I am observing a trend that authors are acknowledging reputed authors of the area without a region and also thanking reviewers in advance. I think it should be strictly advised by the journals on their home page to avoid such unethical practice.
Please give your suggestions and thoughts on this issue. Have you noticed such things too?
Dear Manoj,
You are addressing a very important issue, which is connected to the ethical practice of researchers (writers) as well as publishers. Therefore, I think it is of great importance to frequently discuss the topic within the research community and you have attractively initiated the debate. In my opinion, the behaviour, which you have described is unacceptable, even though I have not yet noticed (or recognised) such actions. However, I have noticed that some authors (including me) thank the reviewers after the revision, i.e. in the revised manuscript. I find the acknowledgement of this kind highly encouraging since the time and effort of the reviewers is recognised. In my experience, the reviewers’ comments were in all the cases very helpful. I think that such acknowledgement is ethically acceptable, but may not be if it was written before the submission of the paper. The latter is logically less acceptable because acknowledging one’s evaluation of your work in advance may interfere their judgement, even though it should not. Although disputable, I would not thank the reviewer, if I detected that their review was not thorough and their comments generalised and unhelpful.
All things considered, the topic is very arguable and there is no absolute truth. As I mentioned above, I have not yet noticed that unconnected renowned researchers were acknowledged. Nonetheless, I have heard about the cases, where people were added as authors of the paper without any direct contribution. This kind of behaviour I find illogical and I would mark it as ethically unacceptable. However, the decision is in the hands of writers, since publishers cannot know all the acquaintances of the researchers.
These were my thoughts on the topic. Thank you for starting the discussion.
Luka
Dear Manoj,
In general I agree with the answer given by Luka as thanking the reviewers for review that helped in increasing the quality of your work is the least you can do. In the same line thanking colleagues for help in preparing your research or paper seems to me justifiable and the right thing to do. Nevertheless, unjustifiable agnoligment seems to to be a form of intentional misleading of the readers and publishers and therefore unethical.
However to me the guest and gift authorship (listing a researcher as an co-author just in order to increase the impact or visibility of your publication) seems a much more substantial problem in scientific publications. Such practices, although highly unethical (because the reader and publisher is misled) are common practices among certain researcher. Especially young researchers at the beginning of their careers are vulnerable to such practices enforced by elder or superiors, demanding that they include an co-author who did not contribute to the paper and/or research. I find such practices extremely contra-productive and unethical and should not be tolerated within scientific community as well as with publishers.
I agree with both Luka and Mitja. The contribution need to be recognized if person contributed while dictate by seniors in many scientific institutions just to add their name is highly unethical.
Thanks for the views expressed by Luka, Mitja and Manmohan. I am looking forward to some more comments and views... With this question I am just putting forth my concern in front of research community....
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