The 2009 edition of On Being a Scientist: A Guide to Responsible Conduct in Research is now available.

Cases of clear scientific misconduct have made headlines in recent years, among them the fabrication of data by a team of stem-cell researchers at Seoul National University and the fraudulent manipulation of photos submitted to the Journal of Cell Biology. Though obvious violations of professional standards may be uncommon, less-dramatic ethical questions confront many scientists in the course of a career: How should credit for a discovery be allocated among a team of researchers? How should a scientist respond if he discovers errors — his own or others’ — in a published analysis? And how can a researcher recognize when a conflict of interest could bias the results of a study she hopes to undertake? This volume offers researchers — particularly early-career scientists and their mentors — guidance on how to conduct research responsibly, avoid misconduct such as fabrication and plagiarism, and think about how to respond in complex ethical situations.

On Being a Scientist is aimed primarily at graduate students and beginning researchers, but its lessons apply to all scientists at all stages of their scientific careers.