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Digital magic, or the dark arts of the 21 st century—how can journals and peer reviewers detect manuscripts and publications from paper mills?
Open accessAbstract
In recent years, it has been proposed that unrealistic requirements for academics and medical doctors to publish in scientific journals, combined with monetary publication rewards, have led to forms of contract cheating offered by organizations known as paper mills. Paper mills are alleged to offer products ranging from research data through to ghostwritten fraudulent or fabricated manuscripts and submission services. While paper mill operations remain poorly understood, it seems likely that paper mills need to balance product quantity and quality, such that they produce or contribute to large numbers of manuscripts that will be accepted for publication. Producing manuscripts at scale may be facilitated by the use of manuscript templates, which could give rise to shared features such as textual and organizational similarities, the description of highly generic study hypotheses and experimental approaches, digital images that show evidence of manipulation and/or reuse, and/or errors affecting verifiable experimental reagents. Based on these features, we propose practical steps that editors, journal staff, and peer reviewers can take to recognize and respond to research manuscripts and publications that may have been produced with undeclared assistance from paper mills.
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In the citing paper
“The identification of verifiable errors such as wrongly identified nucleotide sequences (38,39,54,56) or misidentified or contaminated cell line models (97) could immediately precipitate the publication of an indexed editorial note (10) or expression of concern.”
From Protection of the human gene research literature from contract cheating organizations known as research paper mills (2022) · cites this paper as [10]
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe source backs part of the claim, not all of it — or backs it for a different population, condition or comparison.
In the citing paper
“Paper mills will also be selectively disadvantaged by geometrically increasing the rate and scale of post-publication corrections (10) (Table 3).”
From Protection of the human gene research literature from contract cheating organizations known as research paper mills (2022) · cites this paper as [10]
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe source backs part of the claim, not all of it — or backs it for a different population, condition or comparison.
In the citing paper
“Invented images are typically western blots, and might include placing individual bands onto false backgrounds, non-linear adjustments, the splicing of multiple images to suggest they come from the same gel, duplicated bands and lanes, and grouping or consolidation of the data (e.g. removal of lanes) (see Box 1).”
From Publishing ethics in the era of paper mills (2020) · cites this paper as Byrne and Christopher, 2020
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe cited source says what the claim attributes to it.
In the citing paper
“We proposed that the similarities between and errors within SGK articles could reflect the undeclared involvement of organisations such as paper mills (13), which have been alleged to mass-produce fraudulent manuscripts for publication (24, 25).”
From Identification of human gene research articles with wrongly identified nucleotide sequences (2022) · cites this paper as [24]
The cited source says what the claim attributes to it.
In the citing paper
“We also proposed that producing many gene research manuscripts at minimal cost could involve writers with either an incomplete understanding of the experiments that they are describing and/or limited time for quality control (8, 24).”
From Identification of human gene research articles with wrongly identified nucleotide sequences (2022) · cites this paper as [24]
The cited source says what the claim attributes to it.
In the citing paper
“We proposed that the production of manuscripts at scale could underpin unusual degrees of similarity between publications, as well as features such as superficial explanations for the analysis of particular genes, and generic experimental approaches (8, 13, 24, 25, 26).”
From Identification of human gene research articles with wrongly identified nucleotide sequences (2022) · cites this paper as [24]
The cited source says what the claim attributes to it.
In the citing paper
“These conditions could lead to wrongly identified nucleotide sequences being a feature of gene research articles from paper mills (8, 24) where incorrect sequences could also be reused across different manuscripts (11, 12, 13).”
From Identification of human gene research articles with wrongly identified nucleotide sequences (2022) · cites this paper as [24]
The cited source says what the claim attributes to it.
In the citing paper
“Such unusual reagent errors combined with implausible or impossible results could flag that some affected articles are fraudulent (8, 11, 12, 13, 24, 26).”
From Identification of human gene research articles with wrongly identified nucleotide sequences (2022) · cites this paper as [24]
The cited source says what the claim attributes to it.
In the citing paper
“We have previously proposed that wrongly identified nucleotide sequences in the context of repetitive and superficially justified gene research could reflect the external involvement of organisations such as paper mills (8, 13, 24, 26).”
