The Good Publication Practice (GPP) guideline provides recommendations for individuals and organizations that contribute to the publication of research results sponsored or supported by pharmaceuti...

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Good Publication Practice for Communicating Company-Sponsored Medical Research: GPP3

The research output from Indian medical institutions between 2005 and 2014

A systematic review highlights a knowledge gap regarding the effectiveness of health-related training programs in journalology

Objectives Generally, academic promotions, job retention, job mobility, and professional development of a medical faculty members are judged primarily by the growth in publication outputs. Universities and research institutions are more likely to recruit and promote those academics carrying voluminous resumes with larger number of published articles. This review elaborates the causes and consequences of the pressure to publish and the ways and means to cope with this paradigm. Methods In 2015, database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects, LISTA (EBSCO), Medline and Oxford University Library were searched for the English language full-text articles published during 2000-2015, by using MeSH terms "pressure to publish", "urge to publish", "research ethics", "plagiarism", "article retraction", "medical field". This search was further refined by selecting the articles in terms of relevancy and contents. Results This research showed that some universities offer generous grants to researchers with a high h-index and with more publications in elite journals, which promise an enhanced prospect of citations and elevation in the scientific rankings of the funding institutions. This generates an involuntary obsession to publish with the primary intention to obtain promotions, high scientific rankings, and improved job security. This compelling pressure to publish results in widespread publication of non-significant research with a high index of plagiarism that eventually leads to an increased frequency of retractions. Conclusion Research centers and academic institutions have an obligation to train their academics in sound scientific writing and to apprise them of the publication ethics and the grave consequences of plagiarism and research misconduct.

Publish or Perish mantra in the medical field: A systematic review of the reasons, consequences and remedies.

Plagiarism has become more common in both dental and medical communities. Most of the writers do not know that plagiarism is a serious problem. Plagiarism can range from simple dishonesty (minor copy paste/any discrepancy) to a more serious problem (major discrepancy/duplication of manuscript) when the authors do cut-copy-paste from the original source without giving adequate credit to the main source. When we search databases like PubMed/MedLine there is a lot of information regarding plagiarism. However, it is still a current topic of interest to all the researchers to know how to avoid plagiarism. It's time to every young researcher to know ethical guidelines while writing any scientific publications. By using one's own ideas, we can write the paper completely without looking at the original source. Specific words from the source can be added by using quotations and citing them which can help in not only supporting your work and amplifying ideas but also avoids plagiarism. It is compulsory to all the authors, reviewers and editors of all the scientific journals to know about the plagiarism and how to avoid it by following ethical guidelines and use of plagiarism detection software while scientific writing.

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Knowing and avoiding plagiarism during scientific writing

Plagiarism is the wrongful presentation of somebody else's work or idea as one's own without adequately attributing it to the source Most authors know that plagiarism is an unethical publication practice Yet, it is a serious problem in the medical writing arena Plagiarism is perhaps the commonest ethical issue plaguing medical writing In this article, we highlight the different types of plagiarism and address the issues of plagiarism of text, plagiarism of ideas, mosaic plagiarism, self-plagiarism, and duplicate publication An act of plagiarism can have several repercussions for the author, the journal in question and the publication house as a whole Sometimes, strict disciplinary action is also taken against the plagiarist The article cites examples of retraction of articles, suspension of authors, apology letters from journal editors, and other such actions against plagiarism

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Plagiarism: Why is it such a big issue for medical writers?

Authors of articles published in medical journals are often busy researchers who cannot afford time devoted to writing. Though they are experts in their own therapeutic area, more often than not, researchers find it difficult to actually write and publish their research. Professional medical writers with their expertise in writing clear, concise, comprehensible, and coherent content are often a great support to researchers. Their contribution to the manuscript is usually focused on getting a manuscript ready for publication. They are not authors unless they make substantial contribution to the study according to the guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). However, medical writing is not the same as ghostwriting. Ghostwriting is unethical. Medical writers can be legitimate contributors to the medical manuscript. Several international guidelines including the ICMJE guidelines require authors to acknowledge the contribution of medical writers in the published article. Medical writers whose name is publicly associated with the article in turn make an extra effort to ensure that all applicable publication ethics and style guidelines are adhered to. This article discusses the current international guidelines about the acknowledgement of writing assistance. It also emphasizes on how acknowledging medical writing support can go a long way in curbing the menace of scientific misconduct including ghostwriting.

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Hiring a professional medical writer: is it equivalent to ghostwriting?

Intentional or unintentional, it is never alright to plagiarize: A note on how Indian universities are advised to handle plagiarism.

The Medical Council of India (MCI) has made research publications in indexed medical journals an obligatory requirement for promotion of medical teachers. In 2015, MCI guidelines said the first and the second author would receive credit for a research paper. In 2017, the amended guidelines provided credit to the first and the corresponding authors instead. We reviewed the common types of authorship order in medical publications from across the world and noted that before the 1990s, corresponding authors were rarely acknowledged and were not considered more important than any of the co-authors. By 2016, the corresponding author was usually the first or the last author. With an increase in collaborative research globally, more and more papers are published with multiple first, last or corresponding authors. Some journals have revised their Instructions to Authors to acknowledge co-first authors equally. Since 2017, PubMed also displays equal contributors in the author byline while still allowing searches for 'First author' and 'Last author' supporting the 'first and last author emphasis'. However, most guidelines mention that the authorship order is a collective decision of the authors. Any association between authorship sequence and credit for an article is debatable. Some journals allow or even insist on authorship statements to explain each contributor's role. Standardized vocabularies and taxonomies such as the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT) system can highlight contributions of individual authors. Some suggest doing away with the authorship order altogether. Readers and assessors should look at the 'author contribution details' rather than the 'authorship order' before drawing any conclusions about contributions of each author.

'Author Contribution Details' and not 'Authorship Sequence' as a merit to determine credit: A need to relook at the current Indian practice.

Aim: The number of scientific papers published from India each year is low. We tried to determine how often Indian surgeons publish in biomedical journals, challenges preventing them from publishing more often, their awareness of the international guidelines that acknowledge professional medical writing as an ethical service, and their willingness to hire medical writers for their publications. Materials and Methods: A convenience sample of 100 of the surgeons attending a national conference were explained about the survey and asked to complete a survey questionnaire. All results were expressed as absolute frequencies and percentages. Results: Of the 81 who responded, 43 (53%) had never published. Only 31/81 (38%) had published in the last 5 years. The challenges preventing more frequent publication were reported to be the lack of support for carrying out statistical analyses (58%), lack of time (41%), lack of sufficient data (38%), and lack of support for literature search (37%). Twenty-two (27%) surgeons were aware that they could hire a professional medical writer (PMW), 26 (32%) knew that the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors allowed PMWs to contribute to articles published in the biomedical journals, 75 (93%) were interested in hiring medical writers or to consider it in the future. Only 6 (7.4%) showed no such interest. Conclusion: There was poor awareness and great interest in hiring PMWs. It might be beneficial to increase the awareness of clinicians about the scientific expertise and communication skills of PMWs and how they can add value to biomedical publications.

Natasha Das

Papers

Plagiarism: Why is it such a big issue for medical writers?

Hiring a professional medical writer: is it equivalent to ghostwriting?

Intentional or unintentional, it is never alright to plagiarize: A note on how Indian universities are advised to handle plagiarism.

'Author Contribution Details' and not 'Authorship Sequence' as a merit to determine credit: A need to relook at the current Indian practice.

Knowledge and attitudes of Indian surgeons regarding professional medical writing support