Research integrity
Publication ethics: what authors should check
Publication ethics is not one policy page. It is the set of procedures a journal uses to protect authors, reviewers, editors, participants and the scholarly record before and after publication.
Maintained by the Beallslists.com editorial review team · Evidence reviewed: · Current verification cycle: 2026
12 policies a transparent journal should address
- Authorship and contributorship — who qualifies as an author and how contributions are described.
- Conflicts of interest — what authors, reviewers and editors must disclose.
- Peer review — review model, reviewer selection and editorial decision authority.
- Research involving humans or animals — approval and consent expectations where applicable.
- Data and reproducibility — data availability or sharing expectations where relevant.
- Plagiarism and duplicate publication — how concerns are handled.
- Corrections — how errors are fixed after publication.
- Retractions and expressions of concern — how serious integrity problems are recorded.
- Complaints and appeals — how authors can challenge process or decisions.
- Editorial conflicts — what happens when an editor has a competing interest.
- Copyright and licensing — who owns the work and how it may be reused.
- Archiving and preservation — what happens to articles if the journal stops operating.
Why ethics pages matter during journal selection
A journal can have a polished homepage and still be difficult to deal with when a correction, authorship dispute or complaint occurs. Reading the policies before submission tells you how the journal claims it will handle problems when they arise.
Look beyond copied boilerplate
Generic ethics language is less informative than policies that name the responsible editor, describe procedures and link to the journal's actual correction or retraction practices. Compare the policy with recent published articles and notices.
Continue your journal check
Review editorial-board and peer-review checks, author rights and licensing, and the full evaluation checklist.
Sources and further verification
- Think. Check. Submit. — researcher-focused journal and publisher due diligence
- Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing — journal transparency principles from DOAJ, COPE, OASPA and WAME
Historical records are useful context, but journal ownership, indexing, policies and websites can change. Verify current claims at the original source before making a submission, hiring, promotion or funding decision.