Ten essential tips to ensure the integrity of your research

How to avoid seeing your work rejected or retracted

Research integrity is crucial for fostering trust in science and requires a collaborative effort from all members of the research community. While many research integrity issues stem from deliberate action (for example paper mills), it is important to acknowledge that these issues can also arise from a lack of awareness about research best practices. Even the most well-intentioned researchers can find themselves falling prey to ethical malpractice. To avoid such pitfalls and protect your academic career, here are our top ten tips to safeguard your work and uphold the highest ethical standards:

1. Maintain and update your research integrity documentation

Research involving human and/or animal experiments must follow applicable ethics standards, including compliance with the Helsinki agreementopens in new tab/window and ARRIVE guidelinesopens in new tab/window respectively, as well as adhering to all applicable laws and regulations. Your work might also require approval from an ethics committee local to where the investigation takes place. It’s important to ensure these approvals, as well as any material data transfer agreements, are in place not just for publication, but in good time for recruitment and commencement of the study.

2. Be transparent about potential conflicts of interest

Another way to protect your reputation is by disclosing any conflicts of interest. If there is a way your judgment or objectivity could be seen to be influenced or if you stand to gain financially from the research, you must disclose this information. Many Elsevier journals use our Declaration Toolopens in new tab/window to help authors make declarations, but the onus is on you to be transparent.

3. Only list authors who contributed to your work

Including people as authors who do not meet basic authorship criteria is a breach of ethical policy whether they have bought a space on the list, or you feel you should “gift” them authorship out of obligation. Someone should only be included as an author if they have substantially contributed to the work, participated in the drafting or revision of the manuscript, seen and approved the final version of the manuscript being submitted, and can (if needed) take public responsibility for the article’s contents. Conversely, failing to credit (“ghosting”) someone who has materially contributed to the article and research in question is something else to avoid.

4. Employ generative AI responsibly

Another way to ensure your work remains ethical in our rapidly evolving technological world is to follow policies on the use of generative AI. Generative AI technologies, such as ChatGPT, for example, cannot be listed as an author as it is unable to fulfill authorship requirements such as taking responsibility for the work. For Elsevier journals, generative AI can only be used by authors in the writing process to improve the readability and language of the work, and it must be used with human oversight, as it can generate text that sounds correct but is potentially rife with inaccuracies. It may, however, be permissible to use AI assisted technology as part of the research process to analyze and draw insights from data. If you use generative AI, the scope of use and details of the tool/model should be clearly noted in your manuscript. You should also take care to adhere to the AI software’s specific usage policies and ensure correct content attribution.

5. Use accurately representative images

Following on from the above, generative AI must not be used to create or alter images. Selectively removing, disguising or adding features from an image is also not acceptable. Images depicting experimental data should be an accurate representation of your findings. Elsevier’s policy on manipulation of images states that adjustments of brightness, contrast, or color balance are only acceptable if they do not obscure or eliminate any information present in the original. Many of our journals routinely make use of image forensics tools to identify irregularities and duplications within figures.

6. Present data correctly

You must be sure to not alter or fabricate any of your data. It is not acceptable practice to misrepresent findings, or inappropriately edit error bars and statistical analyses to skew results towards more favorable outcomes. This unethical practice undermines the integrity of scientific research and can have serious negative consequences both for the scientific community and society at large, eroding trust in science.

7. Avoid all types of plagiarism, including “self-plagiarism”

Paraphrasing text, figures, or concepts without suitable acknowledgement or plagiarizing is an unethical practice, whether using someone else’s work or your own. When authors reuse content from their own work without citation and to a substantial degree (also called “text-recycling”), it can compromise the integrity of research. It is generally seen as being non-transparent and can further constitute a misrepresentation of the novelty of the new work, breach copyright of the original publication, and create unfair advantages. All submissions to Elsevier journals are run through iThenticate; editors can review the resulting report and easily pinpoint sections of your text which have a match to other sources (including your previous work) so stay safe and avoid any temptation.

8. Use the correct citations

You might find yourself in an uncomfortable situation whereby you are inappropriately influenced into adding coercive citations or contributing to citation “stacking” or “stuffing”. It is your responsibility to have read any referenced papers and made a sound academic judgement that they support your research methodologies, help to draw conclusions, and/or highlight advancement of your research over prior studies. If you suspect editor or reviewer collusion, you can flag this to the journal’s publisher.

9. Only submit your manuscript to one journal at a time

Manuscripts presenting the same research should not be submitted to or published in more than one journal or primary publication. Doing so constitutes unethical behavior and may result in an editorial reject decision and/or other appropriate corrective action (e.g., retraction). Similarly, “salami slicing” your research work into smaller “sub-papers” that essentially address the same research question to garner additional publications and citations is also considered an unethical manipulation of the research and publishing process.

10. Be aware of predatory journals

You should be aware that there are what is known as predatory journals, which often try and entice authors into submitting work to them with promises of guaranteed acceptance, or incredibly fast publication. But they often have hidden or unclear author fees and inadequate or absent peer review, meaning publishing with them will be expensive and could seriously harm your professional reputation. If in doubt, beware!

Research integrity underpins trust in the scientific community, contributes to knowledge advancement, and has implications for societal impact. To excel in your publishing career, take the above into account to ensure you uphold ethical standards and safeguard your reputation.