Graduate students around the world are commonly required to take classes on research ethics that include content related to the ethics of authorship. Scientific journals have established formal policies on the ethics of authorship that are often readily accessible to authors on journal websites.

1 BACKGROUND

Part of a journal editor’s responsibility relates to ethical issues associated with the articles published in the journal. While the majority of authors who submit articles to the Journal of the World Aquaculture Society (JWAS) adhere routinely to high ethical standards of authorship, there always are a few exceptions. In some cases, the behavior in question appears unintentional, caused by either a lack of understanding of the issues involved or students and young scientists who lack understanding of publishing ethics. In other cases, however, the unethical behavior is deliberate. Whether deliberate or unintentional, however, the consequences for research misconduct from unethical behavior are intolerable and can be severe. This editorial is written to provide clarity about what constitutes ethical and unethical practices related to publishing in scientific journals and to encourage authors to adhere to them when submitting to JWAS.

Graduate students around the world are commonly required to take classes on research ethics that include content related to the ethics of authorship. Scientific journals have established formal policies on the ethics of authorship that are often readily accessible to authors on journal websites. In attempting to avoid ethical problems, the manuscript submission process of many journals requires the submitting author to check boxes in response to a series of statements that attest to adherence to key ethical considerations. Authors of articles with decisions to accept must also sign a copyright agreement, a legally binding agreement with the publisher designed to clarify publishing rights and prevent ethical mishaps. Given the stated precautions, it is frankly difficult as an editor to understand why there continues to be so many instances of unethical behavior on the part of authors who submit manuscripts to scientific journals.
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The issue of the pressures today on young scientists to focus on the number of articles published and not necessarily the quality is a longstanding topic (Arlinghaus, 2014; Siegel & Baveye, 2010). There is no question that systems which evaluate research scientists exclusively on the number of articles published fuel the competition to publish as many articles as possible, regardless of how small a contribution an individual article makes to the scientific literature (Engle, 2018). Ultimately, however, each scientist is responsible for his/her own actions in response to such existing pressures, and each scientist must personally reflect on whether his/her actions are right or wrong and whether they violate ethical standards. Unethical behavior by research scientists is a form of misconduct that can lead to serious consequences that may include termination of employment. The following issues describe several types of unethical behaviors related to publishing. The final section provides guidelines designed to consistently adhere to high ethical standards when publishing scientific articles.

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