Publication Ethics for Authors
This section explains the core principles the authors should adhere to reach the highest standards in publication ethics. The publisher will not support the publication if the authors do not follow publication ethics such as authorship, plagiarism, duplicate content, image integrity, consents, improper revision, competing financial interests, other competing interests, improper disclosures, breaking confidentiality, and pre-publication publicity.
An author, by definition, makes substantial intellectual contributions to a publication. A synthesis of existing definitions by the Committee on Publication Ethics (https://publicationethics.org) suggests that an author is someone who contributes substantially to (1) The concept or design of the reported work; (2) Data collection, analysis, or interpretation; (3) Drafts or substantively revises the content of the work; (4) Reviews and approves the publication of the final manuscript; (5) Agrees to be accountable for all aspects of the work or identify which co-authors are responsible for specific parts of the work.
The authors shall submit and draw up the manuscript following the rules adopted in the journal. When submitting materials to the Journal of Maternal and Child Health, the author (or the team of authors), is aware of initial responsibility for the originality, novelty, and reliability of the research results, which implies adherence to the following principles:
- The authors of the article shall present reliable results of the conducted research. Research results shall not be built upon fake data. They shall not allow the fabrication and falsification of data. The authors shall provide only facts and information in the manuscript. They shall provide sufficient information for verification and repetition of experiments or studies by other researchers. Erroneous or falsified statements are unacceptable. The authors shall not use information obtained privately without open written permission.
- The authors must ensure that the research results presented in the submitted manuscript are completely original. The submitted article has not been previously published in any other journal, except for systematic review/ meta-analysis which is based on secondary data/ published research articles.
- The authors shall avoid duplication of publications. By the Creative Common CC BY 4.0 license adopted by this journal, the author(s) grant the publisher of this journal the right of first publication (in the cover letter, the author shall indicate that the work is published for the first time). The authors shall not submit to the journal a manuscript that has been sent to another journal and is under review, as well as an article that has already been published in another journal. If certain elements of the manuscript were previously published, the author shall refer to an earlier work and indicate the differences between the new work and the previous one.
- Under the Creative Common CC BY 4.0 license adopted by this journal, the author(s) can use other authors’ work provided they give appropriate credit to the author and the original creator. Borrowed fragments or statements are to be made with the obligatory mention of the author and the source. However, excessive borrowing, as well as plagiarism in any form, including unformulated quotations, paraphrasing, or attribution of rights to the results of other people’s research, is unethical and unacceptable. The presence of borrowing without reference will be considered by the editorial board as plagiarism.
- It is imperative to recognize the contribution of all persons who in one way or another influenced the course of the study. In particular, the article shall contain references to works that were important during the research. Ghost-writing, which means the creation of material without the participation of the represented author, or without disclosing having utilized a ghost-writer, is an ethical breach. A ghost-writer is a person hired to write something that is putatively credited to someone else. Ghost-writers work behind the scenes. They are crafting articles in the voice of their hirer. The ethical breach is asking an imposter to create material and then pretending that it was written by the person who hired the ghost-writer. Since it is inclined to deceive the audience or misrepresent the author's expertise, then it can be considered unethical.
- All persons who have made a significant contribution to the research shall be listed as co-authors of the article. Among the co-authors, it is unacceptable to indicate persons who did not participate in the study as so-called gift authors. Gift authorship or guest authorship is when someone who does not qualify as an author is still given credit for being one. Gift authorship is one of the most common kinds of unethical behavior seen in academic publishing. The researcher might be tempted to add a gift or guest author to one of the papers with no contribution to the work, perhaps to return for a favor or some other gain. This situation is unethical.
- The authors shall comply with ethical standards when criticizing or commenting on third-party research.
- The authors shall adhere to the principles of bioethics in animal studies.
- The authors shall respect the work of the editorial board and reviewers and eliminate the pointed shortcomings or explain them in a reasoned manner.
- If the author finds significant errors or inaccuracies in the article at the stage of its review or after its publication, they shall notify the editorial office of the journal without delay. The authors shall provide the editorial board or the publisher with proof of the correctness of the original article or correct significant errors if the editorial board or the publisher became aware of them from third parties.
