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5 Unethical Practices to Avoid While Publishing Your Research

Performing a medical research and documenting the findings in a research paper are painstaking and time-consuming process. Nevertheless, the research authors must conform to the scientific ethics at each stage of performing a research and documenting its results.

‘Ethics’, derived from the Greek word ‘ethikos’ are a set of principles for right conduct in a particular field. They carry a greater significance in the field of medical research and publication as these are directly related to the suffering humanity.

In recent times, there has been a gradual neglect towards the ethical principles guiding a scientific research paper writing, and its publication. The misconduct in behavior may be intentional or may arise due to ignorance. Whatever be the cause of misconduct, the consequence is the same. And it not only affects other authors, reviewers, and editors, but also the common man. As a research author, it’s absolutely essential to abreast yourself with these ethical principles and avoid any scientific misconduct.

Here is a list of 5 common unethical practices you must avoid while publishing your research paper:

1.Duplicate Submission

Submission of your research paper or its publication in two or more identical journals with or without acknowledgement to another is called duplicate submission/publication.

Such a practice is done by authors to increase their number of publications. But, bear in mind! It’s unethical as it wastes the time of journal reviewers, publication resources, and renders no benefit to humanity or scientific community.

You can query multiple journals for submitting your research paper, but finally submit to one only!

2.Falsification/fabrication of research data

Falsification is the manipulation of the methods used in research or its key findings to produce a desired outcome. Fabrication is the false recording or recording of a fictitious data when none exists.

Such practices are more common in pharmaceutical industry where results are fabricated to promote a particular drug in the market, ignoring its side-effects. Not only unethical and wastage of limited research resources, such fabrications have negative effects on the physician’s clinical practice and creates mistrust amongst the consumers or general population.

3.Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the practice of using other’s work or ideas in your scientific writing without giving them due credit and passing them off as one’s own in publication journals to gain recognition. Even using your own text from other publications in the current writing without due reference is considered plagiarism, more specifically called self-plagiarism.

If you think you are smart and your plagiarised content will escape the eyes of the journal editors, you are highly mistaken. Detection of plagiarism has become easier with the advent of numerous plagiarism checking tools.

Sometimes plagiarism is not intentional, but happens accidentally. However, you can avoid it by providing references of all the sources you have used for writing your scientific content.

Always cite the author appropriately whose work you use in your research paper, even if they are from your past publications.

4.Authorship Conflict

As per the International Committee of Medical Journal Editor (ICMJE) guidelines, any person who contributes to the conception, designing or acquisition of research data, analysis of data, drafting or revision of the article, and its final approval before publication is entitled for the authorship of that paper.

Following unethical practices surmount to an authorship conflict:

Not including the name of the person who contributes to the research in any manner.
Failure to obtain consent from a person whose name is cited in the manuscript.
Adding an extra author or removing the name of an existing author before or after publication.
Citing a person as an author just on the basis of seniority, family or professional relationship when none of them contributed to the research or its writing.

The conflict can be prevented by deciding the authorship in the beginning of the research. That’s the reason why journals ask the authors to submit their checklist for the criteria of authorship.

5.Conflict of interest

Conflict of interest is a situation in which the author of the research study may be influenced by personal and/or financial considerations to affect the quality or the end result of the research.

If any such conflicts of interest arise, be they personal, financial or any other, they must be disclosed with complete honesty to the editorial team.

Though our publication support services experts guidelines and principles exist to prevent any misconduct in research and publication, ideally you shouldn’t require them. Self-restraint and welfare of the fellow members of the community must be the sole driving force for conducting an honest research and publication.

Seaweed Extract helps to treat arthritis

Medical news

Novel Molecule from Algae Extract Shows a Promising Effect in Arthritis

It is known that people who are aged over 65 are suffering from joint pains and stiffness due to inflammation at bone joints called arthritis. This inflammation, resultant of oxidative stress (frequent cause of damage and cell death), can spread to all other joints in the body and degenerates the protective cartilage layer, a connective tissue at joints which protects bones from eruption due to friction. Affected joints, particularly knee, hip, and finger joints can be extremely painful and gets worse if left untreated.

