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PLoS Editorial and Publishing Policies

The following editorial and publishing policies apply to all of the PLoS journals, unless otherwise noted. For additional policy information, please also refer to the PLoS Terms of Use, and the PLoS Privacy Statement.

Contents:

  1. Relationship between PLoS Journals
  2. Publication Charges
  3. Copyright and License Policies
  4. Author Status
  5. Competing Interests
  6. Human and Animal Research
  7. Sharing of Materials, Methods, and Data
  8. Reporting Guidelines for Specific Study Designs
  9. Policies Regarding Submission of a New Taxon Name
  10. Submission of Related Manuscripts
  11. Reviewer and Editor Exclusions
  12. Confidentiality
  13. Corrections and Additions
  14. Publication Ethics
  15. Blogs, Wikis, Embargoes, and the Media
  16. Studies Sponsored by Specific Funders

1. Relationship between PLoS Journals

All journals published by PLoS are autonomous publications.

PLoS Biology and PLoS Medicine. Each of these two journals has a team of professional and academic editors who evaluate papers for publication. If a manuscript that falls between basic and clinical research is submitted to PLoS Biology or PLoS Medicine, the professional editors of both journals may consult each other on such manuscripts to ensure the fairest possible treatment. As a result, authors who have submitted their manuscript to PLoS Medicine may be encouraged instead to submit their paper to PLoS Biology (and vice versa).

PLoS Community Journals. PLoS Computational Biology, PLoS Genetics, PLoS Pathogens, and PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases are run solely and independently by their own Editors-in-Chief and community-based editorial boards.

PLoS ONE. This journal is run independently from the other journals by a community-based editorial board.

Transfer of papers. Authors can request that papers (with referee reports, if relevant) rejected from one PLoS journal be transferred to another PLoS journal for further consideration there. We trust that reviewers for any PLoS journal are willing to have their reviews considered by the editors of another PLoS journal. Papers will never be transferred between the journals without an author's consent.

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2. Publication Charges

Fees and discounts. To provide open access, PLoS journals use a business model in which expenses — including those of peer review, journal production, and online hosting and archiving — are recovered in part by charging a journal-specific publication fee to the authors or research sponsors for each article they publish. The fees vary by journal. Corresponding authors who are affiliated with one of our Institutional Members are eligible for a discount on this fee. Such authors will be informed of the discount applicable after submission of their manuscript. For further information, see our Publication Fee FAQ.

Fee waivers. PLoS offers a complete or partial fee waiver for authors who do not have access to funds to cover publication fees. Editors and reviewers have no access to payment information, and hence ability to pay or lack thereof will not influence the decision to publish a paper.

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3. Copyright and License Policies

Open access agreement. Upon submission of an article, its authors are asked to indicate their agreement to abide by an open access Creative Commons license (CC-BY). Under the terms of this license, authors retain ownership of the copyright of their articles. However, the license permits any user to download, print out, extract, reuse, archive, and distribute the article, so long as appropriate credit is given to the authors and source of the work. The license ensures that the authors' article will be available as widely as possible and that the article can be included in any scientific archive.

Open access agreement: US government authors. Papers authored by one or more US government employees are not copyrighted, but are licensed under a Creative Commons public domain license (CC0), which allows unlimited distribution and reuse of the article for any lawful purpose. Authors should read about CC-BY or CC0 before submitting papers.

Archiving in PubMed Central. Upon publication, PLoS also deposits all articles in PubMed Central. This complies with the policies of funding agencies, such as the NIH in the USA, the Wellcome Trust, and the Research Councils in the UK, and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft in Germany, which request or require deposition of the published articles that they fund into publicly available databases.

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4. Author Status

Process. All authors will be contacted by email at submission to ensure that they are aware of and approve the submission of the manuscript, its content, and its authorship. Some PLoS journals also require that all co-authors then confirm their assent to publication by email.

Professional medical writers. The involvement of any professional medical writer in the publication process must be declared. We encourage authors to consult the European Medical Writers' Association Guidelines on the role of medical writers.

Authorship criteria. All PLoS journals base their criteria for authorship on those outlined in the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals, which are excerpted below. The contributions of all authors must be described. Contributions that fall short of authorship should be mentioned in the Acknowledgments section of the paper.

