Publication Ethics and Responsible Authorship

Carrie Cameron, PhD

Department of Epidemiology

Cancer Prevention Research Training Program

Responsible Conduct of Research Seminar Series

September 10, 2014

Publication Ethics: Writing the article

– Authorship

– Intentional and unintentional plagiarism

Publication Ethics: Submitting the article

– Dual submission

– Duplicate publication

Reviewing the article; COI

Peer review—

See archive on RCR website

Conflict of interest—covered separately

Authorship

• Includes who will be named as authors, the order of the authors, participation level and roles of the authors

• Is a sensitive issue and should be negotiated carefully and early on in the writing process

Authorship

• Key ethics point: Every person listed as an author must have– made a substantial contribution to the content or

to the acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data AND

– participated in the writing and revising, AND– given final approval for publication, AND– NEW: agreed to be accountable for the accuracy

and integrity of all parts of the work.

(Uniform Requirements of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, 8/2013)

Qualifications for Authorship

+ Designing the study+ Performing the study+ Leading the study+ Providing the scientific framework and oversight+ Acquisition of data+ Analyzing/interpreting data

NOT qualifications for authorship

– Providing materials (cell lines, patients, datasets)– Editing the paper– Helping someone with data analysis or collection– Getting the study funded– Famous dissertation committee chair of third

author– Someone to whom you owe a favor

• These contributions should be listed in the Acknowledgements

For further information

http://www.icmje.org,

“Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts, Authorship and Contributorship”

Author Order in Biomedical Science

First author 2nd (& 3rd) authors Other people… Senior author

Corresponding author

Author Order

Make everyone’s life easier:

Negotiate authorship before

you write the article

Negotiating Authorship Tactfully

• Discuss authorship of all of your papers in a 1-on-1 meeting with PI, and make this a regular feature of your meetings

• If you are leaving the institution, send a detailed email about any writing projects you still want to be on or don’t want to be on

Writing the Article: Intentional and Unintentional Plagiarism

• What is “plagiarism”?

• Is plagiarism a big deal?

• Can you plagiarize yourself?

Writing the Article: Intentional and Unintentional Plagiarism

• Key ethics point: Plagiarism is representing another person’s ideas or language as your own, whether intentional or unintentional.

• Plagiarism is considered to be theft of intellectual property

• Plagiarism is considered to be scientific misconduct

Patchwriting

• ‘Patchwriting’ is copying pieces of text and using them in other documents.

• Patchwriting may occur with or without intent to plagiarize.

• Even if you patchwrite without intent to plagiarize, you can still be accused of plagiarism.

Patchwriting: Why?

Why do people patchwrite?

• Lack of confidence in language skills

• Time & efficiency

• Admiration & respect for other author’s expression

• Objective character of scientific writing—what difference does it make?

• Perception as not being problematic

Patchwriting examples

• Re-using an old introduction—someone else’s or your own--and just changing a few words. Don’t do it.

• Copying really nice sections of a discussion section in an article you admire. Don’t do it.

Trainee Voices

“They tell us about plagiarism a lot, you hear about it all over the place when you come here.

But they assume that you already know since undergrad how to write…

So you take those [English] sentences and you use the thesaurus to change it a little bit and then you cite the guy.

We don’t really connect that with what they told us about plagiarism since we’re not stealing the scientific ideas, we’re just imitating some sentences.

You copy the model. The language is a model as well. As a foreigner, they don’t really teach you in graduate school how not to do that.”

Patchwriting: examples

“Plagiarism is usually defined as using another author’s material without proper attribution. A tour of college and editorial webpages on plagiarism quickly reveals a few key themes: 1) plagiarism is so egregious an infraction that words such as ‘crime’ and ‘stealing’ appear regularly; 2) absence of intent to plagiarize is not a mitigating factor; and 3) even trivial errors

in citation form or muddled wording can be construed as plagiarism. Precise characterizations of plagiarism are difficult to find, however, and several studies have shown that identification of and value judgments about source text repetition vary markedly across individuals, let alone across languages and cultures2-9. Given the gravity of the issue and its enmeshed relationship with culture and language, it is hard to imagine how the plagiarism question could be other than problematic for L2 writers…”

Patchwriting: examples

“Precise characterizations of plagiarism are difficult to find, however, and several studies have shown that identification of and value judgments about source text repetition vary markedly across individuals, let alone across languages and cultures2-9.”

WRONG:

….Precise characterizations of plagiarism are difficult to find; there have been studies that have shown that identification of and value judgments about source text repetition vary markedly across individuals, let alone across languages and cultures2-9…..

PARAPHRASE/ OKAY:….There appear to be no exact definitions of what is and is not plagiarism. A review of the literature suggests, however, that both definitions of plagiarism as well as value judgments about it vary widely from individual to individual.5 …. [Don’t forget to cite in bibliography.]

Exceptions

• Sometimes a very simple sentence with a statistic is okay. – Example: “Pancreatic cancer has a 5-year

survival rate of 4%.”

• Very simple statements in the Methods section are usually not considered serious violations.

Patchwriting: Who cares about it?

• Mentors may be unaware of patchwriting, so they may not notice it or mention it. That doesn’t mean they don’t care!

• Editors and reviewers and authors commonly Google pieces of writing to check for plagiarism

• Editors and reviewers may be unaware of why people patchwrite, so if they find it in an article, they may assume it’s intentional plagiarism.

• If you rely on patchwriting too much, you and all your co-authors are at risk for being accused of plagiarism (scientific misconduct).

Patchwriting

AVOID PATCHWRITING:

If you patchwrite, you will be at risk

for being accused of plagiarism

(scientific misconduct).

Ways to avoid patchwriting

• If you use the same exact words, you must use quotation marks; mentioning the other author is not enough

• But—formal quotation is rare in science writing. Paraphrase is much more common.

• Even if you change the words (paraphrase), you still must reference the author

Ways to avoid patchwriting

• Learn to paraphrase and summarize skillfully

• Paraphrase: – Saying the same thing in different words.– Using different words to express the same

thought.– Re-stating the author’s words in your own words.

• If you’re not sure about your paraphrase or summary, ask someone to help you

Publication ethics: Submitting the article

• Dual submission: Sending your article for review to more than one journal at a time

• Pro’s: Saves time!• Con’s: Unethical!

• Wastes reviewers’ and editors’ time

Publication Ethics: Submitting the article

• Duplicate publication: Having the same article published in more than one journal

• Acceptable under certain circumstances (other-language journal; consensus opinions), with full permission from both journals

• Otherwise unacceptable

Tips for the writing process

• Take “Writing and Publishing Scientific Articles.” Everyone needs to take this course.

• Focus your learning on content organization and structure. An editor can take care of the grammar details.

• Develop a good relationship with an editor at Scientific Publications. They can help you with ethical questions too!

Tips for the writing process

• Do as much as you can on your own before you ask someone to check your work

• Get the language in pretty good shape before you ask your mentor to review your paper

• Invest time in learning to write: it’s a life skill

Good luck!!