So far, therapeutic approach for arthritis involves anti-inflammatory medication, pain killers, and some other immune suppressor drugs. In an attempt to develop a new therapeutic molecule for arthritis, researchers (at ETH Zurich, Empa, and the Norwegian research institute SINTEF) have extracted a polysaccharide substance (similar to specific extracellular bio molecules of cartilage tissue) from brown algae,Laminaria hyperborean,to supress the autoimmune responses to overcome oxidative stress that degenerate the cartilage tissue at bone joints.

This polysaccharide was chemically modified by adding additional sulphate groups and subjected it for in vitro studies on various cell cultures. Interestingly, researchers found that, the added sulphate groups to the polysaccharide extracted from brown algae have significantly suppressed the inflammatory reactions by combating the oxidative stress.

This compound is referred as alginate sulphate and demonstrated encouraging results at laboratory level. Markus Rottamar, researcher at Empa says that, this alginate sulphate can even stop the oxidative degeneration of cartilage tissue at bone joints (arthritis).

Medical news

Chronic Tinnitus is Coupled with Definite Transform in Brain Networks

Tinnitus is characterized by a chronic abnormal noise (ringing or buzzing) experienced in one or both of the ears which can be unpleasant, frustrating and sometimes it is severe enough to seek treatment. Fatima Husain, professor at University of Illinois says that, tinnitus is invisible and there is no device to measure the severity which varies from patient to patient in terms of type of sound and duration.

Observations from functional MRI reveals various neural patterns saying that chronic tinnitus is associated in the region of brain called precuneus. This precuneus is connected with two inversely related neural networks such as the dorsal attention network (functional when person is at attention) and the default mode network (functional when person is at rest).

Sara Schmidt, graduate student and researcher of this study says that, precuneus of patients with chronic tinnitus is more connected to the dorsal attention network and less connected to the default mode network. Husain says that, this neural connectivity is the objective and invariant for chronic tinnitus, which means the patients with tinnitus are not truly at rest even while resting.

But in patients with recent onset of tinnitus, precuneus connectivity is similar to normal brain networks. Adding to this, Husain said that longitudinal follow-up studies on recent onset tinnitus patients may help us to explain when these neural network changes would take place and provides one invariant measurement as a tool for screening the severity of tinnitus.

Scientific Communication

How Medical Editing Can Get Your Manuscript Published?

Getting your manuscript published in a high-impact journal is a crucial part of gaining recognition for your medical research. So, it’s highly essential to acquaint yourself with the steps to be followed in getting your manuscript published.

Doing a thorough research on your medical topic and medical manuscript writing in strict accordance with the principles of scientific or medical publication are the preliminary steps you must pay heed to. However, it’s generally seen that 30-50% of the medical paper get rejected even before they are passed on for external peer review.

And one of the reasons for rejection is the use of poor language in the manuscript. Some authors do not take the initiative of proofreading their medical manuscript before submission, while others get it proofread by their colleagues.

If you think that writing a detailed medical article of your research and submitting it to the journal is the end of your responsibility, you are highly mistaken. It’s not the publisher’s responsibility to correct any grammatical or language errors in your paper. It is the author’s domain i.e. your primary responsibility to make sure that your research paper is in its best form before it is submitted for publication.

This is also important from the view of your reputation; reputation as a research scientist. Why give an opportunity to the publishers to pinpoint on your language and writing skills? Why not let them focus on the quality of your research?

So, proofreading and editing your medical manuscript is of paramount importance if you want to get it published in a high-impact medical journal.

Now, the question arises, what are the options for your medical manuscript editing?

Manuscript editing options

You can proofread and edit your manuscript yourself or get it done by your colleague. This will, of course, save you money, but before proceeding ensure that you or your colleague possesses the necessary skills for doing the job.

Many are of the opinion that proofreading and editing a medical manuscript is easy and requires just a perfect grasp of the English language, which, however, all do not have. Many of your colleagues do not have the necessary language as well as the scientific expertise to fully grasp a research paper. This may end in a level of editing that doesn’t match the requirements of the publication journal. It will only waste your time and ultimately nothing will come in hand.

