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Author Resources - Publishing Ethics

Maney, and the Editors and societies we work with, is committed to good ethical practice in the publication of research. As an author submitting to a Maney journal, you are bound by the journal’s guidelines and will be required to sign a declaration that your work does not contravene these guidelines. The text below gives an overview of good practice, but you should always consult the Notes for Contributors for a journal to check if specific requirements apply. Find Notes on each journal home page. Search for journals here.

Contributions are considered for publication on the basis that: (i) the work presented is original and authorship is properly attributed; (ii) all authors have approved the final version of the work and have consented to its submission to the journal; (iii) material and ideas drawn from other work are explicitly and fully acknowledged (including acknowledgement of copyright, where appropriate) (for more information about copyright and permissions please click here [please include a link to the advice for authors copyright and permissions document]); (iv) the work is not being considered or reviewed by any other publication, nor has it been published elsewhere in the same or a similar form; (v) the work contains no libellous or unlawful statements; (vi) due regard has been paid to the ethical policy of the journal as concerns, for example, declarations of interest or patients’ rights.

Originality and multiple submission
Submissions must be original. They must not have been published elsewhere or be under consideration or review by another publication. Certain journals may consider work that has been presented at a meeting or published previously in another language, but you should confirm this with the Editor before making a formal submission.

Submission of the same paper simultaneously to more than one journal is an abuse of the publication process, wasting the time of Editors and reviewers and, where duplicate publication occurs, polluting the literature. Multiple submission is viewed seriously and sanctions will be applied to all authors of offending papers.

The reuse of substantial portions of your own work (in the same words or paraphrased), i.e. ‘self-plagiarism’, is not acceptable. Even where the level of use is low enough to be considered acceptable, prior publication must always be acknowledged. The submission of a series of similar papers based on the same research is strongly discouraged.

Authorship
Where an article is multi-authored, all authors listed on a work must have contributed significantly to some aspect of the work, to the extent of being able to defend it publicly. Those making a lesser contribution should be acknowledged or otherwise credited rather than appearing as authors. The list of authors must be complete, i.e. it must include all those, but only those, who have contributed significantly to the work.

All authors must have approved the final form of the work and its submission to the journal, and all are considered jointly responsible for its content and any ethical violations.

Plagiarism
Plagiarism is the copying or use of other authors’ work without proper acknowledgement or attribution. It is unethical and unacceptable; infringes authors’ moral rights; and may also be illegal where copyright is infringed.

Authors must ensure that all work (whether their own or others) on which they draw is explicitly acknowledged and included in the list of references. (For scientific papers this requirement relates particularly to the methods, results and conclusions on which the present work is built, but includes also introductory material and literature reviews from the prior work.) If passages of text are copied word for word, the source must be given and the text must be placed within quotation marks. If the original text is paraphrased or reproduced with minor alterations, this must be made clear and the source given. Note that it may be unacceptable to reproduce passages of text without permission from the author(s) and the copyright holder. Permission from the copyright holder, and where applicable the author(s), must also be obtained to reproduce figures from other work. For more advice about the kinds of permission that you need to obtain, please view the advice for authors document here.

Responsibility of senior authors and institutions
Senior academics and the institutions in which they work have a duty of care to ensure junior academics are aware of good publication practice and that works submitted under their names conform to this practice.

It is a condition of submission to Maney journals that all authors of any work found, following due process, to contravene good practice accept responsibility for any contraventions, which are subject to sanction at the Publisher’s and Editors’ absolute discretion. Sanctions may include, inter alia, the retraction of a published paper; publication of a note of correction or apology; banning of future submissions by any author for a specified period; and/or notification of the Head of the authors’ department or organisation.