u EDITORIAL

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“Ethics in scientific publication.” This phrase seems to be gaining attention; even the editors of ACS journals have written guidelines on ethics for authors, review- ers, and editors of scientific publications. But why all the concern when we already know that plagiarism and falsification of data are obvious ethical violations, and that exceptionally few scientists are guilty of these?

Perhaps the concern is for the more subtle ethical violations. These might be compared with not speaking up when one receives change for $20 instead of $10, or with driving 65 mph in 55 mph zone. Such mischievous acts occur frequently, as do their counterparts in scien- tific publishing. Some examples will help illustrate the point.

Qpe 1 mischief: The misleading statement. Author A writes, “Enclosed is the revised manuscript. We have taken into account all of the reviewers’ comments in our revisions.” Not so; the authors disagreed with several major reviewer criticisms and these comments were ignored-completely.

Reviewer A says, “I know the review is late. It is being typed and will be mailed in a few days.” The truth is that the review has been partially done for two weeks, and it will be finished in a few days, he thinks. ’&pe 2 mischief: The incomplete statement. Author

B writes, “Enclosed is a manuscript I would like you to consider for publication.” The omission is that the ma- jor thrust of the research project has already been re- ported in a paper submitted or in press elsewhere. The experimental details and data are presented again so that this paper can stand on its own and look good. Author B wonders how many more publications he can get out of this research project.

Author C writes, “Enclosed is a manuscript I would like you to consider for publication,” but fails to say that the paper was published in the proceedings of a major conference. He figures that because the procecd- ings were not peer reviewed it does not count as a publication. He signs the ACS copyright agreement stating exclusivity of submission, but copyright has previously been assigned to the publisher of the pro- ceedings.

Reviewer B writes, “This work has been previously published.” The reviewer does not say when or where the work was published, though.

Reviewer C writes, “The manuscript looks fine.” He fails to say he did not feel qualified to review the paper, but he felt compelled to write something.

0013-936X/85/0919-1139$01.50/0 0 1985 American Chemical Society

Qpe 3 mischief: The irrelevant statement. Re- viewer D writes, “This work is valueless. The author obviously needs a refresher course in introductory chemistry.” Such a highly charged statement can hardly be termed constructive criticism. We did not ask for a review of the author.

Author D writes, “From the statements he has made, the one reviewer is obviously ignorant. The other two reviewers liked the paper and we agree with their as- sessments .” A blanket claim of reviewer ignorance is hardly a technical reply to the reviewer’s comments.

Qpe 4 mischief: The place for statements. Author E writes in his cover letter, “We have answered all of the reviewers’ questions.” The difficulty is that the needed clarifications are stated only in the letter. They have not been incorporated into the manuscript.

Reviewer E telephones and says, “The author has made a significant oversight in his study, but I do not want to write it in my review because he is a good friend of mine.” The review form is the appropriate vehicle for these expressions, not the telephone.

Qpe S’mischief: The poorly timed statement. When called because the review is late, Reviewer F says, “I will not review the article you sent me until you process the paper I submitted to your journal.” The review has been deliberately delayed.

Author F calls to say, “Our in-house reviews on the paper we submitted to you five weeks ago have come in, and we need to completely rewrite the results and discussion. Will you please return all of the copies to us?” The reviewers have been wasting their time on the submitted version of this manuscript.

These vignettes depict fairly frequent occurrences in the peer review process. One might argue these infrac- tions are a little disturbing, but seem only partly unethi- cal. Partly unethical? What is one-half of an ethic? Can ethics be divided and compared?

Certainly not. Professional ethics, when practiced and upheld, determine the scientific integrity of our publications. Upon observing the mischievous prac- tices that occur daily it seems appropriate to reacquaint the scientific community with its ethical responsibli- ties, even as the highway patrolman at the side of the road with his radar reminds us of speed limits. I hope the examples above have served in this regard.

Environ. Sci. Technol., Vol. 19, No. 12, 1985 1139