Taking help from a professional medical editor can save you from such pitfalls. Before proceeding to hire one, you must understand what is medical editing and the role of a medical editor in getting your manuscript published.

What is medical editing?

Editing of a medical manuscript is way beyond eliminating the grammar, vocabulary, and punctuation errors in the document. It is the procedure of revising your manuscript to make each piece of information contained in it clear and precise. The language you use, the sentence construction, flow, and the clarity of the presented information are checked and revised during medical editing. After all, your manuscript is for the readers; to inform and instruct them about the new advances in the medical field. And it will be useless to publish a manuscript that doesn’t serve this purpose, that doesn’t engage your readers in reading your research paper. So, editing of a medical manuscript is crucial before it is submitted for publication.

Role of a medical editor in getting your manuscript published

As said before, editing of your medical manuscript is compulsory before submitting it for publication. And a professional medical editor is the person who carries out this responsibility in a flawless manner.

He/She is the one who is a language expert with precise knowledge of the scientific language and will make your manuscript ready for submission to the publisher. He/She will remove all the language errors, jargon, and awkward phrases used in the manuscript to make it readable and interesting for your audience.

Furthermore, they will ensure that all the facts, data, and figures enlisted in the manuscript are consistent with the guidelines of a scientific publication. He/She might inquire with you about the issues regarding logic and organisation of information or any missing piece of information in the manuscript.

So, don’t argue with your medical editor even if you hold a different opinion than him. He/She is not your critic, rather a support who helps you to present your manuscript in its best form. You might fear to lose your voice of opinion or style of writing in the hands of a medical editor.

However, that’s not the case. A competent medical editor views your manuscript from the reader’s point of view but also upholds your voice of opinion. In fact, he strives to make it better by rectifying all the loopholes which you might have missed.

Therefore, acknowledge the comments and queries placed by your medical editor for resolving the lapses in your manuscript.

Moreover, even if you are an expert in your field of medicine, writing a medical manuscript doesn’t come easily to you. You need to be a language expert too. And a medical editor is two-in-one. He/She possesses the knowledge of the scientific domain as well as the proficiency of the language used in the medical manuscripts.

So, hiring a professional medical editor is not a loss. It will indeed raise the chances of your manuscript being accepted for publication.

But, you must look for the following qualities in a medical editor before handing over your manuscript for editing:

They should possess a general scientific knowledge of the fields covered in the publication and be skilled in the art of writing, editing, and critical assessment.
They should be familiar with the general principles of statistics.
They should be able to make rational changes in the manuscript and notify you according to the set deadlines.
They must be impartial and honest in his editorial decisions.
They must be able to maintain confidentiality about your submitted manuscript.

Maintaining a positive relationship with your medical editor will go a long way in increasing the success rate of your manuscript publication.

Don’t Stop Here ! Contact our medical editing services experts to get your manuscript published.

Medical Writing

Antiseptic Mouthwash Kills Beneficial Bacteria and Increased the Risk of CVD

At the American Naturopathic Medical Association 36th Annual Convention and Educational Seminar, Nathan Bryan, delivered a lecture on the critical importance of nitric oxide for the health of vital organs and system of physiological functions. Nitric oxide is naturally produced in our body and plays a vital role in various functions such as inflammation, and regulation of blood pressure which is a prime factor in the prevention of cardiovascular diseases.

He added that, lack of nitric oxide can be considered as the early event in the onset and progression of cardiovascular disease. While explaining the various sources of natural production of nitric oxide, he brought out the importance of oral commensal bacteria and continual supply of nitric oxide by them. In order to maintain oral hygiene, there is a usual practice of applying antiseptic mouthwash / antibiotics which can kill these commensal bacteria resulting in eradication of one of the prime sources of nitric oxide production. This in turn keeps patient at increased risk for cardiovascular disease.

A study demonstrated that, though antiseptic mouthwashes eliminate bad breath / odour they will end up in killing good bacteria resulting increased blood pressure. The observed rise in blood pressure is around 26 mm Hg, which is an indication of essential hypertension in healthy individuals.

While concluding the lecture, Nathan Bryan added that one must choose evidence based therapeutic and nutritional strategy to restore nitric oxide production which is helpful to overcome the body’s own inefficiencies.

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