Changes in authorship. PLoS journals follow the COPE guidelines covering changes in authorship. If any changes to the list of authors of a manuscript are necessary after the initial submission of a manuscript to a PLoS journal but before its publication, the corresponding author must first contact the journal staff and provide a clear reason for the change(s). If the change to the authorship list is appropriate and in keeping with the guidelines given above, the corresponding author will be asked to provide written confirmation that all other authors listed on the manuscript at that time consent to the change(s). Any individuals who the corresponding author asks to be added or removed from the list of authors will be contacted by PLoS.

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5. Competing Interests

PLoS policy on competing interests. PLoS is committed to ensuring that research is as free from bias as possible and is seen to be so. It is increasingly recognized that everyone — authors, authors' employers (e.g., an academic institution, government department, commercial company, or other), sponsors of the work, reviewers, editors, and publishers — has competing interests of some sort. It is difficult for individual readers to assess objectively whether competing interests could have biased the presentation of, peer review of, or decision to publish a given work. Transparency of competing interests allows readers to better evaluate the possibility of such bias. Journals and their editors must take all competing interests into account during the review process and ensure that any relevant ones are declared in the published article. PLoS journals therefore have the following three requirements:

Explanation of competing interests.

What is a competing interest?
PLoS defines a competing interest as anything that interferes with, or could reasonably be perceived as interfering with, the full and objective presentation, peer review, editorial decision-making, or publication of research or non-research articles submitted to one of the journals. Competing interests can be financial or non-financial, professional, or personal. Competing interests can arise in relationship to an organization or another person. See below for definitions and examples of various competing interests.

Who needs to declare competing interests?
Everyone involved in authorship, funding, review, and editorial decision-making of submitted articles, or who wishes to comment on or rate published articles, must declare any and all relevant competing interests.

How do the PLoS journals treat competing interests in their review and publication process?
No decision is made to publish any paper submitted to a PLoS journal until a competing interests statement has been submitted for all authors. The editors may ask for clarification about declarations. The role of all funding sources in the work must be described and authors must state explicitly whether the funder was involved in the: study design; collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; writing of the paper; and/or decision to submit for publication. If the funder was involved, the role/contribution must be described explicitly.

The editors of a PLoS journal might decide not to publish a paper if they believe the competing interests declared by the authors or funders might have compromised the objectivity or validity of the research, analyses, or interpretations in the paper. PLoS editors will not publish a commissioned or any other non-research article if they are aware of a competing interest that, in their judgment, could introduce bias or a reasonable perception of bias. PLoS editors do not consult reviewers who have competing interests that, in the editors' judgment, could interfere with unbiased review. Failure to declare competing interests at submission, or when an article is commissioned, can result in immediate rejection of the paper. If a competing interest comes to light after publication, the PLoS journal will issue a formal correction to or retraction of the whole paper, as appropriate.

Examples of competing interests.

Financial

Financial competing interests include but are not limited to:

Authors must declare all potential financial competing interests involving people or organizations that might reasonably be perceived as relevant. Similarly, reviewers and academic and professional editors, paid or unpaid, must declare any financial relationships that could reasonably be perceived as relevant and/or could influence their objective review of the paper; if a financial competing interest exists, these individuals should recuse themselves from handling the paper. Anyone wishing to comment on or rate a published paper must also disclose any relevant financial interests. As a guide, any competing interest that arose within the five years either before or after the commencement of the research described, or within five years of the article being written, or within five years of events described in the article, should be declared. However, interests outside this time-frame might also be relevant; if so, they should also be declared so that their relevance can be judged by the journal editorial team.

Non-financial

Non-financial competing interests include but are not limited to:

Authors, reviewers, editors, and anyone wishing to comment on a published paper must disclose any non-financial interests that might influence their reporting, handling, or review of the paper, or that might be negatively or positively affected by publication of the paper.

For example, authors are required to declare whether they have served or currently serve on the editorial board of the journal to which they are submitting, have acted as an expert witness in relevant legal proceedings, or have sat or currently sit on a committee for an organization that may benefit from publication of the paper.

