The Ethics of
Scientific Writing
What to Avoid
in Writing
your
Research Paper

Scientific Paper Writing
Be a beginner or an experienced researcher scientific writing is not
easy for both. Apart from the format, structure, and grammar, there are
certain ethical principles to be followed in scientific writing.
Since you write scientific papers for advancement in the scientific
field, strict adherence to these ethical guidelines is necessary.
Therefore, professional organizations like Committee on Publication
Ethics and International Council of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE)
formulate guidelines for authors to follow in scientific writing.

The two most important ethical issues
related to scientific writing are
plagiarism and authorship.
Consideration of these issues is required to
avoid any scientific misconduct and achieve
success with your research publication

This section discusses
these issues in detail
and how to avoid them
in your scientific
writing.

Plagiarism
The U.S. Office of Science and Technology
defines plagiarism as “the appropriation of
another person’s ideas, processes, results or
words without giving him appropriate credit.” It
equals to literary theft and is a form of scientific
misconduct, be it intentional or accidental.

Different forms of
plagiarism in
scientific writing

Intentional plagiarism is one where the author deliberately copies
the text from the other author without giving him due credit.
Self-plagiarism or text recycling is one where the author copies large
part of the text from his or her previous papers.
Duplicate publication where the author submits previously published
work for publication as an original work. Submitting previously
published manuscripts for publication is not only unethical but also
wastes the time of the journal editors and reviewers.

Why do authors resort to plagiarism?
 Tremendous pressure to publish their research and
advance their career
 Language barriers causing difficulty in writing in
English
 Lack of time to write the paper
 Lack of appropriate writing skills

How to avoid plagiarism in scientific
writing?
 Always acknowledge the contributions of others and source of your ideas.
 Enclose in quotation marks the verbatim text taken from another author.
 Paraphrase or summaries the text taken from another author into your
own words.
 Reproduce the text with the exact meaning of the other author’s ideas
and facts using your own words and sentences.
 Take help of a competent scientific writing services, in case you lack the
writing skills.
 Use plagiarism checking websites to detect any accidental plagiarism in
your paper.

Authorship
 The major issues related to authorship include
determination of author responsibilities and author
order.
 If you award authorship to people who have not
made sufficient contributions to the manuscript and
deny authorship to the deserving contributors, it’s a
violation of scientific integrity.

Different types of authorship abuse in
scientific writing
 Coercion authorship is where a senior person pressurizes
his junior to include his name on the paper to which he
hasn’t contributed enough.
 Honorary, guest or gift authorship is where you award
authorship to well-known senior investigators or colleagues
to acknowledge their friendship, gain favour, or to give the
paper a greater sense of legitimacy.

Mutual support authorship is where two or more
investigators place their names on each other’s paper to
enhance their productivity.
Ghost authorship is where the actual author’s name is not
included or acknowledged in the paper. This is quite
common in the pharmaceutical industry which often hires
professional writers.
Denial of authorship is where you publish the paper
without providing authorship or acknowledgement to
people who made significant contributions to the work.

How to avoid authorship abuse in
scientific writing?
Define the role of each person working on the project
before writing the paper
Clarify authorship expectations when asking your
colleague to participate in the project or review your
manuscript

 While listing authors on your manuscript, ensure they meet
the following criteria:
Made significant contributions to conception and design,
collection, analysis, and interpretation of data.
Drafted the manuscript or revised it critically for important
intellectual content
Gave final approval of the version to be published
 Acquisition of funds, collection of data, and general
supervision of research group do not qualify for authorship

Strictly adhering to the ethical guidelines of
scientific writing and avoiding the above
mistakes is a tedious process. So contact
our scientific writing services company to make
your research publication a success.

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