In April, 2025 communications professor Jacqueline Ewart got a Google Scholar notification about a paper published in the World of Media she had reviewed, and recommended rejecting, for another journal several months earlier. While authors often seek to publish rejected articles elsewhere, Ewart, of Griffith University in Queensland, Australia, said she was shocked because the version that appeared in the World of Media was nearly identical to the manuscript she had seen. The authors changed one word in the title.

Amit Verma, an author on the paper and a professor at Manipal University Jaipur in India, said the authors "intended to revise and improve the paper based on the feedback from the World of Media review team", but the changes amounted to one word in the title. Verma also said the researchers used AI tools "to assist with certain aspects of the manuscript, such as grammar and style only." As for the incorrect references Verma said the researchers used sources "obtained from Indian institutional repositories."

Source: https://retractionwatch.com/2025/06/12/paper-rejected-for-ai-fake-references-published-elsewhere-with-hardly-anything-changed/

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