Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions at IIT

The guidelines embodied in this document were adopted by the Publications Committee of the American Geophysical Union in April 1988 and endorsed by the Board of journal Editors.

Preface

The American Geophysical Union serves the geophysical community and society at large in several ways, among them by publishing journals that present the results of scientific research. The editor of an AGU journal has the responsibility to maintain the AGU guidelines for reviewing and accepting papers submitted to that journal. In the main, these guidelines derive from AGU's definition of the scope of the journal and from the community's perception of standards of quality for scientific work and its presentation. The guidelines that follow reflect a conviction that the observance of high ethical standards is so vital to the whole scientific enterprise that a definition of those standards should be brought to the attention of all concerned.

Guidelines

A. Obligations of Editors of Scientific journals

1. An editor should give unbiased consideration to all manuscripts offered for publication, judging each on its merits without regard to race, gender, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the author(s).

2. An editor should process manuscripts promptly.

3. The editor has complete responsibility and authority to accept a submitted paper for publication or to reject it. The editor may confer with associate editors or reviewers for an evaluation to use in making this decision.

4. The editor and the editorial staff should not disclose any information about a manuscript under consideration to anyone other than those from whom professional advice is sought.

5. An editor should respect the intellectual independence of authors.

6. Editorial responsibility and authority for any manuscript authored by an editor and submitted to the editor's journal should be delegated to some other qualified person, such as another editor or an associate editor 01 that journal Editors should avoid situations of real or perceived conflicts of interest. If an editor chooses to participate in an ongoing scientific debate within his journal, the editor should arrange for some other qualified person to take editorial responsibility.

7. Unpublished information, arguments, or interpretations disclosed in a submitted manuscript should not be used in an editor's own research except with the consent of the author.

8. If an editor is presented with convincing evidence that the main substance or conclusions of a paper published in an editor's journal are erroneous, the editor should facilitate publication of an appropriate paper pointing out the error and, if possible, correcting it.

B. Obligations of Authors

1. An author's central obligation is to present a concise, accurate account of the research performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance.

2. A paper should contain sufficient detail and reference to public sources of information to permit the author's peers to repeat the work.

3. An author should cite those publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work and that will guide the reader quickly to the earlier work that is essential for understanding the present investigation. Information obtained privately, as in conversation, correspondence, or discussion with third parties, should not be used or reported in the author's work without explicit permission from the investigator with whom the information originated. Information obtained in the course of confidential services, such as refereeing manuscripts or grant applications, should be treated similarly.

4. Fragmentation of research papers should be avoided. A scientist who has done extensive work on a system or group of related, systems should organize publication so that each paper gives a complete account of a particular aspect of the general study.

5. It is inappropriate for an author to submit manuscripts describing essentially the same research to more than one journal of primary publication.

6. A criticism of a published paper may sometimes be justified; however, in no case is personal criticism considered to be appropriate.

7. To protect the integrity of authorship, only persons who have significantly contributed to the research and paper preparation should be listed as authors. The corresponding author attests to the fact that any others named as authors have seen the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication. Deceased persons who meet the criterion for co-authorship should be included, with a footnote reporting date of death. No fictitious name should be listed as an author or co-author. The author who submits a manuscript for publication accepts the responsibility of having included as co-authors all persons appropriate and none inappropriate.

C. Obligations of Reviewers of Manuscripts

1. In as much as the reviewing of manuscripts is an essential step in the publication process, every scientist has an obligation to do a fair share of reviewing.

2. A chosen reviewer who feels inadequately qualified or lacks the time to judge the research reported in a manuscript should return it promptly to the editor.

3. A reviewer of a manuscript should Judge objectively the quality of the manuscript and respect the intellectual independence of the authors. In no case is personal criticism appropriate.

4. A reviewer should be sensitive even to the appearance of a conflict of interest when the manuscript under review is closely related to the reviewer's work in progress or published. If in doubt, the reviewer should return the manuscript promptly without review, advising the editor of the conflict of interest or bias.

5. A reviewer should not evaluate a manuscript authored or co-authored by a person with whom the reviewer has a personal or professional connection if the relationship would bias judgment of the manuscript.

6. A reviewer should treat a manuscript sent for review as a confidential document. It should neither be shown to nor discussed with others except, in special cases, to persons from whom specific advice may be sought; in that event, the identities of those consulted should be disclosed to the editor.

7. Reviewers should explain and support their judgments adequately so that editors and authors may understand the basis of their comments. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation.

8. A reviewer should be alert to failure of authors to cite relevant work by other scientists. A reviewer should call to the editor's attention any substantial similarity between the manuscript under consideration and any published paper or any manuscript submitted concurrently to another journal.

9. Reviewers should not use or disclose unpublished information, arguments, or interpretations contained in a manuscript under consideration, except with the consent of the author.

D. Obligations of Scientists Publishing Outside the Scientific Literature

1. A scientist publishing in the popular literature has the same basic obligation to be accurate in reporting observations and unbiased in interpreting them as when publishing in a scientific journal.

2. The scientist should strive to keep public writing, remarks, and interviews as accurate as possible consistent with effective communication.

3. A scientist should not proclaim a discovery to the public unless the support for it is of strength sufficient to warrant publication in the scientific literature. An account of the work and results that support a public pronouncement should be submitted as quickly as possible for publication in a scientific journal.

*These guidelines are based to a great extent on "Ethical Guidelines to Publication of Chemical Research" of the American Chemical Society. AGU acknowledges its appreciation to ACS for granting permission for quoting extensively from that work.