The Cultural Context of Plagiarism and Research Misconduct in the Asian Region

Abstract

Plagiarism is one of the most frequent forms of research misconduct in South and East Asian countries. This narrative review examines the factors contributing to research misconduct, emphasizing plagiarism, particularly in South, East and Southeast Asian countries. We conducted a PubMed and Scopus search using the terms plagiarism, Asia, South Asia, East Asia, Southeast Asia, research misconduct and retractions in January of 2022. Articles with missing abstracts, incomplete information about plagiarism, publication dates before 2010, and those unrelated to South, East, and Southeast Asian countries were excluded. The retraction watch database was searched for articles retracted between 9th January 2020 to 9th January 2022. A total of 159 articles were identified, of which 21 were included in the study using the database search criteria mentioned above. The review of articles identified a lack of training in scientific writing and research ethics, publication pressure, permissive attitudes, and inadequate regulatory measures as the primary reasons behind research misconduct in scientific publications. Plagiarism remains a common cause of unethical publications and retractions in regions of Asia (namely South, East and Southeast). Researchers lack training in scientific writing, and substantial gaps exist in understanding various forms of plagiarism, which heavily contribute to the problem. There is an urgent need to foster high research ethics standards and adhere to journal policies. Providing appropriate training in scientific writing among researchers may help improve the knowledge of different types of plagiarism and promote the use of antiplagiarism software, leading to a substantial reduction in the problem.

Keywords: East Asia; Plagiarism; Publication Ethics; Research Misconduct; Retraction; South Asia; Southeast Asia.

Fig. 1. Search strategy utilized for PubMed and Scopus databases. Flowchart representing the search strategy utilized to search PubMed and Scopus databases.

Fig. 2. Number of retracted articles in various South, East and Southeast Asian countries. Fig. 2 shows the number of retracted articles from countries in South, East and Southeast Asia between 2020–2022 according to the retraction watch database.

Fig. 3. Common factors contributing to plagiarism in South, East and Southeast Asia.