Editorial Cite This: Anal. Chem. XXXX, XXX, XXX−XXX
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Salami Publications and Duplicate Submissions: Put Them on Your List of Things to Avoid s the Editor of Analytical Chemistry, I deal with the varied (and luckily, fairly infrequent) ethical issues that arise, including when individuals submit work to Analytical Chemistry that is too similar to their prior published work. This is referred to as a salami publicationwhen authors try to publish more articles by creating the least (or smallest) publishable manuscript unit. Not surprisingly, reviewers (and editors) have an unfavorable view of this practice and will respond by downgrading the innovation and impact of a submission if it is too similar to an author’s previously published articles. A few authors, in an apparent attempt to prevent negative reviews/ decisions, do not cite their related published articles, perhaps hoping they will be overlooked. If you submit a manuscript to Analytical Chemistry, you are obligated to cite any prior foundational studies that are relevant to the current work and to cite your most similar work. More specifically, articles submitted to Analytical Chemistry must adhere to the ACS Ethical Guidelines for publishing chemical research which, among others, include the following three important points:
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ethical guidelines: please cite your similar prior studies and detail what is new, innovative, and novel. Moving beyond a gray area into the definitely unethical would be submitting similar articles to multiple journals without telling the editors about them (points B and C above). I was recently involved in a case where a reader claimed authors had done just that, trying to triple publish their work by submitting it to three different measurement science journals, with all three submissions being within a few weeks of each other. Obviously, plagiarism detection software and literature searches did not pick up on the similarities as all were unpublished during their review. Of course, this was discovered when the articles appeared online. As is typical in such cases, the articles as written have many similarities but some differences. By not disclosing the articles to the journals during submission, neither the reviewers nor editors were able to make a proper evaluation. As an example scenario, imagine that someone creates a new metabolomics workflow and uses it to examine three different tissue samples and then writes three manuscripts. We may be interested in the work because of its analytical advance and not because they assay lung (or heart or brain) tissue. At the same time, the authors may tweak the workflows for each tissue and then submit three separate manuscripts to three different journals. While the authors can claim these differences prove the articles are unique, if they failed to inform the Editor about the similar articles submitted elsewhere, they are in violation of the ACS ethical guidelines (and it should go without saying, most publishers have similar ethical standards). What do I do in such cases? I follow the guidance offered by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), which if you do not know is an organization that supports and educates editors (and others) involved with scientific publications. They advise on best practices and provide multiple resources, including detailed flowcharts on how to deal with ethical issues such as the issues related to duplicate submissions. In the example above, one option is to contact the other Editors involved to gather more information, such as whether the authors supplied them with preprints of the article submitted to us. Be assured that we treat potential ethical lapses seriously. In order to determine our best course of action we will communicate with authors, readers, and even other journal Editors when required. Follow-up actions can include adding notices of concern to the published article, a retraction, and contacting author institutions about specific concerns. Rather than go into more details about negative issues, let me repeat my appeal; follow our guidelines, publish only original work, and let us know about any similar work under consideration elsewhere. As good news, we receive thousands of submissions each year and serious ethical violations remain infrequent. Let us keep these issues rare. You will make all of our jobs easier.
(A) Fragmentation of research reports should be avoided. A scientist who has done extensive work on a system or group of related systems should organize publication so that each report gives a well-rounded account of a particular aspect of the general study. (B) In submitting a manuscript for publication, an author should inform the editor of related manuscripts that the author has under editorial consideration or in press. Copies of those manuscripts should be supplied to the editor, and the relationships of such manuscripts to the one submitted should be indicated. (C) It is improper for an author to submit manuscripts describing essentially the same research to more than one journal of primary publication, unless it is a resubmission of a manuscript rejected for or withdrawn from publication. It is generally permissible to submit a manuscript for a full paper expanding on a previously published brief preliminary account (a “communication” or “letter”) of the same work. However, at the time of submission, the editor should be made aware of the earlier communication, and the preliminary communication should be cited in the manuscript. I admit that what constitutes an original article, and to what extent follow-up work can be considered novel and publication worthy, can be a “gray” area. However, it is not solely up to authors to make this determination; rather, it is the editors, with reviewer input, who will make the final call. If the editors and reviewers read your prior published articles and conclude that the current work is distinct, everything is fine. It helps to clearly articulate the advances and distinctive aspects in the new manuscript. If authors try to hide their prior work, problems inevitability arise. The bottom line is not to run afoul of these © XXXX American Chemical Society
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DOI: 10.1021/acs.analchem.9b00904 Anal. Chem. XXXX, XXX, XXX−XXX
Analytical Chemistry
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Editorial
Jonathan V. Sweedler AUTHOR INFORMATION
ORCID
Jonathan V. Sweedler: 0000-0003-3107-9922 Notes
Views expressed in this editorial are those of the author and not necessarily the views of the ACS.
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DOI: 10.1021/acs.analchem.9b00904 Anal. Chem. XXXX, XXX, XXX−XXX
