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OVERVIEW OF ETHICALLY CORRECT STANDARDS IN SCIENTIFIC WRITING

Enriching scientific advancement requires adherence to ethical guidelines for research and
scientific writing. Many professional organizations have certain policies to address the related
ethics with publishing and scientific writing which includes the International Council of
Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and the Committee on Publication Ethics. The two main
issues related to ethics in scientific writing are:- authorship and plagiarism. The major issue
with authorship is the determination of author order and author responsibilities. Honoring
authorship to people who have not made ample amount of contributions provides them with
not needed benefits and it reduces the benefit to the people who actually contribute to the
work. Declining authorship to worthy contributors is a prevalent violation of scientific
integrity. Plagiarism, the most ordinary form of scientific misconduct is known as the
appropriation of somebodys processes, ideas, words or results without giving the credits that
the contributor deserves. Plagiarism is mainly intentional but it can be unintentional because
of the confusion regarding the definition of plagiarism and how one can avoid it. The other
forms of plagiarism incorporate self-plagiarism, whereby authors tend to copy a lot of part
from one of their previous manuscripts. Duplicate publication is one of the plagiarisms that
prevail when an author submits a previously-published work as one of a new. Every year a
number of manuscripts are retracted because of duplicate publication. Countries where
English is not the primary language the incidence of plagiarism is of particular concern
amongst the international trainees and this is mainly because of the language barrier related
issues.
The advantage of research can only be achieved if the outcome of the investigations is
published in the literature for others to paraphrase and expand upon. Scientific misconduct
which is supposed to be the violation of ethical principles related to plagiarism and
authorship have been defined and addressed by certain professional organizations. The
policies can be readily adapted and adopted by academic institutions however the process still
requires the consistence adherence to the policies. Ascribed to by many major journals, the
COPEs Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors, defines ethical
violations that involve issues related to publication and assigns guidelines to people dealing
with the violations. The invariable requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical
journals was developed by the International Council of Medical Journal editors(ICMJE).most
of the medical journals follow the consistent guideline which helps in providing guidance on
many issues including authorship and plagiarism standards. The best ethics in scholarly
publications is defined by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). The U.S office of
Research Integrity (ORI) develops procedure and policies related to investigating, detecting
and preventing misconduct in research and it also implements programs to encourage
research integrity. ORI also directs and oversees public health research in the U.S.
PLAGIARISM:- According to the U.S Office of Science and Technology , plagiarism is the
appropriation of another persons ideas, processes, results or words without giving
appropriate credit , including those obtained through confidential reviews of others research
proposal and manuscripts. Often considered as a form of scientific misconduct, it is mainly
unintentional. Most of the inexperienced writers and trainees are not aware of the importance

of adhering to the guidelines; the vague and conflicting definition of plagiarism gets
confusing at times. The issue of plagiarism gets much more confusing due to varying norms
of adhering to the guidelines in different countries.
The most common form of scientific misconduct is plagiarism which occurs mainly with the
students and faculty. Certain studies have depicted consistent plagiarism amongst medical
students, and have also found that explicit warnings are not enough for deterring students
from engaging in plagiarism. At research institutions the faculty might succumb to plagiarism
due to the tremendous pressure of getting their works published. The requirement of
advancement in the career or the lack of knowledge also leads to plagiarism. It is very
common amongst in scholarly work.
In the U.S, the rate of plagiarism is much more common with the international trainees in
comparison to the domestic ones. The lack of appropriate policies on research in their home
institutions and the language barrier which makes it difficult for the trainees to write in
English attributes a differing perspective towards plagiarism. Plagiarism is a significant
concern in countries where English is not considered to be the primary language. English is
the language which is mainly preferred while communicating scientific research and ideas,
and there is always a prominent pressure of publishing paper in reputable English-language
journals. It is however very difficult to express complex ideas in English, considering the fact
that it is not a language known by all. The ease of internet searches and the increasing use of
the copy and paste along with the consequences of language barriers have together
contributed to the increasing number of incidence of plagiarism. The increasing pressure of
writing a dissertation amongst the students or considering a work published as advancement
in the career has further lead to the increasing cases of plagiarism. Indias low research output
has been of a cause of concern for the Indian government. Better policies to address research
misconduct needs to be developed and the strict adherence to the guidelines should be
maintained in order to make a stand in the global research arena. The importance of skills and
training and scientific writing need to be taken into consideration in order to reduce the
incidence of plagiarism.
Different forms of plagiarism that one can come across in scientific writings:- intentional
plagiarism, is a kind of plagiarism where one directly lifts texts intentionally without giving
appropriate credits, it is the most common type. Many a times the authors view common
knowledge in their work quite broadly. However there is a need of proper citation for basic
background information, in order to give credit to the original author as well as providing aid
to readers for finding the information. It can be easy to pic phrases directly from notes taken
from primary sources when compiling introduction and background sections. The most
important part to remember is proper citation and the use of quotation marks when word-forword is cited.
Self-plagiarism, also known as recycling of text, is another very common form of plagiarism.
In self-plagiarism ,the author often copies a large part of his/her own previous papers wordfor-word.it is hence very difficult to define, since there is no existence of any consensus as to
how many words of copied text constitute self-plagiarism. Although the ethical chasm related

