Last updated December 30, 2014

Guidelines for the submission of medical ethics manuscripts

In order for the reviewers’ attention to be focused on their assessment of a manuscript’s academic context, including its significance of contribution to the field and existing problems in the study design and/or interpretation of its findings, authors should carefully avoid any features in the study presentation that will distract the reviewers. To emphasize this point, it is important for authors to remember that reviewers perform the peer-review process on a volunteer basis, sacrificing their scarce spare time to uphold the integrity of the scientific process.

The first step in the peer-review process is to assess whether the manuscript itself meets the basic standards for ethics in publication; the features assessed include academic misconduct, academic rules and norms, ethics-related statements, and efforts on the part of non-native speakers of English. To aid in this step, the authors must ensure that they have prepared and provided the following items before submitting their manuscript.

Step 1: COLUMN SELECTION

The most appropriate column should be selected according to the topic of the manuscript. For example, articles relevant to the Medical Ethics column are submitted by editorial board members whose are invited to write articles about medical ethics to increase the readers’ knowledge of topics in international ethics guidelines, animal studies, clinical trials, organ transplantation, etc.

Step 2: ACADEMIC MISCONDUCT

The corresponding author must provide an honest Yes or No answer to each of the questions listed below. For all questions with a ‘Yes’ response, the authors must make a special statement and/or upload the CrossCheck report.

1 Does your manuscript have any instances of plagiarism?

2 Does your manuscript have any instances of fabricated information?

3 Does your manuscript have any instances of falsified information?

4 Does your manuscript have inappropriate authorship?

5 Does your manuscript represent a duplicate submission/multiple submissions?

6 Does your manuscript represent an overlapping publication?

7 Does your manuscript represent a salami publication?

8 Does your manuscript have any instances of digital image manipulation?

9 Have you performed CrossCheck for your manuscript?

Step 3: ACADEMIC RULES AND NORMS

Authors, editors and publishers all have ethical obligations with regard to the publication of research results. In accordance with these academic rules and norms, the corresponding author must provide an honest Yes or No answer to each of the questions listed below, prior to manuscript submission. For all questions with a ‘Yes’ response, the authors must upload a copy of the corresponding approval document(s)/letter(s) of confirmation and/or a copy of signed statement in PDF format.

1 Does your manuscript contain the institutional review board statement in the main text?

2 Does your manuscript contain the informed consent statement in the main text?

3 Does your manuscript contain the clinical trial registration statement in the main text?

4 Does your manuscript contain the institutional animal care and use committee statement in the main text?

5 Does your manuscript contain the animal care and use statement in the main text?

6 Does your manuscript contain the biostatistics statement in the main text?

7 Does your manuscript contain the data sharing statement in the main text?

8 Does your manuscript contain the conflict-of-interest statement in the main text?

Step 4: ETHICS-RELATED STATEMENTS

In general, Baishideng Publishing Group (BPG) recommends that all authors considering submission to any BPG journal first read the “Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals: Writing and Editing for Biomedical Publication” published by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), which is available at: http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/archives/2008_urm.pdf. All journals published by the BPG comply with the ICMJE’s uniform requirements for manuscripts to the full extent.

The various ethics statements related to scientific conduct (i.e. study design, including methods and subjects) for any medical ethics published in BPG journals are detailed below.

The authors are required to make the following statements on the manuscript’s title page or in the Materials and Methods section. A copy of any approval document(s)/letter(s) or waiver of confirmation must also be provided in PDF format. BPG will include all the confirmations along with the manuscript as a permanent part of the online publication. Authors must provide the following 1 file related to academic rules and norms.

1 Conflict-of-interest statement

A conflict-of-interest statement is required for all article and study types. In the interests of transparency and helping reviewers to assess any potential bias in a study’s design, interpretation of its results or presentation of its scientific/medical content, the BPG requires all authors of each paper to declare any conflicting interests (including but not limited to commercial, personal, political, intellectual or religious interests) in the title page that are related to the work submitted for consideration of publication. In addition, reviewers are required to indicate any potential conflicting interests they might have related to any particular paper they are asked to review, and a copy of signed statement should be provided to the BPG in PDF format.

Sample wording: [Name of individual] has received fees for serving as a speaker, a [position; such as consultant and/or an advisory board member] for [name(s) of organization(s)]. [Name of individual] has received research funding from [name(s) of organization(s)]. [Name of individual] is an employee of [name(s) of organization(s)]. [Name of individual] owns stocks and/or shares in [name(s) of organization(s)]. [Name of individual] owns patent [patentidentifier information (including patent number, two-letter country code, and kind code) and a brief description].

Step 5: NON-NATIVE SPEAKERS OF ENGLISH

Authors who are not native speakers of English often receive negative comments about the English language usage in their manuscripts from peer reviewers or journal editors. Inappropriate language presentation can occlude the intellectual content of a manuscript and lead to a decision of rejection for publication. Therefore, we strongly encourage non-native English-speaking authors to implement the following recommendations for improving their English language presentation:

1 Have your manuscript reviewed for grammatical clarity and appropriate vocabulary by a colleague whose native language is English.

2 Use one of the many English language editing services that specialize in scientific and medical manuscripts, such as:

Jing-Yun Ma Editorial Office: http://majingyun.baikemy.com

American Journal Experts: http://www.aje.com

Nature Publishing Group Language Editing:http://languageediting.nature.com

The objective of English language editing is to improve the grammatical structure and vocabulary content of your manuscript and to identify problems that require your revision, in order to ensure that your intended meaning is expressed in a clear and accurate manner.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us via e-mail at: editorialoffice@wjgnet.com or through the online Help Desk at: http://www.wjgnet.com/esps/helpdesk.aspx