Medical Editing and Publishing Services

Ethics and publishing (Part 2)

To develop the discussion on the topic of Ethics, this article explores the issues related to the sources of funding, conflicts of interest, fraud, plagiarism, and duplicate submission.

Ethics and publishing

It is important for some scientific journal authorities to know that the authors have observed ethical issues while conducting their biomedical studies on humans and animals. All the submitted articles to a journal should be checked for their observation of ethical standards (consent from the participants and respect participant withdrawal from the study). Therefore, in case the journal needs the proofs of ethics, the authors should provide the necessary documents.

Editing

Articles are usually subjected to editing even if they were previously peer-reviewed. In fact, articles are usually edited for a couple of times to eliminate their probable errors. The editing process of a journal highly depends on financial resources. The journals with limited budget usually employ one editor or ask their general editorial board to do the editing. In such cases, a member of an editorial board may voluntarily provide editing services which lead to a high volume of tasks. On the other hand, they might not be highly skillful in editing resulting in obvious mistakes. In this regard, editing services are mainly provided in three different types.

Importance of citation rate and impact factor

Citation rate and impact factor are considered as two indicators of journal quality. In traditional approaches, the total number of journal members were suggestive of the importance of a journal. However, this approach was not applicable to open journals since they do not present any hard copy.

Digital Object Identifier(DOI)

Digital Object Identifier commonly recognized as DOI is a standard number used for journal articles, research reports and data sets, and official publications to enhance their accessibility. In fact, DOI is a string of numbers that is exclusively assigned to each article. The DOI helps the publishers to enhance the visibility and quality of their journals.

Indexing

One of the biggest challenges for scientific journals is membership in international indexing databases.  Membership of a journal in such databases enhances the visibility, readability, and availability of articles. Indexing databases are usually classified into three groups, as follows

The content quality of a journal

The quality of a journal is an important issue, which is highly affected by the budget allocated for the journal. Generally, it is expected that each volume of the journal has a higher quality than the previously published volume.  Although having sufficient financial resource is of utmost importance, it is not the only condition for the high quality of a journal. In fact, what counts for the quality of a journal is the right management of an allocated budget.

Tips for the post-review process of an article

The review process of an article may take several months to complete. However, when an article is reviewed, the authors are usually required to provide their replies to the comments of the reviewers in less than 2 weeks. In case the authors fail to follow this process, their article would be rejected and it should again be subjected to the review process.

Post-submission tips of an article

Most scientific journals are now equipped with journal management systems. In this regard, as soon as an author submits an article to a journal, s/he receives an automatic thank you e-mail. Some journals have stricter rules and ask for the e-mail address of all the authors involved in the article. Therefore, after submission, the thank you notes will be sent to all the author not the submitting author as a means of validating the authors’ identity.

Tips before the submission of an article

Before any decision to submit an article for a journal, the authors should consider some important issues. As a researcher, you can firstly ask a colleague to read your draft and give you his/her honest feedback. It is essential to choose a person who has not been involved in the article to have his/her unbiased criticism. Moreover, s/he should be warranted that his/her comments do not affect his/her relationship with you.

Stylistic elements of a scientific article

The main purpose of an article is to be published in media in order to inform the audience about some new changes to the word. Depending on the type of an article, the writing style of an article may vary. An academic article is the one which should follow not only an organized the format but also a consistent style. This essay deals with the stylistic issues that a researcher need to take into consideration.

Writing a medical article

An article is the byproduct of a research project written to inform the community of researchers about the project and avoid the performance of simultaneous similar studies. In this regard, the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors presented a framework for research articles to enhance the quality of medical science and consistency among the medical researchers. Although the medical findings of the research can be presented in various formats, including case studies, a research article should generally have the following sections.

Declaration of Helsinki

Regarding the ethical issues in research, this Declaration was first adopted by the World Medical Association in 1964 at Helsinki to guide the biomedical researchers working with human participants. There were some modifications to the Declaration of Helsinki and the final revision was made in 2000 in Scotland. During 2002 and 2004, two clauses were added to two principles in this declaration. This declaration includes 32 articles in 3 sections. The following part explains some of the principals mentioned in the Declaration of Helsinki. 