From Identification of human gene research articles with wrongly identified nucleotide sequences (2022) · cites this paper as [24]
The cited source says what the claim attributes to it.
In the citing paper
“The availability of many human genes for experimental analysis, combined with research drivers that favour the continued investigation of genes of known function (57, 58, 59), may unwittingly provide an extensive source of topics around which gene research articles can be fraudulently created (8, 24).”
From Identification of human gene research articles with wrongly identified nucleotide sequences (2022) · cites this paper as [24]
The cited source says what the claim attributes to it.
In the citing paper
“It is predicted that paper mill manuscripts that describe laboratory research will frequently include falsified or fabricated experimental results, due to genuine laboratory research being difficult, expensive and slow (10,27,32,36,38).”
From Protection of the human gene research literature from contract cheating organizations known as research paper mills (2022) · cites this paper as [10]
The cited source says what the claim attributes to it.
In the citing paper
“journal requirements that insist on focussed research justifications and technical approaches could provide some level of deterrence (10,71,89–92), at least in the short-term.”
From Protection of the human gene research literature from contract cheating organizations known as research paper mills (2022) · cites this paper as [10]
In the citing paper
“Clients of paper mills are likely to be academics, research students and clinicians who do not have the time, facilities and/or training to conduct the genuine research that is required of them (10,11,32,34,35).”
From Protection of the human gene research literature from contract cheating organizations known as research paper mills (2022) · cites this paper as [10]
In the citing paper
“'paper mill' is applied to commercial entities that (also) sell undeclared services in relation to research manuscripts and publications (8–12,32,33).”
From Protection of the human gene research literature from contract cheating organizations known as research paper mills (2022) · cites this paper as [10]
In the citing paper
“Paper mills are alleged to operate in many countries and to offer a variety of questionable and/or illegal services to a range of clients across different research disciplines (8–10,32,33).”
From Protection of the human gene research literature from contract cheating organizations known as research paper mills (2022) · cites this paper as [10]
In the citing paper
“Clients are believed to be drawn to paper mills by imbalances between the pressures and opportunities to publish research in different settings (8,10,11,32,35,43).”
From Protection of the human gene research literature from contract cheating organizations known as research paper mills (2022) · cites this paper as [10]
In the citing paper
“In summary, the current inability to achieve timely corrections of the published literature at scale specifically disadvantages genuine research, while providing an invaluable asset for paper mills (10).”
From Protection of the human gene research literature from contract cheating organizations known as research paper mills (2022) · cites this paper as [10]
In the citing paper
“Paper mill employees are also alleged to undertake manuscript submission, which can involve the simultaneous submission of manuscripts to multiple journals, presumably to increase the likelihood and speed of manuscript acceptance (10,32).”
From Protection of the human gene research literature from contract cheating organizations known as research paper mills (2022) · cites this paper as [10]
In the citing paper
“Targeted human gene research provides several scaling factors that could enable the production of many individual manuscripts (10,27,56) (Figure 4).”
From Protection of the human gene research literature from contract cheating organizations known as research paper mills (2022) · cites this paper as [10]
In the citing paper
“The value of accelerating this rate-limiting step has undoubtedly been recognized by paper mills, through strategies such as editorial and peer review manipulation, and submissions of the same or very similar manuscripts to multiple journals (8,10,32,33,35,63,73).”
From Protection of the human gene research literature from contract cheating organizations known as research paper mills (2022) · cites this paper as [10]
In the citing paper
“While publishers and individual journals are becoming increasingly aware of paper mills (8,10,32,36,62–73), this awareness is unlikely to extend to researchers, who generally expect low rates of outright research fraud (7,8).”
From Protection of the human gene research literature from contract cheating organizations known as research paper mills (2022) · cites this paper as [10]
In the citing paper
“One repeatedly noted feature of suspected paper mill manuscripts and articles is the absence of mechanistic hypotheses to link gene(s), systems, and experimental approaches through novelty-based research justifications (10,65,71).”
From Protection of the human gene research literature from contract cheating organizations known as research paper mills (2022) · cites this paper as [10]
In the citing paper
“Institutionally-supported education that provides information about features of problematic research and paper mills (Table 2) will allow trainees and researchers to more critically assess the literature that they use to inform their projects and experiments (8,10,27,32).”
