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Physical Therapy in Sport 11 (2010) 73–74

Contents lists avai

Physical Therapy in Sport

journal homepage: www.elsevier .com/ptsp

Editorial

Plagiarism: The plague of digital media?

Speak to anyone working in an academic setting and you willmost likely hear about plagiarism being a problem at both under-graduate and post graduate levels. Academic disciplinary boardsup and down the UK are inundated with cases of plagiarism.Indeed, it is common practice to have guidelines on plagiarismand students are requested to sign a disclaimer at the start ofa course to declare that they have read and understood the guide-lines and the penalties that will be incurred if these aretransgressed.

The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (1993) defines‘plagiarize’ as the following; “Take and use as one’s own (thethoughts,writings, inventions, etc, of anotherperson); copy (literaryworks, ideas, etc.) improperly or without acknowledgement; passoff the thoughts, work, etc., of (another person) as one’s own”.

Themost recent seminar of the Committee on Publication Ethics(COPE) was entirely dedicated to the subject of plagiarism. HaroldSox, Editor Emeritus of the Annals of Internal Medicine startedhis presentation with a reminder;

Plagiarism is not a new phenomenon and it can occur in manydisciplines. Indeed the temptation in the electronic and Internetera to cut and paste would appear to encourage this academicdishonesty. Whether it is an undergraduate student plagiarisingin a piece of coursework or a Professor writing in a highly acclaimedscientific journal, the principal is the same. The likelihood is if theyhave done it once it is likely they have done it before. The penaltiesfor plagiarism can be severe, from academic censure and loss ofcredibility, withdrawal of a paper, to expulsion from the Institution.Given the severity of the penalties, why are people tempted to doit? Ignorance, laziness, misguided, cultural and not writing in thefirst language of the author are all possible reasons that havebeen suggested. But none of these positions are really defendable.Academic ownership is largely self-policed by academics in Institu-tions or by editors and reviewers in academic publishing. Whilstthe process of cutting and pasting from digital sources is easy and

1466-853X/$ – see front matter � 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.doi:10.1016/j.ptsp.2010.06.003

therefore tempting, the advent of electronic plagiarism checkers(E.g. Ithenticate, Turnitin) makes detection much easier as well.In fact many institutions and journals will run random checks orcheck a whole sample of submitted work through these checkers.

As with most things, prevention is better than cure and educa-tion of junior researchers and undergraduates to have a high moralstandard with regard to their academic conduct and reporting ofscientific data is one way to go forward. Early detection of anyplagiarism is important, before it gets into the literature; it ismuch easier not to publish than to have to retract the paper ata later date. Detection in this case is down to electronic checkers,vigilant editors and reviewers, but in most cases is picked up bythe plagiarised author. A note of warning, there is a commonmisconception that self-plagiarism is a lesser evil; however this isnot true in the eyes of the law.

Plagiarism is an issue at all levels in academic life and I willfinish with a quote from Dr Morgan, chair of the General MedicalCouncils fitness to practice panel on the conduct of Dr Raj Persaud,the British TV celebrity consultant psychiatrist who was foundguilty of copying work for books and journal articles withoutacknowledging the sources. “The panel has determined thata three-month period of suspension is sufficient to send out a signalto you, the profession and the public that plagiarism is unaccept-able behaviour” (Jenkins, 2008).

Onto the content in this issue of Physical therapy in Sport. Neckstrength is important in contact sports such as the various codesof rugby, American Football, somemartial arts and also non-contactsports such asmotor racing. Specifically, neck strength trainingmayhave a role in both the prevention and treatment of cervical injury.In the first piece of original research, Netto and colleagues fromAustralia investigate the recovery rate of the cervical musculaturefollowing a single bout of strength training. The exercise protocolinvolved 3 sets of 8 repetitions (60–70% 1 RM) in extension andflexion in neutral and non-neutral positions. A significant reductionwas reported in neck extension strength in all participants whichtook 3 days to recover. These finding indicate that athletes maybe vulnerable after this type of training and the authors suggestperiodised training to accommodate this.

