'Papermill alarm' software flags potentially fake papers

The Papermill Alarm looks for similarities to text found in bogus papers.Credit: Raimund Koch/Getty A software tool that analyses the titles and abstracts of scientific papers and detects text similar to that found in bogus articles is gaining interest from publishers. The tool, called the Papermill Alarm, was developed by Adam Day, who is director of scholarly data-services company Clear Skies in London, UK. Day says he ran all the titles listed in citation database PubMed through the system, and found that 1% of currently listed papers contain text very similar to that of articles produced by paper mills -- companies or individuals that fabricate scientific manuscripts to order. The Papermill Alarm does not say definitively whether an article is fabricated, but flags those that are worthy of further investigation. Day says his analysis is not intended to estimate the scale of paper-milling among PubMed entries, because it can recognize only papers that are similar to those from known paper mills.