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Publication ethics: Its importance to readers, authors, and the profession.

The ultimate goal of editors is the publication of highquality professional journals that reflect current clinical, educational, and research knowledge. Ultimately, we are responsible for ensuring that what we publish contributes to nursing knowledge and reflects the highest ethical standards. The challenging role of both editors and reviewers is to be the gatekeepers of content that informs readers’ clinical practice, teaching, research, and leadership with utility and originality. We are writing this editorial jointly, and it will be published simultaneously in each of the three journals we edit. The impetus for this was a series of events that began last year with a nurse-author’s submission of a manuscript that violated several publication ethics principles. We eventually discovered among our three journals seven manuscripts by this same author that contained significant reference, content, and data flaws. These seven articles have been retracted, but we now feel compelled to comment on publication ethics and what it means to readers and nurse authors. At a recent conference of international nurse editors, there was much discussion of publication ethics and how best to teach professionals and students to follow author guidelines and ethical principles when planning, writing, and disseminating their work. Although plagiarism tracking software options are now available to authors and publishers, not everyone uses them, and journals have differing writing and publishing standards. Even faculty members and researchers who are well aware of documents such as the APA’s publication manual (American Psychological Association, 2010) may not understand what constitutes an ethical violation. To ensure they are adhering to accepted ethical standards, we encourage authors to follow the international standards of publication ethics set out by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE; www.publicationethics. org). These guidelines include avoidance of plagiarism or the copying of information already published in another source—in print or online publications or on the Internet. While self-plagiarism is defined as duplication of previously published work by the same author, a classic article by Fine and Kardek (1983) cites a number of case studies that highlight the complexity of what may be considered self-plagiarism. For instance, even if information or research was originally the author’s own, if it has been published elsewhere it must be referenced as if written by another author. Because the copyright designations that are signed before anything is published grant the publishing company full rights to the article, the author no longer has the right to reuse them without permission or attribution. A recent white paper by IThenticate (2011) offers a current and comprehensive review of the complex issues related to self-plagiarism. Other ethical issues that require awareness include transparent authorship that ensures all authors are clear about their role in the publication and have reviewed the manuscript prior to submission. An author who is named on a publication shares not only ownership of that work but also responsibility for ensuring that it meets ethical and international standards. Many authors are not clear that an ”acknowledgment of contributions” may be sufficient if an individual does not meet the author criteria yet has been supportive in other ways. The publication manual of the American Psychological Association authorship guidelines (2010) provides a helpful set of circumstances by which a person can be listed as an author. It is clear to us as editors that with the increasing volume of submissions, we need to be more and more attentive to possible ethics breaches; we rely on the integrity of the profession, the authors, and our reviewers to help identify plagiarism, authorship issues, and falsifications. That is the only way our readers can have confidence that the content we publish is reliable and can be applied with confidence to their practices. We count on you to alert us when you suspect content errors and ethics violations. Send a letter to the editor; we welcome your comments and look forward to reading them. Now more than ever, accurate journal communication depends on active collaboration.