Dr. José M. is beginning his fifth year as an independent researcher.
His work is going well. He has published a number of important articles
and secured a large grant for future work. Based on this progress, he
expects his pending promotion review to proceed without problems.
Late one afternoon a graduate student
hands José two papers written by a senior colleague in his department.
She has circled graphs in each of the papers that are clearly the same
but reported as representing two different experiments. After checking
the graphs carefully and reviewing the supporting data, José
agrees that something is wrong. The senior colleague, who will almost
certainly be a member of his promotion review, has either made a careless
mistake or falsified information in a publication. What should he do?