Ethics and Scientific Writing

Ethical Considerations

• Ethics more important than legal considerations

• Your name and integrity are all that you have!

Authorship• When is it decided who are authors?

• Who is an author?

• What are the responsibilities of an author?

• How is it decided what order authors are listed?

• What are the career implications to authorship position?

What constitutes authorship?

• Who involved in the research process qualifies as an author?

Three Requirements

1. Contribute to conception, design, acquisition of data, and analysis or interpretation

2. Involved in drafting or revising the manuscript

3. Approve the final version

Acknowledgement vs. Authorship

• Acknowledge when person involved doesn’t meet all 3 requirements

• Acknowledge • Intellectual contributions• Technical contributions• Financial contributions (grants, awards)

Requirements

• Helps insure the integrity of the manuscript

Authorship Criteria

• An author must be willing to take public responsibility for the content of a manuscript.

Author Responsibilities

• Defend the intellectual content, including results and conclusions

• Be willing to concede publicly any errors

• In case of fraud, be willing to state publicly its nature and extent and account for its occurrence

Authorship Listing

• Decide very early

• Principal investigator last author

• Lead experimenter listed first

• Dual first authorship

Authorship Agreements

• Who will do most of the writing?

• Who will deal with the editors?

• Who will manage revisions?

• Who will be responsible for settling disputes?

Authorship Problems• First author (trainee) and PI don’t agree who should be authors

• PI includes/deletes authors without discussing with trainee

Other Issues• What do you do if left off as an author

• How do you handle co-workers asking to be included on a MS

• What do you do as a secondary author and you have concerns about the MS content

Dual Submissions

• Not allowed

• “Shopping” the manuscript

Duplication of Data• Not allowed

• Changing the format does not change the source

Duplicate Publication

• Publication in another language may be permitted, but always requires approval

• Release of results to prior to publication violates many journals’ policies

Exceptions• Data described in meeting abstracts

• Data from thesis or dissertation

• Secondary publication with permission

Reusing Experimental Data Sets

• Reuse controls from frequently run experiments

• Data from a group of experiments collected together with the same control

• Comparing to previously published data: cite or permission

Data Manipulation

• Don’t use software to force interpretation

• Cropping

• Splicing images

Plagiarism

• Representation of another author’s work as one’s own work

• Don’t copy and paste your own work

• Layered references

Confidentiality

• Manuscript reviewers see new information before it is published

• Temptation to use information for one’s own research

• Under review means confidential; only share with others for editorial decision

Training

• Allowing post-docs and students to review manuscripts

• You were the expert solicited to review the manuscript

• Don’t take credit for someone else’s review

Conflicts of Interest

• Disclose everything

• Financial connections

Summary

• Many considerations involving manuscripts

• There can be gray areas

• Try to avoid conflicts

• Uphold the quality of information upon which future research is based