EDITOR

Upon the reception of a manuscript, the general editor may have to face some of the following issues: data fabrication, data falsification, ghost authorship, gift authorship, “salami” or segmented publications, self-citations, duplicated submissions, duplicated publications, overlapping publications, conflicts of interest, plagiarism, among others. Some of these issues are self-explicative, thus, I will focus on those that I consider require further clarification. Nonetheless, it has to be taken into account that some limits are blurred and that potentially conflictive matters might be overcome when appropriately approached.

AUTHORSHIP

Even though there are discrepancies among disciplines and thematic areas regarding who can be an author of a scientific manuscript, the following types of authorship are considered unethical or are not accepted criteria of authorship.

1. Ghost authorship: it is the lack of inclusion of authors that substantially contributed to the development of the work. In general, ghost authors are hierarchically in a lower position that the principal author (i.e., thesis students, graduate fellows, visiting professors from other countries), who either ignore the work of others or despise their respective contributions (i.e. data collection) to obtain a larger credit for his/her work.

2. Gift authorship: it is the inclusion of authors that did not either contribute to the work or substantially contribute to it. In general, gift authors are researchers hierarchically superior to the principal author (i.e., heads of a chair, directors of research groups or institutes) who provided space facilities, laboratory equipment, or financial support for performing the research work. The principal author may fear retaliation if not including his/ her superiors or considers that the inclusion of renowned researchers might increase the probability of acceptance of the manuscript. These contributions can be acknowledged in the corresponding section, but are not criteria of authorship

3. Authorship for non-scientific contributions: Scientific illustrators, medical writers, and technical editors, among others, can make substantial contributions to augment manuscript clarity, readability, and general presentation. Their work can be acknowledged in the corresponding section, but this type of contribution is not a criterion of authorship. Furthermore, it is unethical behavior to include colleagues to interchange or return favors to increment the number of publications for gaining personal prestige or increasing competitiveness in the obtainment of financial support or career promotions. Therefore, this practice should be discouraged by evaluation agencies and institutions.

MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSION

Duplicated submission. This type of submission can generate potential disagreements between scientific journals concerning the right to publish a manuscript that has been processed and already accepted by them. Some journals require a statement from the corresponding author informing that the manuscript is not under evaluation in any other journal. If it were the case, the editorial process would be initiated in more than one journal, generating unnecessary duplications in the processes of revision and edition, with the consequent loss of the reviewers’ and editors´ time and resources.

PUBLICATIONS

Following, I will describe the three most frequent types of conflictive or unethical scientific publications.

1. “Salami” or segmented publication. It is the publication of two or more articles derived from a single study with only one dataset, which has been divided into several segments, each of them long enough to contain results and conclusions (“minimum publication unit”). It is a distinctive form of redundant publication. It is characterized by the similarity of hypothesis, methodologies, or results, but it is not objectively detected with software applications because the articles have different wording. The following are considered exceptions (a) publication of the articles in journals aimed at different audiences (i.e., scientific journals and popular science magazines, o for readers of different fields of specialization), (b) the continuation of previously published investigations, only if new scientific knowledge is provided and the source is declared, (c) the translation of professional guides in several languages.

2. Duplicated publications. An article is considered redundant when it substantially overlaps with a previously published article. Duplicated publications are unethical because they (a) only benefit the author, (b) distort the system of academic rewards, (c) inflate the scientific literature, and (d) may contribute to defective meta-analyses and affect decision-making. Moreover, the editorial processing entails a waste of time for reviewers and editors, journal resources are used to publish already available information and the abstracting work in bibliographic databases is increased.

3. Secondary publications. They can be acceptable for certain types of scientific papers (i.e., guides, translations, commemorative numbers). To not incur ethical issues, (a) the editors of the involved journals have to agree in carrying out this type of publication, (b) the citation of the primary publication has to be prominent, (c) the secondary publication has to be aimed at another audience and must faithfully reflect the data and the interpretations of the primary version.

REVIEWERS

A manuscript under revision is a privileged communication which, as such, must not be either shown or described to anybody, except to those who asked for the opinion to reach an editorial decision. Some scientific journals or institutions request reviewers to destroy the evaluated material. The name of a reviewer associated with a revision is a certification that the ideas expressed in the revision are his/her own. Notwithstanding, some reviewers ask their graduate students to perform the evaluation for which they had been summoned up. This procedure, which in good faith may be considered formative for the students, poses ethical issues because (a) the opinion was not requested from the students, (b) the principle of confidentiality was violated, and (c) by signing the evaluation, the reviewer gives attest to an act that he/ she did not perform.

RESPONSIBILITY OF THE EDITOR

The general editor may also incur ethical faults if the due editorial process is not followed with the submissions, voluntarily complying with the norms established in the principal international guides. Among these faults, the following can be cited (a) undue delays in making editorial decisions and communicating them to the authors, (b) utilization of inadequate procedures for revision and decision-making, and (c) confusion between the journal´s content and the journal´s potential for publicity or promotion. In addition, the editor must take specific actions when confronted with ethical questionable, or conflictual issues involving authors, reviewers, or members of the Editorial Board because his/her responsibility is to ensure the scientific quality of the published contents and the due recognition to the individual contributions. Nevertheless, there are issues whose resolution is beyond the general editor´s scope. In these situations, it can only be expected that public scrutiny will be a strong deterrent to unethical behaviors. For this, it is essential that all actors of the system know, comprehend and utilize agreed guidelines on ethics in scientific publication, to not voluntarily incur conflictual, ethically questionable, or reprehensible behaviors.