Ethics in Research

Research ethics were first introduced as a result of Nuremberg trials in 1947 at the end of World Wide II when  23 doctors and bureaucrats were accused in the trials of military courts for their cruel rules against humanity. The reason for this was that a large number of physicians and military authorities conducted their experiments on a large number of individuals, who are unaware of the conducted studies. These experiments led to a high mortality rate. In this regard, the following ten points of the code were proposed to stop this condition:

Sample size determination

Sample size determination is an important step in conducting research since it should provide the necessary information about the population of the study. In case the sample size is smaller than expected, the obtained results of the study cannot be generalized to the target population. On the other hand, the larger the sample size the more precise the findings. However, it is not usually possible to have a large sample size due to research limitations, such as cost, time, or the convenience of collecting the data. There are different approaches to calculate the sample size:

Nonprobability sampling

Nonprobability sampling is a type of sampling, where members of sample are not chosen randomly. Unlike probability sampling, all members of population do not have an equal chance of being selected for the study. As a result, the obtained results of such studies cannot be generalized to the members of target population. In general, Nonprobability Read more about Nonprobability sampling[…]

Probability Sampling

In general, sampling is conducted in two types of probability sampling and non-probability sampling. In probability sampling there is an equal chance for all members of a population to be selected for the study. Therefore, each member has a known chance of being randomly chosen in the sample. The types of probability sampling are presented below.

Sampling

One of the important steps for researchers to conduct their study is the recruitment of research participants. Given this, the researchers need to identify the following elements of research.

Studies without control groups

There is a type of research conducted without any control groups. These studies cannot be considered trials and are mostly employed to investigate a method of diagnosis rather than examining the effect of a treatment or drug. The main disadvantage of these studies is that the researchers may consider their own method as the best available method since there is no comparison.

Sequential controlled clinical trials

Regarding our previous article on controlled clinical trials, this essay extends the discussion to the classification of sequential controlled trials.

Classifications of clinical trials

Clinical trials are divided into two groups of parallel and sequential controlled studies. This article explains the features related to parallel studies.

Interventional studies

Interventional studies, which are considered the gold standard for effectiveness research, can strongly address the causality of between two variables.

Cohort studies

Prospective cohort studies are designed in a way that the two investigated groups are classified based on their exposure status and risk factors. In the next step, the samples are studied over time to evaluate and compare the outcomes in both groups. 

Cross-sectional studies

Cross-sectional studies have several names, including cross-sectional studies, surveys, and Prevalence study, Epidemiological study.

Observational studies

The main aim of these studies is not only to describe and express the status of the present situation, but also to identify and compare the relationships between two or more variables and their impact in different groups.

Descriptive studies

Descriptive research is a type of research method which explains the existing phenomenon without considering the causes of the phenomenon under the study. In this regard, the data is collected through investigating the effect of the phenomenon on the investigated the population. There is a need to consider the following three characteristics in descriptive research:

Data Measurement Scale

There are four types of scales to measure the data. Each qualitative or quantitative variable will be measured with one of the following scales:

The use and importance of variables:

The research intends to achieve goals. To pursue the goals, you need variables that make the process of goal setting possible to identify which results in the achievement of the goals.

Purpose and hypothesis of the study

The basis of a study is its purpose and hypothesis, which are directly drawn from the subject of the research. This means that the purpose of research directs the way through which research should be conducted to reach the goal.

Reviewing the available resources and information(part 2)

Firstly, the introduction of the article starts by expressing the identity (ID) of research, including the names of the authors that has two benefits.

Reviewing the available resources and information (Part1)

It is a part of dissertation with two main parts.

A: The history of keywords

B: Browsing the available papers and theses Read more about Reviewing the available resources and information (Part1)

Research topic selection

The initial step in research process is to find a problem or question in a particular subject area.

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Statement of the problem

This section includes the last stage of topic selection that is embedded in the third chapter of the research thesis.

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How to avoid plagiarism

Plagiarism is defined as using the whole or part of the texts or ideas published or unpublished by other individuals without mentioning the source in the proper manner or obtaining permission in case of necessity.

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What is research

Although research and exploration are familiar words, these words sound different.

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Selection criteria for indexing in EBSCO

EBSCO database, established by Stephen B. Alton in the United States in 1944, is currently serving as one of the largest publishers and collectors of various types of resources and information, including full-text journals, newspapers, and other information sources.

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