Reverse scooping

Admin
2011-12-03

I would like to define a new term: reverse scooping is when someone publishes your idea after you, and doesn’t cite you. It has happened to me a few times. What does one do? I usually send a polite message to the authors with a link to my related paper(s). These emails are usually ignored, but not always. Most times I don’t think it is malicious though. In fact, I almost reverse scooped a colleague recently.  People arrive at the same idea a few months (or years) later and there is just too much literature to keep track-off. And remember the culprit authors were not the only ones that missed your paper, the referees and associate editor missed it as well. One thing I have learned is that if you want to claim an idea, try to include it in the title or abstract as very few papers get read cover-to-cover.