This year I will be co-teaching Ethical Standards in Medical Publication with Cindy Hamilton. As we prepare our course materials, I want to share the most common issues in scientific papers with you.
They are:
- plagiarism,
- duplicate publication,
- redundant publication,
- falsification and fabrication of data,
- figure manipulation,
- conflict of interest,
- authorship, and
- human/animal welfare issues.
A resource I recommend was prepared by the American Physiological Society and is found at the following link.
As you will see, this resource both describes the problems/issues and offers suggestions on how to avoid these problems. As you review or work on papers for publication*, it is helpful to keep these solutions in mind. If you are not sure, reach out to other AMWA members for discussion and help with difficult or confusing situations.
Tip: Familiarize yourself with ethical issues in scientific publication.
*Use the RIGHT model to walk yourself through ethical situations [Hamilton CW. The Right Way to Avoid Doing Wrong: A Multistep Model for Making Ethical Decisions. AMWA J 2012;27:3-6.] as discussed in last post.