Publishing ethics: A quick guide for academic authors: FREE TRAINING July 18th (10am GMT)
"Relativity applies to physics, not ethics."
Managing and staying on the right side of publication ethics can be confusing for researchers. If you don’t know that something is an ethical violation, how can you avoid it in your own research cycle? In our FREE webinar JULY 18TH 10am GMT, we outline the most common ethical issues encountered in academic publishing!
Learn how to avoid issues such as plagiarism, one of the most common reasons for article rejection from international journals. Come join us, and tell a friend or colleague!
We all want to get our research papers written up and published in the best journals possible, as fast as possible, and with the minimum of trouble. You can’t just write up and submit anything though: there are rules to follow, ethical rules. These apply for both conducting research and writing up papers for publication.
It’s always well worth keeping in mind that one of the main ways in which academic papers get rejected is due to ethical issues to do with the publication process, perhaps plagiarism of text or figures or other problems that have to do with authors or funding. Our goal with our academic research is to enhance human knowledge and our understanding of the world.
Balancing your desire for publications as an author with compliance with ethical guidelines is an important part of your research journey and very critical if you are to maintain a good reputation in your field. Following ethical guidelines is important then for both your career and your ability to publish research in the future. Most reputable journals (certainly those that are listed in international databases and which follow peer review process) are likely to ask you to prove that you have met certain ethical standards. As you will probably already be well aware, academic institutions and subject fields also have their own guidelines which need to carefully followed.
The academic publishing industry adheres to a defined set of ethics, common standards put in place to maintain the integrity of this process and to ensure that research work can be replied upon. This is particularly important: We need to be sure that the work we read and cite has passed through basic standards and has been checked and approved; this is also important because it means that other researchers can be confident about citing and using this published work.
The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) is an industry and academia wide organization that defines and maintains common ethical standards for published research. Authors often ask us about journal selection, especially now given the proliferation of journals and open access outlets. Which journal(s) should you select for your research from the confusing array that are available. Well, one of the first things to check when considering a journal outlet for your research is: Is this journal a member of COPE? Are the papers that appear in this outlet published according to minimal ethical standards? All reputable academic journals will follow COPE guidelines.
The aim of this review is therefore to lay out some of the issues and concerns around ethical publishing, with respect to academic journal articles.
Plagiarism
I’ve covered this issue before on this blog: The inadvertent re-use of content previously published in another article without attribution (plagiarism) is one of the main ways in which papers written by non-native English speakers do get rejected by journals. Plagiarism is a huge issue across the academic publishing industry.
COPE defines plagiarism as:
“When somebody presents the work of others (data, words, or theories) as if they were his/her own and without proper acknowledgement.”
Keep in mind then that, more than likely, when you submit an article to a reputable journal it will then be sent off for a plagiarism check. This uses similarity detection software to look for duplication from other published works. If the software finds duplication, then the journal steps in. The editor will contact all named authors and ask them to explain the overlapping material. If the journal’s editorial board doesn’t deem the explanation satisfactory, it will reject the paper. This may also affect future submissions from the authors involved.
To avoid this being a concern, when you are citing the work of others it is important to make sure that you:
1. Get permission from the original publisher and rights holder if you include figures or tables from existing work
2. Use quotation marks to indicate work quoted verbatim from another source
3. Include the source of quotation within the text of the article, and in the references section.
Conflicts of interest
A conflict of interest is anything that interferes with the objectivity and validity of research or impacts an author’s interpretation of the study’s results. Perhaps one of the coauthors has a financial interest in the work as they have shares in a company that funded it? Or someone has received consultancy money from an entity interested in the results?
The most important things when it comes to competing interests are transparency and full disclosure. If you think you may have a competing interest, even if you don’t think it affects your judgment, then make sure you declare it.
When you submit a manuscript to a journal you will be asked to disclose any potential conflicts of interest. This includes acknowledging any funding that you have received to conduct the study.
Data guidelines
The data you use for your research must be accurate, representative, and reproducible. It’s common for journals to ask you to upload raw data as a supplementary file when you submit your manuscript. This is to increase transparency and avoid the fabrication or falsification of data.
If data fabrication or falsification is suspected within an article, then the journal editor will evaluate the case. This can lead to rejection if an editor is not satisified with the data that underlies a study.
All reputable journals will have a clear complaints and appeals process if you believe that you have been unfairly treated. This is certainly something to keep in mind when evaluating a journal as a potential outlet for your research. Good, reputable journals adhere to COPE guidelines.