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How to review manuscripts
Research and publishing ethics
Peer review, your role and responsibilities
Authorship, plagiarism and responsibilities
What does it mean to be an author?
An author is generally considered to
be someone who has made substantive
intellectual contributions to a published
study.
Remember
Being an author comes with credit but also responsibility
Decisions about who will be an author and the order of
authors should be made before starting to write up the
paper
Types of authorship
First author: the person who conducts or supervises the data
collection, analysis, presentation and interpretation of the
results and also puts together the paper for submission
Co-author: makes intellectual contributions to the data
analysis and contributes to data interpretation, reviews each
paper draft, must be able to present the results, defend the
implications and discuss study limitations
Avoid ghost authorship: excluding authors who
participated in the work
Avoid scientific writers and gift authors: including
authors who did not contribute to the work
What happens when there is a dispute?
It must be resolved by authors
Editors cannot adjudicate or act as judge
It delays publication as the editor has to get
agreement from all authors about any changes
After publication it can be published as a
correction but needs agreement from all
authors with justification
Key author responsibilities
What is plagiarism and how is it detected?
Plagiarism is the appropriation of
another persons ideas, processes,
or words without giving appropriate
credit, including those obtained through
confidential review of others research
proposals and manuscripts.
Federal Office of Science and Technology Policy, 1999
CrossCheck is a huge database
of 30+ million articles, from
50,000+ journals, from 400+
publishers.
The software alerts editors to
any similarities between your
article and the huge database of published articles.
Many Elsevier journals now check every submitted article
using CrossCheck.
Avoid:
Fabrication: making up research data
Falsification: manipulation of existing
research data
Plagiarism: previous work taken and
passed off as ones own
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is critical because it
Improves the quality of the published paper
Ensures previous work is acknowledged
Determines the importance of findings
Detects plagiarism and fraud
Plays a central role in academic career development
Words (language)
Ideas
Findings
Writings
Graphic representations
Computer programs
Diagrams
Graphs
Illustrations
Information
It is a well understood concept
Without it there is no control in scientific
communication
Journal editors evaluate and reject certain articles
prior to external peer review
Why should you review?
GIVE
Have letters of concern or reprimand written to them
Institutes and funding bodies could carry out disciplinary
action
Helps with
own research
or new ideas
Career
development
Awareness of new research
before their peers
General interest
in the area
Conflicts of interest can take many forms:
Have articles retracted (carrying a note why they were
retracted, e.g. for plagiarism)
Comment on general logic and
on justification of interpretations
and conclusions
Comment on the number of
figures, tables and schemes
Write concisely and precisely
which changes you recommend
Does it include key findings?
Is it an appropriate length?
List separately suggested changes
in style, grammar and other small
changes
Introduction
Is it effective, clear and well
organized?
Suggest additional experiments
or analyses
Does it really introduce and put
into perspective what follows?
Make clear the need for
changes/updates
Suggest changes in organization
and point authors to appropriate
citations.
Ask yourself whether the
manuscript should be published
at all
Conclusion
Comment on importance,
validity and generality of
conclusions
Can a colleague reproduce the
experiments and get the same
outcomes?
Updated with latest
developments
Declare conflicts of interest
Authors could:
Has the appropriate structure and
language been used?
Methodology
Academic duty
Consequences vary depending on the misconduct and the
journal, institutions, and funding bodies involved.
Suggest improvements in the way
data is shown
Be specific dont write the
authors have done a poor job
Correct citation is key
The consequences
Results and discussion
Is the research original, novel and
important to the field?
Is it really a summary?
...adheres to the principles that
Lectures
Printed material
Electronic material
Any other original
work
Direct financial: employment, stock ownership, grants,
patents
Indirect financial: honoraria, consultancies, mutual fund
ownership, expert testimony
Career and intellectual: promotion, direct rival institutional
Personal belief
First impressions
Abstract
Work that can be plagiarised includes
Authorship:
Report only real, unfabricated data
Originality
Declare any conflicts of interest
Submit to one journal at a time
Your ultimate checklist for reviewing a paper
Peer review
Did the authors include proper
references to previously published
methodology?
Request removal of redundancies
and summaries
The abstract, not the conclusion,
summarizes the study
Is the description of new
methodology accurate?
Could or should the authors have
included supplementary material?
Builds association with
journals and editors
Request toning down of
unjustified claims and
generalizations
References, tables and figures
Check accuracy, number
and citation appropriateness
TAKE
Comment on any footnotes
Comment on figures, their
quality and readability
Assess completeness of legends,
headers and axis labels
Editors view: what makes a good reviewer?
Check presentation consistency
Provides a thorough and comprehensive report
Submits the report on time
Provides well-founded comments for authors
Gives constructive criticism
Demonstrates objectivity
Provides a clear recommendation to the editor
Comment on need for colour in
figures
Comments to the editor
Comment on novelty and
significance
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Recommend whether the manuscript
is suitable for publication
Confidential comments will not
be disclosed to the author(s)
