Professionalism in Publishing

Abstract

In 2004, two of us (R.A.B. and J.D.H.) along with Mr. James Scott, the Editor-in-Chief of the British volume of The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, jointly published an editorial, “Changing Ethical Standards in Scientific Publication,”1-3 in which we outlined various elements of publishing ethics, including plagiarism and redundant publication. Our journals have adopted publishing and reporting standards based on those of several international editors' groups4-6. We wish to again bring these issues to the attention of our readers because we continue to identify violations of well-accepted publishing standards. We highlight three ethical standards included in the new American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) Standards of Professionalism7-9: ownership of intellectual property, authorship, and redundant submission/publication. The first relates to ownership of intellectual property. We quote from the mandatory standards outlined in Section VIII. B: “Orthopaedic surgeons should not claim as their own intellectual property that which is not theirs. Plagiarism or the use of others' work without attribution is unethical.”9 Furthermore: While the AAOS guidelines are intended for AAOS Fellows, these standards apply to all individuals submitting to our journals and across the range of reported scientific material including …