The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: What Retractions Say About Scientific Transparency.

Estelle Brodman: How to Write a Paper

Dr. Estelle Brodman, former director of Bernard Becker Medical Library, presented this paper to the Department of Dermatology at Columbia University in 1947. Many of the points Dr. Brodman outlines in the presentation are still relevant today. For more information on Dr. Brodman, visit her oral history page.

The Consort Statement: CONSORT 2010

CONSORT 2010 is intended to improve the reporting of a randomized controlled trial (RCT), enabling readers to understand a trial’s design, conduct, analysis and interpretation, and to assess the validity of its results. It includes guidance in the form of a check-list for the Title, Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, and Other Information for a manuscript.

American Chemical Society: Publishing Your Research 101 Series

The Publishing Your Research 101 video series, produced by ACS Publications, is designed to assist authors and reviewers in understanding and improving their experience with the processes of writing, submitting, editing, and reviewing manuscripts.

International Committee of Medical Journal Editors: Preparing a Manuscript for Submission to a Biomedical Journal

ICMJE outlines general principles for preparing manuscripts for submission to a journal.

“Authorship credit should be based on 1) substantial contributions to conception and design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; 2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and 3) final approval of the version to be published. Authors should meet conditions 1, 2, and 3.”

Not sure about the authorship order of a work? Check out Authorder. Authorder® is a free, easy-to-use tool to allocate authorship order on publications.

• Do you have a manuscript or other work that you are preparing for publication?
• Do you know what rights you have as an author?
• Are you aware that you can retain rights to your work?
• Do you want to re-use your work in connection with academic and professional activities?

Two sessions are available:

• Tuesday October 5, 2010, Cori Auditorium, 10-11 am
• Wednesday October 13, 2010, ARC Presentation Room at Olin Library, 4-5 pm

For more information, see the full announcement.

Citations: Too Many, or Not Enough? – The Scientist – Magazine of the Life Sciences

“Simply put, students, colleagues and coauthors must critically read each paper cited in its entirety. Cite only the best, strongest and most original publications. Cite review articles only if they offer unique perspectives, concepts, or synthesis.”

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.

“Ghostwriting occurs when someone makes substantial contributions to a manuscript without attribution or disclosure. It is considered bad publication practice in the medical sciences, and some argue it is scientific misconduct. This debate examines how best to tackle ghostwriting in the medical literature from the perspectives of a researcher, an editor, and the professional medical writer.”

What Should Be Done To Tackle Ghostwriting in the Medical Literature?
Gøtzsche PC, Kassirer JP, Woolley KL, Wager E, Jacobs A, et al.
PLoS Medicine Vol. 6, No. 2, e23 doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000023

Excellent review of the research process that discusses the long road from the initial discovery of a medical intervention to a highly cited article. Among the recommendations made by the authors:

1. Scientists should convey to funders and the public the immense difficulty of the scientific discovery process.

2. Multidisciplinary collaboration with focused targets and involving both basic and clinical sciences should be encouraged.

3. Discovery of new substances and interventions remains essential, but proper credit and incentives should be given to accelerate the testing of these applications in high-quality, unbiased clinical research and the replication of claims for effectiveness.