Knee joint position sense (JPS) has beenwidely used as an indirectindicator of proprioception however, comparison between studies iscomplicated by the many variables of testing this parameter. Earlystudies evaluated knee JPS in non-weight bearing, but more recentlythe trend is to evaluate this in more functional weight bearingpostures. Active and/or passive repositioning can be adopted. Addi-tionally, different methods of measurement can be employed from

Editorial / Physical Therapy in Sport 11 (2010) 73–7474

the simple goniometer in a clinical setting to the use of dynamome-ters or kinematic analysis in the research setting. Whatever methodis employed, it is useful to know how these measures may differwhen evaluating the relevant literature. Kiran and colleagues fromtheStatespresentapaper investigating the correlationbetweenthesedifferent variables. Encouragingly for those working in clinicalsettings, the electrogoniometer correlated with more complexmeasures in both non and weight bearing positions.

Continuing on this theme, Magalhaes and colleagues fromPortugal investigated the effect of a warm up routine on knee JPSin karate practitioners (karatekas) in both the open and closedkinetic chain position. Knee JPS improved in the CKC but not inthe OKC testing position following a standardised warm up andthe authors discuss the possible reasons for these findings.

Soft tissue therapy techniques are essential skills for cliniciansworking with athletes. Myofascial trigger points, whether theseare active or latent, have been treated using a wide variety ofdifferent methods. This includes friction massage, digital pressure,dry needling, ultrasound, TENS and interferential, to name buta few. PNF techniques are also used to increase range in contractiletissue in the short term. Trampas and colleagues from Greece con-ducted a randomised controlled trial to investigate the effects ofPNF and friction massage in subjects with tight hamstrings and atleast one latent trigger point. One group received PNF alone,a second group received friction massage to the trigger point andPNF and the control group received no treatment. The primaryoutcomemeasurewas ROMwith stretch perception and pain beingsecondary outcomes. The combined treatment group demonstratedsignificant improvements in all outcomes in the short term. Manystudies on trigger points to-date have focussed on active ratherthan latent points. This study would indicate that manual treat-ment of latent points in addition to PNF stretching is more effectivethan stretching alone in the short term.

Groin pain in athletes is notoriously difficult to diagnose, symp-toms are often recurrent and it is one of the major causes of play-ing time lost in sports such as soccer and rugby union. Many

structures can be involved and indeed pathologies may co-exist.To confuse matters further, there tends to be no consistentpatterns of presentation. Differential diagnosis can include hip-joint pathology (labral pathology, chondral injury, OA), inguinalhernia, adductor related pain (tendinopathy, enthesopathy, MTjunction), nerve entrapment (ilioinguinal, obturator, genitofe-moral), stress injury to the pubic bone, rectus abdominis strain,conjoint tendon tear, external oblique tear, iliopsoas syndrome,stress fracture NOF and referred lumbar pain (L1/2). Few studies(probably for the reasons stated above) have attempted to investi-gate conservative treatment of the athletes’ groin. In the finalpiece of original research, Weir and colleagues from Hollandreport a retrospective case-series of 44 athletes (mainly soccerplayers) with adductor related groin pain for more than 4 weeks.All athletes received a combination of initial rest from competitivesports, manual and exercise therapy. The exercise therapy wasspecifically focused on TA control and the adductor muscles witha graduated return to sport specific exercises. The short-termresults are initially impressive with 86% of the athletes returningto full sport at 142 days. However, of these, 26% had a recurrenceby 3.5–13 months later. Prevention strategies for athletes at risk ofgroin pain need to be developed in conjunction with optimisingtreatment strategies.

By the time you are reading this the jamboree of World Cupfootball in South Africa will be over, in the anticipation of it startingI hope it is a glorious spectacle of sport.

References

Brown, Lesley (Ed.). (1993). The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford:Clarendon Press.

COPE <http://publicationethics.org/> Accessed 8.5.10.Jenkins, R. (2008). The Times. http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_

entertainment/tv_and_radio/article4179597.ece Accessed 8.5.10.

Zoe HudsonEditor