised genetic model. Earth Science Reviews 130 49-72 (hereafter: H14).

The first sentence of this manuscript is directly plagiarized from the first sentence of Haggerty (2014), without citation:

"Carbonado-diamond is the most controversial of all diamond types and is found only in Brazil, and the Central African Republic (Bangui)." H14

"Carbonado is the most controversial of all diamond types." this paper

This pattern continues:

"Selected physical properties are presented and the proposed origins, diverse

in character and imaginatively novel, are critically reviewed." H14

"Selected physical and chemical properties are presented and the proposed origins, diverse in character and imaginatively novel, are critically reviewed."

Similarly, entire sentences and phrases from the introduction and descriptive sections seem to be cut and pasted from various parts of H14, while this paper is only referenced (and incorrectly as 2013) occasionally.

There is no author affiliation on the manuscript you sent me.  If it is anyone other than Haggerty, you should probably report them to their Dean, or misconduct board.  If it is Haggerty, then I guess it depends on your policy on large-scale self-cut and pasting and what constitutes an original paper.  I have attached the first page of H14 (just one page, to stay within fair use guidelines) as a comparison- please compare this abstract to the abstract and first introductory paragraph on the manuscript you sent me.

I thought I should inform you of this ASAP. Would you like me to continue with the review?

sincerely,

Chuck Magee

Anyway, the editors replied saying that Haggerty was in fact the author, and that a full review would be appreciated. So I provided the following:

 

Dear G&G editors:

This paper appears to be heavily self-plagairized from Haggerty 2014 Carbonado: Physical and chemical properties, a critical evaluation of proposed origins, and a revised genetic model. Earth Science Reviews 130 49-72 (hereafter: H14).

Specific, paragraph-by-paragraph notes:

The Abstract is heavily cribbed from that of H14, including an identical opening sentence.

The introduction is heavily cribbed from the second half of the H14 abstract. “Selected physical [and chemical] properties are presented and the proposed origins, diverse in character and imaginatively novel, are critically reviewed.”;

Point 2 in this manuscript is point 1 in H14 abstract;

Point 3 in this manuscript is point 2 in H14 abstract;

Point 4 in this manuscript is point 3 in H14 abstract.

Point 1 in this manuscript is the first sentence of H14 Introduction.

Paragraph 1 of this manuscript’s “Geological Setting” section is copied from paragraph 1 of the “Geologic Setting” section of H14.

Paragraph 2 of this manuscript’s “Geological Setting” section is copied from paragraph 2 of the “Geologic Setting” section of H14.

Paragraph 3 of this manuscript’s “Geological Setting” section is copied from the beginning of paragraph 3 of the “Geologic Setting” section of H14.

Paragraph 4 of this manuscript’s “Geological Setting” section is copied from the middle and end of paragraph 3 of the “Geologic Setting” section of H14.

Paragraph 1 of this manuscript’s “Carbonado” section is copied from paragraph 4 of the Introduction of H14.

The first half of the “overall appearance” subsection is copied from the “Overall appearance” section of H14. The second half is cribbed heavily from the “Surface and internal textures” section of H14.

The “porosity” subsection is copied with minor changes from the porosity section of H14

The “Hardness and toughness” subsection is copied with minor changes from the “Hardness & Toughness” section of H14

The “Mineralogy” subsection is copied and summarized from from the “Mineralogy” section of H14

The “Chemistry” subsection is copied virtually intact from the “chemistry” section of H14

The “Optical properties” subsection is copied with minor changes (1,2,3 becomes a,b,c) and condensed from the “optical properties” section of H14

The “synthesis” subsection is copied with minor changes from the “synthesis” section of H14

The Objections to Proposed origins section in this manuscript is somewhat mixed up from H14:

point 1 was point 5

point 2 was point 9

point 3 was point 1

point 4 was point 13

point 5 was point 14

point 6 was point 7

point 7 was point 2

point 8 was point 3

point 9 was point 3

point 10 was point 4

point 11 was point 8

point 12 was point 10

point 13 was point 11

point 14 was point 12

point 15-18 are the same.

The summarizing paragraph is cut and pasted from the summarizing paragraph of H14

The Extra-terrestrial Origin section of this manuscript copies 6 of the 7 ennumerated points from H14.

The first “stellar sources” paragraph is heavily cribbed from the third “Extra-terrestrial origin” section of H14.

The second “stellar sources” paragraph of this manuscript appears to be similar to the last paragraph of the “Extra-Terrestrial origin” section of H14

The third “stellar sources” paragraph of this manuscript is similar for the first paragraph of the “new cosmic model” section of H14.

The fourth “stellar sources” paragraph appears to be copied from the fourth “A new cosmic model” section of H14

The “Exoplanets” paragraph is cribbed heavily from the middle of the second “A new cosmic model” paragraph of H14

The 1st “solar system” paragraph is drawn heavile from the end of the second “A new cosmic model” paragraph of H14

The second “Solar System” paragraph is drawn from the last “origin in the solar system” paragraph in H14

The first “When and how did carbonado reach earth” paragraph Is based on the first and third “Transporting media” paragraphs of H14

The second “When and how did carbonado reach earth” paragraph is copied from the second “Transporting media” paragraph of H14

The first “Other host rocks” paragraph of this manuscript is copied from the second “Rarity of carbonado” paragraph of H14

The second “Other host rocks” paragraph is cut and pasted from the “Geological implications” paragraph of H14

The first “Industrial applications” paragraph of this manuscript is copied from the “Industrial applications” paragraph of H14.

The first “conclusions” paragraph of this paper is cribbed from the “Conclusions” paragraph of H14.

In summary, this manuscript does not contain a single paragraph that is not either a partial or complete restatement of part of H14. More importantly, it does not address any of the serious problems with H14.

The idea of glassy carbon forming from a melt is nonsensical; the melting temperature of C is so high that it has not yet been reliably snythesized, however the temperatures required are such that there is no expectation that an amorphous quench product can be contained.  Even if it could, there is no reason to expect it to look similar to a silicate glass.  So the argument that patina = molten carbon is baseless. Most carbonado researchers since Milledge et al. 1998 have favored the view that the patina is a surface layer amorphosed at low temperature by radiation damage.

Similarly, the pores have been known to be open to exchange with the environment since Trueb & de Wys 1971, so there is no way to determine whether or not they are primary, or what originally filled them. So it is not valid to infer that they are vesicles.

Finally, the author has a conflict of interest in that he owns the largest private carbonado collection around, so if he can convince potential buyers that carbonado is exotic, he stands to benefit financially.

This manuscript should be rejected.

Sincerely,

Chuck Magee

This was a dumb way to write a review, and like all reviewer twos, I only hurt myself. In addition to the time spent documenting all the repeated content, all I ended up doing was giving the editors and author a cheat sheet for redrafting in a way to better hide the lack of originality in the manuscript. As you can see from the published version of the paper, all the cuts and pastes were redrafted.

 Furthermore, listing pages and pages of plagiarism had the effect of de-emphasizing the substantive criticisms of science and conflict of interest that I squeezed into the last few paragraphs. In short, this was a lazy review written with the naive assumption that self-plagiarism was something that editors would reject a paper over.

All I did was to waste my own time and give the editors and author a how-to guide to destroy the evidence that the work was derivative. Being pedantically critical was not a useful reviewing strategy.