Ethical Authorship and the Ingelfinger Rule in the Digital Age

Ophthalmology's Guide for Authors includes a policy regarding prior and repetitive publication that states: “The Journal will not consider manuscripts that have appeared, in part or in total, in other publications, except in special circumstances approved by the Editor-in-Chief.” This is the Ingelfinger rule, which was written 44 years ago by Dr. Franz J. Ingelfinger and has been adopted widely by most peer-reviewed medical journals. The burden of ethical responsibility for upholding the Ingelfinger rule lies squarely on the shoulders of the authors, although editors and reviewers police this to (Read more...)

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