Responsible Authorship and
Publication Practices
An International Academy of Toxicologic Pathology
(IATP) & STP Sponsored Workshop and Panel
Discussion
STP Annual Meeting
Hyatt Regency Denver
Mineral G Room
Denver, CO
June 22, 2011
12:15 – 1:30 PM
Panelists
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Bob Maronpot - Facilitator
John Foster, Editor-in-Chief (UK)
Susan Elmore, Associate Editor & Author
Taki Harada, Editorial Board Member (Japan)
Stephanie Dickinson, Managing Editor
Ulrich Deschl, Editor-in-Chief (Europe)
Sabine Francke-Carroll, Government Perspective
Discussion Topics Prior to Case Examples
• How do we define authorship?
• Acknowledgements
• Responsible publication practices
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What constitutes plagiarism?
Redundant or duplicate publications
Disclosure of conflict of interest
Proper citation of references
Credit for ideas other than your own
Institutional/funding organization
requirements for publication
– Image manipulation
• Responsibility of Associate Editors and
Editors
Authorship
• International Committee of Medical Journal Editors
recommends the following criteria for authorship
Substantial contributions to conception and design, acquisition
of data, or analysis and interpretation of data
Drafting or revising article critically for intellectual content
Final approval of the version to be published
• Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general
supervision of the research group alone does not
constitute authorship
• All persons designated as authors should qualify for
authorship, and all those who qualify should be listed
• Each author should have participated sufficiently in the
work to take public responsibility for appropriate
portions of the content
Unacceptable Practices
• Coercion Authorship
 Person in a position of authority uses that position to compel another
author to include him/her on a manuscript even though that person does
not meet accepted authorship criteria
• Mutual Support/Admiration Authorship
 Authors agreeing to place each others’ names on their respective papers
even though each may have made little or no contribution to the other’s
paper
• Honorary/Guest/Gift Authorship
 Individual is listed as an author either solely as a gesture of respect or as
an attempt to make a paper appear more creditable than it is
• Inclusion of an individual without consent as an author
 All authors are accountable and responsible for the information reported
in a paper
• Exclusion of an author that should have been identified
 May have been done to hide a potential conflict of interest
Acknowledgments
• Contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed
in an acknowledgments section
 Examples include a person who provided purely technical help, writing assistance, or a
department chairperson who provided only general support
 If authors had assistance with study design, data collection, data analysis, or manuscript
preparation, the authors should disclose the identity of the individuals who provided
this assistance and the entity that supported it in the published article
 Financial and material support should also be acknowledged
• Groups of persons who have contributed materially to the paper but
whose contributions do not justify authorship
 Function or contribution should be described (i.e. “served as scientific advisors,”
“critically reviewed the study proposal,” “collected data” or "provided and cared for
study patients”)
• These persons must give written permission to be acknowledged as
readers may infer their endorsement of the data and conclusions
Responsible Publication Practices
• Cite (and read) the original paper rather than
a more recent paper or review article that
relies on the earlier paper
• Permission from editors and publishers to
republish
Repeat or adapt part of an earlier article one
wrote in a current manuscript
Re-publishing in another language
Reprinting an article in another journal for a
different audience
Responsible Publication Practices
• Disclosures and Conflicts of Interest (COI)
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COI can be financial or personal
Sponsors can have a potential bias
Sponsors roles should be outlined in methods
Integrity of authors and journal are at stake
• Journal wants to ensure objectivity in the research published
 Most journals now require authors to submit a statement disclosing
actual or potential conflicts of interest
 Consequences of non-disclosure range from a letter of reprimand to
the authors to barring the authors from publishing in the journal
• Stronger reprimand include prohibiting presenting at society meetings,
exclusion from society boards and committees and revocation of society
membership
 Recommendation: COI disclosure submitted for every author listed not
just for those with conflicts
Abuses of Publication Practices
• Redundant/Duplicate Publications
 Publish virtually the same research results in multiple journals
 Inflates the importance of the work
• Results appear replicated not the publications
• Can result in outright rejection of the manuscript and letters to the authors
and their institutions
• Dual submission of same paper to different journals
 Submission is withdrawn from one journal when paper is accepted
by the other journal
 Authors must attest that paper is not under consideration by
another journal upon submission
• Results published in “least publishable units” – papers just
detailed enough to get published but don’t tell the full
story
Abuses of Publication Practices
• Self-plagiarism – copying language or information
from one of one’s own articles into another article
Start each manuscript from scratch
Reference earlier publications instead of repeating
details
• Image manipulation
Minimal color/contrast adjustments - Beautification
Changes in visual data are not acceptable
Some journals require authors to guarantee the
authenticity of any submitted images
How to Get Your Manuscript Published
• Standard organization of paper
– Abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion, references
• Dealing with electronic submissions, reviews & galley
proofs
• Clearly stated hypothesis or objective
• Identification of number and characteristics of animals
used
• Randomization or blinding to reduce bias in animal
selection and outcome assessment
• Describe statistical methods and give measure of variability
• Tell the full story (avoid least publishable units)
• Define importance of your work in the cover letter to the
journal editor
Responsibilities of an Editor?
• Plagiarism – should this be screened for routinely?
• Manuscript review
– Ensuring fair and unbiased review – criticise the work not the authors
– Transparency of processes and grievance procedures
– Confidentiality in dealing with manuscripts
• Images
– Suitability – distasteful or offensive gross pictures?
