Findings[]
- Problematic text parallels can be found in the following chapters (state of analysis: 02.05.2014):
- Material and methods
- Results
- Control slices (p. 15): page 15
Prominent sources[]
- Gorji (2001): Roughly two pages of the discussion section have been taken from a review paper authored by the second examiner of the thesis Prof. Dr. Gorji. This includes 18 references to the literature.
- Sheikh (2009): Most of the remaining part of the discussion section seems to be taken from a dissertation that has been submitted a bit less than a year earlier in Münster. The first examiner of that dissertation is the second examiner of Aeh.
- Herreras et al. (1994): More than a page of the introduction section has been taken from a paper that was about 15 years old at the time of writing of the thesis. As a consequence the references to the literature taken from this source appear quite dated.
Prominent Fragments[]
- Fragment 018 01: An entire page in the discussion section has been copied without attribution.
- Fragment 009 14: A clear indication that text has been taken via copy & paste.
Other observations[]
- The second examiner of the thesis Prof. Dr. Gorji was the supervisor of the dissertation Sheikh (2009) as well as author or co-author of the publications Gorji (2001), Gorji et al. (2003) and Wernsmann et al. (2006), so it would have been possible for him to spot the quite substantial text parallels between the dissertation Aeh (2009) and those sources.
- The regulations for the submission of dissertations in effect at the time demand a declaration accompanying the thesis that "die Doktorandin/ der Doktorand sie nur unter Benutzung der im Literaturverzeichnis angegebenen Quellen angefertigt hat und sonst kein anderes gedrucktes oder ungedrucktes Material verwendet wurde" (§2 (1) 4.)
- It seems surprising that a doctoral degree in dentistry ("doctor medicinae dentium" according to cover page) is granted for a thesis studying neural mechanisms in the rat brain.
- The dissertation Haarmann (2009) has been prepared at the same time as Aeh (the date of the oral examination is the same for both theses: 20.11.2009). It contains substantial text parallels with Aeh that, however, have not been documented here, because it is not clear who has copied from whom. The second paragraph on page 6 (lines 17-25) for instance has a parallel in Haarmann (2009) (page 5: 16ff).
Statistics[]
- Currently there are 21 reviewed fragments documented that are considered to be violations of citation rules. For 20 of them there is no reference given to the source used („Verschleierungen“ and „Komplettplagiate“). For 1 fragments the source is given, but the extent of the used text is not made clear („Bauernopfer“).
- The publication has 15 pages that have been analyzed. On a total of 13 of these pages violations of citation rules have been documented. This represents a percentage of 86.7%. The 15 analyzed pages break down with respect to the amount of text parallels encountered as follows:
- From these statistics an extrapolation of the amount of text of the publication under investigation that has been documented as problematic can be estimated (conservatively) as about 55% of the main part of the publication.
- In all, text was taken from 7 sources.
Illustration[]
The following chart illustrates the extent and the distribution of the text parallels found. The colours show the type of violation of citation rules diagnosed:
- grau="Komplettplagiat" (copy & paste): the source of the text parallel is not given, the copy is verbatim.
- rot="Verschleierung" (disguised copy): the source of the text parallel is not given, the copied text will be somewhat modified.
- gelb="Bauernopfer" (pawn sacrifice): the source of the text parallel is mentioned, but the extent and/or the closeness of the copy to the source is not made clear by the reference.
(state of analysis: 02.05.2014)