INTRODUCTION: A GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED
Thomas F. Babor and Kerstin Stenius
The task of the improver of mankind is
not to preach morality, but to alter the
inner self of mankind by transforming the external conditions
for its moral
health - Edith Södergran (1984)
To be perplexed is to be puzzled or even confused
by the intricacy of a situation. One way to deal with perplexing
situations is to find a guide who can provide advice, information
and direction. Many such guides have risen to the occasion
throughout the ages, providing useful knowledge for the perplexed
students of literature, religion, philosophy and science.
One of the most influential philosophical treatises, for example,
was Maimonides' Guide for the Perplexed. In a time of religious,
moral and political change, Maimonides (1135-1204) sought
to harmonize Greco-Roman, Christian, Jewish and Arabic thought
into a philosophical guide for those who seek meaning in life.
In a sense, Publishing Addiction Science is intended to be
a similar (albeit less ambitious!) guide for those of us who
from time to time are perplexed about how to find our way
through the complex world of addiction science. The chapters
in this book constitute a journey to the practical, scientific,
moral and even philosophical destinations that we must become
acquainted with if we are to be successful, either as temporary
visitors to
the field, or as career scientists dedicating our lives to
the study of addiction.
It is our contention, and a guiding theme of
the book, that the key to successful publishing in addiction
science is not only to understand how to write a scientific
article and where to publish it, but also how to do these
things honestly and ethically. So in addition to the practical
business of publishing scientific papers in both disciplinary
and addiction specialty journals, the ultimate goal of this
book is to enhance scientific integrity in the publication
process, giving special consideration to the main organ of
scientific communication, the scholarly journal.
WHAT IS A JOURNAL?
According to Lafollette (1992, p. 69), 'a journal
is a periodical that an identifiable
intellectual community regards as a primary channel of communication
of knowledge in
its field and as one of the arbitrators of the authenticity
or legitimacy of that knowledge.'
Journals establish intellectual standards, provide a forum
of communication among
scientists, bring valuable information to the public, set
the agenda for a field of study,
provide an historical record of a particular area of knowledge,
and confer implicit
certification on authors for the authenticity and originality
of their work (Lafollette
1992). In addition, they have the potential to serve the interests
of career advancement
and personal reward for scholarly achievement.
Journals are joint enterprises typically managed
through a division of labour among owners,
publishers, editors, reviewers, and authors. How this cast
of characters is organized into an
integrated set of players varies from one journal to another.
The owners of a journal can be
non-profit organizations (such as learned societies, universities
or professional organizations), government agencies, or private
publishers. The publishers of a journal range from small printers
to large-scale multinational organizations that distribute
and often own hundreds of journals. Journal editors tend to
be appointed by the owners, society officers, or publishers.
Editors of some of the larger scientific and medical journals
are paid for their services and have full-time staff at their
disposal. Editors of smaller journals are generally unpaid,
and usually manage the journal with the assistance of a small
editorial staff and a group of volunteer assistant editors.
Reviewers are usually established investigators who have specialized
knowledge of the subject matter. They provide critical and
typically anonymous evaluations of manuscripts written by
their peers without remuneration as a service to the field.
Without journals, addiction science would have
a limited audience and a short half-life. If
the goal of an addiction scientist is to benefit humankind
and search for truth, then the
journal publication process needs to be understood in terms
of its origins, inner workings
and current complexities.
PURPOSE OF THE GUIDE
The addiction field has grown tremendously in
the past 25 years, and addiction publishing has been no exception.
Currently there are 74 journals in 18 languages that are devoted
primarily to the dissemination of scholarly information about
addiction and related health problems, and many more journals
that publish addiction science as part of their broader mission.
Despite the growing amount of published material and the increasing
opportunities for publication, there exists no guide designed
to inform prospective authors about the opportunities, requirements
and challenges of publishing addiction science. Moreover,
the addiction field has become perhaps one of the first areas
of science where interdisciplinary collaboration between biomedical
and psychosocial researchers is essential to progress (see
Edwards 2002). As investigators begin to identify as much
with addiction studies as they do with their own professional
disciplines, it is important to have a publishing guide that
looks at the field as an inter-related whole, rather than
as a collection of separate disciplines.
The primary purpose of Publishing Addiction
Science is therefore to advise potential
authors of articles in the addiction field of the opportunities
for publishing their work in
scholarly journals, especially addiction specialty journals.
Although all prospective
authors will find such a guide useful, it should be particularly
helpful for students,
younger investigators, clinicians and professional researchers.
A broader purpose is to improve the quality
of scientific publishing in the addiction field
by educating authors about the kinds of ethical and professional
issues that the
International Society of Addiction Journal Editors (ISAJE)
has been concerning itself
with: scientific misconduct; ethical decision-making; the
publication process; editorial
decision-making; and the difficulties experienced by authors
whose first language is not
English.