Reviewers are required to declare whether they have held grants, co-authored papers, or worked in the same institution or organization with the authors of the study they are asked to review, or if they are in an adversarial relationship with the authors.

Similarly, editors — academic or professional, paid or unpaid — are required to recuse themselves from deliberations if they cannot evaluate a paper in an objective way because of personal relationships with the authors.

Finally, anyone who comments on or rates published papers for PLoS must declare non-financial competing interests at the time of posting their comments and/or rating.

See this editorial for further clarification: The PLoS Medicine Editors (2008) Making Sense of Non-Financial Competing Interests. PLoS Med 5(9): e199 doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0050199.

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6. Human and Animal Research

Research involving human participants. All research involving human participants must have been approved by the authors' institutional review board or equivalent committee(s), and that board must be named in the manuscript. For research involving human participants, informed consent must have been obtained (or the reason for lack of consent explained — for example, that the data were analyzed anonymously) and all clinical investigation must have been conducted according to the principles expressed in the Declaration of Helsinki. Authors should be able to submit, upon request, a statement from the research ethics committee or institutional review board indicating approval of the research. PLoS editors also encourage authors to submit a sample of a patient consent form, and might require submission on particular occasions.

For studies involving humans categorized by race/ethnicity, age, disease/disabilities, religion, sex/gender, sexual orientation, or other socially constructed groupings, authors should, as much as possible:

In addition, outmoded terms and potentially stigmatizing labels should be changed to more current, acceptable terminology — for example: 'Caucasian' should be changed to 'white' or 'of [western] European descent' (as appropriate); 'cancer victims' should be changed to 'patients with cancer.'

Reporting of animal studies and ethical treatment of animals. For studies involving animals, all work must have been conducted according to applicable national and international guidelines. Prior approval must have been obtained for all protocols from the relevant author's institutional or other appropriate ethics committee, and the institution name and permit numbers must be provided at submission (see example below). For research involving non-human primates, all studies must be performed in accordance with the recommendations of the Weatherall (2006) report, The use of non-human primates in research. Where unregulated animals are used or ethics approval is not required by a specific committee, the article should include a clear statement of this fact and the reasons why ethical approval is not required.

We also strongly encourage all authors to comply with the 'Animal Research: Reporting In Vivo Experiments' (ARRIVE) guidelines, developed by NC3Rs to improve standards of reporting to ensure that the data from animal experiments can be fully scrutinized and utilized. Relevant information should be included in the appropriate section of the article (e.g. title, abstract, or method), as outlined in the ARRIVE guidelines. The ARRIVE guidelines can be applied to any area of bioscience research using laboratory animals. Where research could be confused as pertaining to human clinical research, the animal model should also be noted in the article title.

Example of statement of ethical approval. This study was performed in strict accordance with the recommendations in the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals of the National Institutes of Health. The protocol was approved by the Committee on the Ethics of Animal Experiments of the University of Minnesota (Permit Number: 27-2956). All surgery was performed under sodium pentobarbital anesthesia, and every effort was made to minimize suffering.

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7. Sharing of Materials, Methods, and Data

Publication is conditional upon the agreement of the authors to make freely available any materials and information described in their publication that may be reasonably requested by others for the purpose of academic, non-commercial research.

Availability of data and materials. PLoS is committed to ensuring the availability of data and materials that underpin any articles published in PLoS journals. PLoS's ideal is to make all data relevant to a given article and all readily replaceable materials immediately available without restrictions (while not compromising confidentiality in the context of human-subject research).

We appreciate, however, that this ideal is not yet the norm in all fields. We are therefore collaborating with a number of subject-specific initiatives in order to develop relevant policies. In the meantime, authors must comply with current best practice in their discipline for the sharing of data through databases: for example, deposition of microarray data in ArrayExpress or GEO; deposition of gene sequences in GenBank, EMBL or DDBJ; and deposition of ecological data in Dryad. We encourage all authors to comply with available field-specific standards for the preparation and recording of data; for more information, see below (section 8, Reporting Guidelines for Specific Study Designs). Where no field-specific database exists, authors can deposit data in Dryad.

