Looks Good on Paper

∷ 经纬 编注 / 秋叶 评

近几年，中国的学术造假事件层出不穷，不仅在国内闹得沸沸扬扬，还吸引了外国媒体的注意。《经济学人》杂志刊文讨论了中国的学术诚信问题，呼吁中国各界人士对这种学术造假和剽窃事件采取行动。

A flawed system for judging research is leading to academic fraud.1. flawed: 有缺陷的，有瑕疵的；fraud: 欺骗，诈骗。

As China tries to take its seat at the top table of global academia,the criminal underworld has seized a lucrative opportunity in its research system: They are producing fake scholarly articles which they sold to academics, and counterfeit versions of existing journals in which they sold publication slots.2. 正值中国努力在世界领先学术界占据自己位置之际，地下犯罪组织在中国的科研体系中抓住了一个趁机揩油的机会：他们编造出虚假论文，卖给科研人员；“盗版”现有杂志，向科研人员收取版面费。academia: 学术界；lucrative: 赚钱的，有利可图的；counterfeit: 假冒的，伪造的；publication slot: （杂志的）版面。The fact that research grants3. research grant: 科研经费，科研补助金。and promotions are awarded on the basis of the number of articles published, not on the quality of the original research. This has fostered an industry of plagiarism, invented research and fake journals that Wuhan University estimated in 2009 was worth $150m,a fivefold increase on just two years earlier.4.这催生了一个剽窃、科研造假和虚假论文的产业；在2009年，武汉大学估计这个产业的价值总额是1.5亿美元，比2007年增长了五倍。foster: 培养，滋生；plagiarism: 剽窃，抄袭；fivefold: 五倍的。

Chinese scientists are still rewarded for doing good research,and the number of high-quality researchers is increasing. Scientistsall round the world also commit fraud. But Chinese evaluation system badly needs to be improved.

By volume the output of Chinese science is impressive.5. volume: 数量，总额；output: 产量，产出。Chinese mainland researchers have published a steadily increasing share of scientific papers in journals included in the prestigious Science Citation Index (SCI).6. prestigious: 有威信的，有声望的；Science Citation Index: 科学引文索引，由美国科学情报研究所于1960年编辑出版的一部期刊文献检索工具，它是目前国际上被公认的最具权威的科技文献检索工具。The number grew from a negligible share in 2001 to 9.5% in 2011, second in the world to America, according to a report published by the Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China.7. negligible: 微不足道的，可以忽略的；Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China: 中国科学技术信息研究所，于1956年成立，是科技部直属的国家级公益类科技信息研究机构。From 2002 to 2012, more than 1 million Chinese papers were published in SCI journals; they ranked sixth for the number of times cited by others8. the number of times cited by others: 文章被引用次数。Nature, a science journal, reported that in 2012 the number of papers from China in the journal’s 18 affiliated9. affiliated: 附属的。research publications rose by 35% from 2011. The journal said this “adds to the growing body of evidence that China is fast becoming a global leader in scientific publishing and scientific research”.

In 2012, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, an American journal, published a study of retractions accounting for nation of origin.10. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences:《美国国家科学院院刊》，美国国家科学院的官方学术周刊，创刊于1915年。该刊出版前沿研究报告、述评、综述、前瞻、学术讨论会论文等，覆盖生物学、化学、物理学、数学和社会科学；retraction:（文章、数据等）撤销，收回，下文出现的retract是其动词形式。In it a team of authors wrote that in medical journal articles in PubMed, an American database maintained by the National Institutes of Health, there were more retractions due to plagiarism from China and India together than from America (which produced the most papers by far,and so the most cheating overall).11. 这个调研团队的研究员们写道：在由（美国）国立卫生研究院维护的PubMed医学论文数据库中，来自中国和印度的由于剽窃而被撤销的论文数量加起来，已经多于来自美国的论文（迄今美国研究者发表的论文总量最多，因此由于剽窃而被撤销的总量也是最多的）。PubMed: 一个免费的搜寻引擎，提供生物医学方面的论文搜索以及摘要；National Institutes of Health: 国立卫生研究院，隶属于美国卫生及人类服务部，是美国联邦政府中首要的生物医学研究部门。The study also found that papers from China led the world in retractions due to duplication12. duplication: 复制品，完全一样的东西。—the same papers being published in multiple journals. On retractions due to fraud, China ranked fourth, behind America, Germany and Japan.

Chinese scientists have urged their comrades to live up to the nation’s great history. “Academic corruption is gradually eroding the marvellous and well-established culture that our ancestors left for us 5,000 years ago,”wrote Lin Songqing of the Chinese Academy of Sciences,in an article last year in Learned Publishing, a Britishbased journal.13. erode: （逐渐）毁坏，削弱；Chinese Academy of Science: 中国科学院，中国在科学技术方面的最高学术机构。

In the 1980s, when China was only beginning to reinvest in science, amassing publishing credits seemed a good way to use non-political criteria for evaluating researchers.14. amass: 积累，积聚；credit: 发表文章被引用数量（在别人发表的文章中被引用，出现在被引用文献列表中）。But today the statistics-driven standards for promotion are proved to be problematic. Xiong Bingqi of the 21st Century Education Research Institute calls it the“GDPism15. GDPism: 经济增长。of education”.

The most valuable statistic a scientist can tally up16. tally up: 计算……的总数，总结。is SCI journal credits, especially in journals with higher“impact factors”—ones that are cited more frequently in other scholars’ papers. SCI credits and impact factors are used to judge candidates for doctorates, promotions,research grants and pay bonuses.17. doctorate: 博士头衔，博士资格；pay bonus: 奖金。Some ambitious professors amass SCI credits at an astounding18. astounding: 令人震惊的，令人惊讶的。pace. Mr.Lin writes that a professor at Ningbo university, in southeast China, published 82 such papers in a three-year span.The relative19. relative: 相对而言的。weakness of these papers is found in the fact that China ranks just 14th in average citations per SCI paper, suggesting that many Chinese papers are rarely quoted by other scholars.

This incentive20. incentive: 激励的，奖励的。system has created some bigger embarrassments. In 2009, a British journal on crystallography, was forced to retract 70 papers coauthored by two researchers at a university in southern China, because they had fabricated evidence described in the papers.21. crystallography: 晶体学；fabricate: 捏造，伪造。

The pirated medical-journal cases show that there is a well-developed market for publication beyond the authentic SCI journals.22. pirated: 剽窃的，盗版的；authentic: 真正的，可靠的。The cost of placing an article in one of the counterfeit journals was up to $650, police said.Purchasing a fake article cost up to$250. Customers were typically medical researchers angling for23. angle for: （通常带贬义）谋取，博取。promotion.