GUIDE TO THE GUIDE
Publishing Addiction Scienceis organized into
three sections. The first section deals with general issues
of how and where to publish. An initial overview (Chapter
2) deals with how to choose a journal, a very important decision
in the publication process. The chapter describes the range
of journals that publish articles related to addiction and
psychoactive substances, summarizes the growth in addiction
journals, and explains eight steps to choose a journal. Related
to this chapter, the book's Appendix A contains practical
information about 75 addiction specialty journals (e.g., mission
statement, website, editor, publisher, submission procedures,
etc.). It is designed to assist authors with the selection
of an appropriate journal. The next paper in this section
(Chapter 3: Reaching Parnassus: Advice on How to Get Published
for Researchers from Developing or Non-English Speaking Countries)
describes the practical and professional issues that are faced
by addiction scientists in countries which are less resourced
or where English is not the main language; how authors who
come from these countries can improve their chances of publishing
in English language journals; the possibilities for authors
to publish in both English and an additional language so they
can communicate to different audiences; and how to decide
whether an article may better serve the public by being published
in the author's mother tongue.
The second section provides a detailed guide
to the practical side of addiction publishing. The initial
article (Chapter 4: To Cite or Not to Cite: Use and Abuse
of Citations) describes appropriate and less appropriate citation
practices with recommendations for good behaviour, and gives
a critical appraisal of citation indexes, and particularly
of the Impact Factor, which is used to evaluate the importance
attributed to different journals. The next chapter (Chapter
5: Coin of the Realm: Practical Procedures for Determining
Authorship) deals with the often vexing
question of how to assign authorship credits in multi-authored
articles. Practical recommendations are suggested to provide
collaborating authors with a process that is
open, fair and ethical. The final chapter in this section
(Chapter 6: Preparing Manuscripts and Responding to Referees'
Reports: Inside the Editorial Black Box) focuses on how to
negotiate the peer review process. It describes how the process
works and how journal editors make decisions about publishing
an article. It also considers editors' criteria for selecting
papers, and how to revise a paper when an editor asks for
a response to the reviewers' comments.
The third section is devoted to ethical issues.
The first article in this section (Chapter 7: Dante's Inferno:
Seven Deadly Sins in Scientific Publishing and How to Avoid
Them) reviews seven types of scientific misconduct in the
context of a broader definition of scientific integrity. The
seven 'sins' are: carelessness in citing and reviewing the
literature; redundant publication; failure to declare a conflict
of interest; unfair authorship; failure to conform to minimal
standards of protection for animal or human subjects; plagiarism
and finally, scientific fraud. Each of these ethical improprieties
is discussed in terms of its relative importance and possible
consequences, and procedures are suggested for avoiding them.
The following chapter (Chapter 8: The Road to
Paradise: Moral Reasoning in Addiction Publishing) discusses
the same issues in the context of a framework for ethical
decisionmaking. Case studies are used to illustrate the seven
ethical topics, with a commentary on each case provided to
demonstrate a practical approach to making sound decisions.
In the book's concluding chapter (Chapter 9:
Addiction Publishing and the Meaning of [Scientific] Life),
the editors describe the pursuit of scientific integrity as
a journey worth taking, as much for the joy of honest discovery
as for the achievement of fame and fortune.
HOW TO USE THIS GUIDE EFFECTIVELY
Chapters 2 through 6 have been written to stand
alone and can be read independently. Chapter 7 is closely
linked to Chapter 8; the former presenting the most common
ethical problems in addiction publishing and the latter giving
fictitious examples modeled on real cases with instructions
on how to analyze and resolve important ethical dilemmas.
The authors of these chapters have striven to
present practical advice as well as 'best practices'. In most
cases, such as resolving authorship disputes or ethical problems,
the solutions are not always simple or obvious, but rather
are often dependent on the situation and on an open dialogue
among colleagues in the research milieu. For these cases,
we offer advice on how to use effective problem solving techniques
so that skills can be acquired and applied to a variety of
situations. The authors would like to emphasize that no addiction
researcher, however experienced in the game of science, can
argue that she or he has the right answers. This book can
therefore be used as a basis for discussions about concrete
problems in various research environments.
The chapters are also meant for use as background
readings for lectures and workshops at universities and in
research departments. A set of training materials has been
developed by the authors with the support of the World Health
Organization and other sponsors. Information about training
activities and future editions of the book can be found on
ISAJE's website www.isaje.net.
Finally, this guide can be viewed as a reference
book where the individual researcher can compare his or her
position on a problem or issue with the views of some experienced
editors.
Recognizing that there are important institutional
responsibilities in the ethical conduct
of addiction research, we hope that this book will also inspire
research institutions to
develop guidelines and policies that support the ethical practices
considered in these
chapters. Although we have sub-titled the book as a Guide
for the Perplexed, we would
point out that its chapters will be helpful as well to those
who believe they have all the
answers, including professional organizations and scientific
institutions.
REFERENCES
- Edwards, G. ed. (2002) Addiction: evolution
of a specialist field.Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing.
- Lafollette, M.C. (1992) Stealing into Print.
Fraud, Plagiarism and Misconduct in Scientific Publishing.
Berkeley CA: University of California Press.
- Sodergran, E. Complete poems. Translated
by David McDuff, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Bloodaxe Books,
1984.
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