Failure to comply with this policy will be taken into account when publication decisions are made. PLoS journal editors encourage researchers to contact them if they encounter difficulties in obtaining data or materials from articles published in PLoS journals. PLoS reserves the right to post corrections on articles, to contact authors' institutions and funders, and in extreme cases to withdraw publication, if restrictions on access to data or materials come to light after publication of a PLoS journal article.

Data for which public repositories have been established should be deposited before publication, and the appropriate accession numbers or digital object identifiers (DOIs) published with the paper.

If an appropriate repository does not exist, data should be provided in an open access institutional repository, a general data repository such as Dryad, or as Supporting Information files with the published paper. If none of these options is practical, data should be made freely available upon request.

The conclusions of a study must not depend solely on the analysis of proprietary data. If proprietary data were used to reach a conclusion, and the authors are unwilling or unable to make these data public, then the paper must include an analysis of public data that validates the conclusions so that others can reproduce the analysis and build on the findings. Any restrictions on the availability or use of datasets might be judged to diminish the significance of a paper and may therefore influence the decision about whether a paper should be published. These policies have been developed in accordance with the principles established in Sharing Publication-Related Data and Materials (National Academies Press, 2003).

Software. PLoS supports the development of open source software and believes that, for submissions in which software is the central part of the paper, adherence to appropriate open source standards will ensure that the submission conforms to (1) our requirements that methods be described in sufficient detail that another researcher can reproduce the experiments described, (2) our aim to promote openness in research, and (3) our intention that all work published in PLoS journals can be built upon by future researchers. Therefore, if new software or a new algorithm is central to a PLoS paper, the authors must confirm that the software conforms to the Open Source Definition, have deposited the following three items in an open software archive, and included in the submission as Supporting Information:

Acceptable archives should provide a public repository of the described software. The code should be easy to locate and download without the requirement for creating user accounts, logging in or otherwise registering personal details. The repository must have been in existence for over five years or be hosting more than 1,000 projects. Examples of such archives are: SourceForge, Bioinformatics.Org, Open Bioinformatics Foundation (O|B|F), Google Code, BerliOS Developer, Savannah, GitHub and the Codehaus. Authors should provide a direct link to the deposited software from within the paper.

Deposition with the journal and in an open source archive ensures that the original source associated with the paper is available as well as any enhancements made after the paper is published. An article can be considered for publication if it covers a well-established project that has been providing an open source code repository for an extended amount of time. A condition of acceptance is that the software can be run by reviewers accessing the public software and that the results presented in the paper are reproducible. The software need run on only one hardware-software platform in common use by the readership (including MATLAB), although it must run without dependencies on proprietary or otherwise unobtainable ancillary software. Articles describing software that requires access to databases and other resources whose persistence is not guaranteed (e.g. individual laboratory databases without funding support) will not be considered. In addition, the results described in the paper must be reproducible when peer reviewers, editors, or readers run the software on the deposited dataset and with the provided control parameters.

When the software or algorithm is not central to the paper, we nevertheless encourage authors to make all relevant materials freely available.

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8. Reporting Guidelines for Specific Study Designs

Authors should check the EQUATOR Network site for any reporting guidelines that apply to their study design, and ensure that any required Supporting Information (checklists, protocols, flowcharts, etc.) be included in the article submission.

Clinical trials. PLoS follows the WHO definition of a clinical trial: "...any research study that prospectively assigns human participants or groups of humans to one or more health-related interventions to evaluate the effects on health outcomes...Interventions include but are not restricted to drugs, cells and other biological products, surgical procedures, radiologic procedures, devices, behavioural treatments, process-of-care changes, preventive care, etc."

PLoS supports the position of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) on trial registration. All trials initiated from 1 July 2005 must be registered prospectively in a publicly accessible registry (i.e., before patient recruitment has begun) or they will not be considered for publication. For trials initiated before 1 July 2005, all trials must be registered before submission to any PLoS journal. The ICMJE FAQ on trial registration has further details, and WHO provides a list of approved registries. PLoS editors reserve the right to inform authors' institutions or ethics committees if they become aware of unregistered trials.