– Are they from the experiment described – electronic archive/Aperio?
– Can/should we be concerned about ensuring this?
• Ensuring that redundant/duplicate publications don’t slip through the net?
• Disclosure of funding – relationship to NLM.
• Can editors be given the tools to help avoid these or should the
responsibility be the authors?
Case Scenario 1
Dr. Smith is a junior staff veterinarian working with an investigator
studying the effect of a drug on a disease outcome. She is
responsible for administering the test drug and vehicle intranasally
to rats prior to disease induction by the investigator. With the
permission of the investigator, Dr. Smith collects some additional
data on this project for a manuscript she is writing which examines
the effect of different training techniques on reducing
complications associated with different administration routes. Prior
to submitting the manuscript, Dr. Smith had all of the authors
review and approve the final manuscript version, including the
authorship order. Dr. Smith will be the first and corresponding
author, followed by two technicians, then the investigator, with Dr.
Smith’s mentor/advisor as the senior (last) author.
Case Scenario 1
When the manuscript comes back from the journal for further
revisions, the investigator surprises Dr. Smith by asking that he be
listed second rather than fourth as an author on the revised
manuscript . He feels that since this manuscript was derived in
part from his original research project, he as a faculty member up
for promotion should be listed ahead of the two technicians who
collected the additional data outside the scope of the original
project, analyzed and interpreted the data, and participated in
writing the manuscript under Dr. Smith’s direction. He is prepared
to go to Dr. Smith’s mentor/advisor regarding this issue if the
change in authorship order is not made in the revised manuscript.
Case Scenario 1
• Are the investigator’s reasons for changing authorship
order valid?
• Is it OK to change authorship order at this stage of the
review process?
• Is the original authorship order appropriate for each
individual’s contribution to this manuscript?
• What would be appropriate reasons for changing
authorship order during the manuscript development
and review process?
Case Scenario 1
• Should one’s position (faculty vs. technical staff) dictate
authorship order?
• Should the investigator have been acknowledged
rather than listed as a coauthor?
• What are Dr. Smith’s options if she decides to stand by
the original authorship order and the investigator goes
to a higher authority on this issue?
Case Scenario 2
Dr. Simon just received word from the editor of
an agricultural journal in Sri Lanka requesting
that his recently published paper on goat
diseases be submitted for publication to the
journal in Sinhalese and Tamil, the two official
languages of Sri Lanka. The journal is one
favored by the goat farmers of Sri Lanka and the
editor believes that it could be of great benefit.
Dr. Simon is flattered but informs the editor that
since the article is already published in a US
journal for small ruminant veterinarians, it
cannot be re-published.
Case Scenario 2
• Is Dr. Simon accurate in his assessment of republishing the journal article in a Sri Lanka
agriculture journal?
• What might he do to ensure his take on the
situation is correct?
Case Scenario 3
Dr. Jones was in her second year as a postdoc and submitted a
paper on the toxicokinetics and toxicodynamics of a novel
pharmaceutical based on her own laboratory work. Although
the test agent was not toxic, representative tissue samples of
liver and kidney from a few of the study animals were
submitted for blind histopathologic examination at a CRO.
Statistical analysis on her data was contracted to a statistical
consulting company. In her manuscript Dr. Jones indicated
that the histopathology was negative for lesions, as expected.
She prepared tables of the statistical results for the paper and
discussed the statistical findings in the Discussion. The
statistician provided a short paragraph identifying the
statistical procedures for the Materials and Methods section
of the paper.
Case Scenario 3
Dr. Jones was the first author and her major mentor
was the second author. She did not list either the
pathologist or statistician as co-authors. When the
reviewers’ comments came back from the journal,
there were questions raised about the pathology and
the statistics. To respond to these questions and
revised the paper accordingly, Dr. Jones consulted
with the pathologist and statistician and they helped
write specific responses to address the reviewers’
comments.
Case Scenario 3
• Was it appropriate on the initial submission
for Dr. Jones to not list the pathologist or
statistician as co-authors?
• In light of the additional input from the
pathologist and statistician, should Dr. Jones
list them as co-authors on the resubmission?
• Do you anticipate that the journal editor
would raise questions about the revised coauthorship on the resubmission?
Case Scenario 4
The STP in partnership with the ACVP and and the SOT established a
working group to prepare a best-practices document on the future
role of pathologists in the toxicogenomics era. The working group
consisted of 16 members representing government, industry and
academia. The working group was co-chaired by a member of STP
and a member of SOT. A draft document was prepared for
publication and circulated to the Executive Committees of the
participating societies to insure compatibility with their respective
society missions. As is usual on such working groups, the majority
of the work was done by the co-chairs and three of the working
group members. All working group members had the opportunity
to review the draft manuscript. A manuscript was submitted for
publication in Toxicologic Pathology.
Case Scenario 4
• Is is appropriate for the first authors to be the
chairpersons of the working group?
• Should the authorship be alphabetical or
based on the level of contribution provided by
the workshop members?
• Who should be identified as the
corresponding author – one of the
chairpersons?
Summary
• Authorship should be defined early in the
research project before writing the manuscript
• Be aware of and avoid publication abuses
• Know the institutional, organizational and
journal requirements for publication
• Always obtain permission before
acknowledging someone in a submitted
manuscript.