Duplicate or overlapping publications is a situation where an author publishes the same body of work in its entirety or at least 2/3rd of the original work in multiple journals in order to increase his or her publication count.
Authors and researchers are usually caught in such situations due to pressure to publish or pressure to obtain certain privileges from their academic institution or grant agency.
There are several drawbacks associated with this kind of unethical research conduct and they include:
i). Redundancy :
this means that there are multiple publications with the same content and value, hence there is no real progress made, They are all saying the same thing. They do not help the future readers or researchers to make positive progress in subsequent works, they only keep repeating the same old knowledge into many places.
ii). Waste of Time :
Such a practice amounts to a waste of the author's time as well as the reader's time. This is because research is dynamic and every day new knowledge is expected to emerge in every discipline. However, an author who takes to redundant, duplicate, or overlapping publications is actually wasting valuable research time which would otherwise have been channeled to discover new knowledge in the given research area.
iii). Confusion:
Where multiple publications are made of the same literary content, it tends to cause confusion to the editors, reviewers, and researchers who struggle to identify if there is any new knowledge in the multiple publications. This ultimately leads to confusion because in the end they may be forced to retract some of the publications which may have already been cited by other researchers who did not realize that the works were duplicated or overlapping.
iv). Poor Literary Development of The Scholar :
When a research scholar resorts to duplicate or redundant publishing, he or she fails to develop his / her literary prowess and this ultimately leads to poor quality of researchers who may not be well fitted for technical positions in life and career paths where they belong.
v). Public Loss of Trust in the Parent Organisation :
Any organization whose members are identified to consistently indulge in duplicate or overlapping publications will eventually lose the trust of the public or funding agency. It is therefore the responsibility of such organizations to ensure that they set up a research and publication ethics committee to vet and approve research works coming from members of their organization in order to ensure quality and guarantee adherence to ethical standards. Also, it is important for such organizations to retract any identified duplication or overlapping publications without recourse to who it is.
