7: Scientific Publishing

We have learned that communicating scientific findings is a crucial step of scientific methodology. Scientific claims gain their universal validity only through passing critical review by fellow experts. In addition to doing science, writing science is one of the main activities of researchers and scientists. Thus, it is not surprising that many cases of scientific misconduct are committed in the context of publishing. Authorship decisions, citation practices and plagiarism, but also peer review and the benefits and dangers of impact factors are frequently discussed among chemists. This chapter focuses on the intra-community aspects of scientific publishing, whereas Chapter 15 addresses issues of public communication of chemistry. The issues in that field are very different. We will see how the scientific virtues introduced in Chapter 5 can inform decision-making and discourse on publishing issues. Fairness, disciplined self-control, and communalism play the most important role in this context. Yet, self-interests can cause biases that impact the choice of authors for a paper, the choice of references given in an essay, the review process of competitive papers, or publishing practices that increase a researcher's visibility in the form of impact factors. A special topic, here, is the publication of research that has obvious dual-use potential and is, thus, controversially discussed.