From Protection of the human gene research literature from contract cheating organizations known as research paper mills (2022) · cites this paper as [10]
In the citing paper
“Widespread fraudulent gene research will encourage the financial support of unproductive research directions”
From Protection of the human gene research literature from contract cheating organizations known as research paper mills (2022) · cites this paper as [10]
In the citing paper
“Requirements to preprint manuscripts where both the submission date and journal are clearly displayed (Table 3) could reduce the burden of duplicate submissions on journals and peer reviewers (10,72)”
From Protection of the human gene research literature from contract cheating organizations known as research paper mills (2022) · cites this paper as [10]
In the citing paper
“At the time of manuscript submission, paper mills can increase manuscript acceptance rates by simply submitting the same manuscripts to multiple journals”
From Protection of the human gene research literature from contract cheating organizations known as research paper mills (2022) · cites this paper as [10]
In the citing paper
“which is highly wasteful of editorial and peer review resources (10,32,36,72).”
From Protection of the human gene research literature from contract cheating organizations known as research paper mills (2022) · cites this paper as [10]
In the citing paper
“To date, manuscripts or articles that may have been produced with assistance from paper mills has been recognised by researchers analysing unexpected literature trends (38,85,86) and/or verifiable errors (38,39,56) and by journal editors and experts describing unusual manuscript or publication features (10,36,37,62–73,82).”
From Protection of the human gene research literature from contract cheating organizations known as research paper mills (2022) · cites this paper as [10]
In the citing paper
“and the numbers of paper mill manuscripts that are accepted for publication.”
From Protection of the human gene research literature from contract cheating organizations known as research paper mills (2022) · cites this paper as [10]
In the citing paper
“and reduce confidence in research and the scientific method (10,33,56).”
From Protection of the human gene research literature from contract cheating organizations known as research paper mills (2022) · cites this paper as [10]
In the citing paper
“slow research translation through opportunity costs”
From Protection of the human gene research literature from contract cheating organizations known as research paper mills (2022) · cites this paper as [10]
In the citing paper
“Byrne and Christopher (Byrne and Christopher, 2020) have identified two types of fraudulent images: invented images and stock images.”
From Publishing ethics in the era of paper mills (2020) · cites this paper as Byrne and Christopher, 2020
In the citing paper
“Moreover, it appears that fabricated research papers are readily available for purchase by scientists driven by the need to publish more papers to further their careers (see Byrne and Christopher, 2020).”
From Publishing ethics in the era of paper mills (2020) · cites this paper as Byrne and Christopher, 2020
In the citing paper
“They tend only to be spotted by eagle-eyed readers if repeated in multiple submissions or publications.”
From Publishing ethics in the era of paper mills (2020) · cites this paper as Byrne and Christopher, 2020
In the citing paper
“Stock images are more difficult to detect and show none of the manipulation likely from the production of invented images.”
From Publishing ethics in the era of paper mills (2020) · cites this paper as Byrne and Christopher, 2020
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Metadata
- Authors
- Byrne, J. A., & Christopher, J.
- Affiliations
- The University of Sydney (AU)
- Heidelberg University (DE)
- Corresponding author
- Byrne, Jennifer A.
- Christopher, Jana
- Venue
- FEBS Letters
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2020-02
- Volume
- 594
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 583-589
- ISSN
- 0014-5793 (ISSN-L)
- 1873-3468
- OpenAlex
- W3008906624
- Cited by
- 133
- References
- 22
- Citations by year
- 2026: 13 · 2025: 22 · 2024: 29 · 2023: 11 · 2022: 24 · 2021: 23 · 2020: 11
- FWCI
- 23.48
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- FEBS Letters (publishedVersion, public-domain)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Education › Academic integrity and plagiarism
- Social Sciences › Library and Information Sciences › Publishing and Scholarly Communication
- Social Sciences › Library and Information Sciences › Academic Publishing and Open Access
- Keywords
- paper mills, contract cheating, research misconduct, peer review, publication ethics, ghostwriting, data fabrication, image editing, research integrity, journal editors
- MeSH terms
- Paper, Periodicals as Topic, Publishing, Peer Review, Research
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
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