with self-plagiarism is often considered to be less than the intention plagiarism. Copying a
large part of an original paper is self-plagiarism and giving it for publication is taken to be
duplicate publication.
Duplicate publication, can also be defined as a repetition of work. When a previouslypublished work is submitted as if it were original. Duplicate submissions wastes the time of
the editors as well as the readers and they also distort the scientific record. Readers expect to
read original content and the idea of misleading them to believe in the originally of a text
which is a duplicate work is not ethically correct. The ICME clearly states the rejection of
duplicate work. Clinical trials and conference proceedings are the type of duplicate
publication that are acceptable.
The number of retracted published manuscripts is increasing every year and plagiarism is
definitely playing a very significant role in it. The use of plagiarism detection software is
getting much more common in the academic institutions for the documents that are submitted
by the students. Likewise, journals also use software tools in order to detect duplicate
publication and plagiarism in submitted manuscripts. Plagiarism detection software compares
the text of manuscripts to the already existing scholarly literature. In case of considerable
overlap with previously published material the authors are asked to put text in quotation
marks, rewrite paragraphs or the authors might have to face rejection as well.
AUTHORSHIP:- Authorship issues are often very controversial and can have a major effect
on personal and professional lives. The major issue related with authorship is the
establishment of author order and responsibility. There is immense pressure among the
academicians of being listed on as many publications as possible, and also many a times the
graduate programs require the publishment of one or more first-authored papers. However
honoring authorship to people who have not made significant contributions provides them
with unworthy benefits and it reduces the benefits for those who make actual contributions in
the work.
Various forms of authorship abuse defined by kevin strange

Coercion authorship:-this type of authorship occurs when a student or a junior is


pressurized to mention the name of the teacher or senior person even though when the
person has not made significant contributions in the work. It is mainly forceful and is
very common for the beginners.
Honorary:-It is the type of guest or gift authorship which is mainly awarded to
acknowledge friendship. It is very common for authors to add well-known senior
investigators as authors to their papers even though they have not made any
contribution in their work.
Mutual support authorship:- It is the type of authorship in which two authors mention
each others name on their respective papers in order to enhance their perceived
productivity.
Denial of authorship:-when a work is published without giving credits to the worthy
or without acknowledging the contributions made by others.

Ghost authorship:-this type of authorship includes writings of people who are not
considered to be authors it is very common in the pharmaceutical industry, which is
often considered to hire professional writers.
An often overlook aspect of authorship is that the agreement entails support for the
finding of the study and a willingness to take the public responsibility of the paper or
the work. Various institutions and professional organizations have formed certain
formal authorship guidelines. The ICMJEs standards of authorship have been revised
several times, have also been adopted by a number of journals and are widely
accepted worldwide. The U.S department of Health and Human Services Office of
Research Integrity recommends that all the research institutions, journals and
scientific societies establish and make public their authorship policies.
Authorship order also tends to be quite problematic. The most desirable position is
that of the first and the last author. The first author also known as the primary author
is the one who conducts most of the work in the paper, and is usually the person who
has drafted the manuscript. The senior author is usually the last person who is named
and is the person who oversees the work. Senior authors are the ones who take the
responsibility for the project as a whole. The contributing authors names appear
between the name of the primary and the senior author, and the order should reflect
the relative contributions by them. Increasingly journals requires the specifications of
each listed author at the time of submission.

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