Authors of trials must adhere to the CONSORT reporting guidelines appropriate to their trial design, available on the CONSORT Statement Website. Before the paper can enter peer review, authors must: (1) record, in the paper trial registry, the trial registration number and institutional review board, and (2) provide a copy of the trial protocol and a completed CONSORT checklist as supporting information (these documents will also be published alongside the paper, if accepted). The CONSORT flow diagram must be included as the manuscript's "Figure 1." Any deviation from the trial protocol must be explained in the paper. Authors must explicitly discuss informed consent in their paper, and PLoS reserves the right to ask for a copy of the patient consent form. Information on statistical methods or participants, beyond that indicated in the CONSORT statement, should be reported in the Methods section.

PLoS supports the public disclosure of all clinical trial results, as mandated, for example, by the FDA Amendments Act, 2007. Prior disclosure of results on a clinical trial registry site will not affect the decision to peer review or accept papers in PLoS journals.

Systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Reports of systematic reviews and meta-analyses should use the PRISMA statement as a guide, and include a completed PRISMA checklist and flow diagram to accompany the main text. Blank templates of the checklist and flow diagram can be downloaded from the PRISMA Web site. Authors must also state within their Methods section whether a protocol exists for their systematic review, and if so, provide a copy of the protocol as Supporting Information. The journal supports the prospective registration of systematic reviews. Authors whose systematic review was prospectively registered (e.g. in a registry such as PROSPERO) should also provide the registry number in their abstract. Registry details and protocols will be made available to editors and reviewers, and included alongside the paper for readers if the report is ultimately published.

Diagnostic studies. Reports of studies of diagnostic accuracy should conform to the STARD requirements.

Epidemiological studies. For reports of epidemiological studies, authors should consult the STROBE initiative.

Microarray experiments. Reports of microarray experiments should conform to the MIAME guidelines published by the Functional Genomics Data Society (FGED), and the data from the experiments must be deposited in a publicly accessible database.

Checklists for biological and biomedical research investigations. PLoS recommends that authors refer to the MIBBI Portal (Minimum Information for Biological and Biomedical Investigations) for prescriptive checklists for reporting biological and biomedical research where applicable.

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9. Policies Regarding Submission of a New Taxon Name

Zoological names. When publishing papers that describe a new zoological taxon name, PLoS aims to comply with the requirements of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN). However, the ICZN does not yet recognize online-only journals, and so, unless PLoS adapts its publication process for taxonomic papers (which it does, as detailed below), any scientific animal name published by PLoS would not be considered 'available' under the rules of the Code ('available' is the formal term for legally published under the Code, and is equivalent to the term 'nomenclaturally valid' in botanical literature). There is a proposal to amend the Code to accommodate online-only publication, which, as of February 2011, awaits an ICZN vote.

Until acceptance of this amendment, the ICZN has proposed an interim solution for authors publishing in PLoS journals that allows PLoS to comply with the code by providing a limited hardcopy print run of the article and making it publicly obtainable. Therefore, for all papers that include the naming of a new zoological taxon, PLoS will make a printed version available for outside parties (at a cost of $10, to cover postage and printing) at the same time as the publication of the online open access article. This additional printed version of the article will contain text in the footer of the first page. This text will be added by PLoS staff, and, apart from this new footer, the printed version will be identical to the PDF of the online version. Footer text: "This printed document was produced by a method that assures numerous identical and durable copies, and those copies were simultaneously obtainable for the purpose of providing a public and permanent scientific record, in accordance with Article 8.1 of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature. Date of publication: XXXXXXXX. This document is otherwise identical to DOI: XXXXX."

In addition, we ask that authors add the following information about archiving and ZooBank registration to the online version of the article before it is finally accepted.

The following paragraphs provide an example of the type of wording that we recommend for a new taxon description in a PLoS journal. The first paragraph below is required for the online-only version but is overruled by the footer note above, added to the print-only edition. The names of the libraries and institutional repositories should be included, as appropriate.

Botanical names. When publishing papers that describe a new botanical taxon name, PLoS aims to comply with the requirements of the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature (ICBN). Following from a test case (Knapp S [2010] PLoS ONE. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0010502) and in association with the International Plant Names Index (IPNI), the following guidelines for publication in an online-only journal have been agreed such that any scientific botanical name published by PLoS is considered effectively published under the rules of the Code. These guidelines differ from those for zoological nomenclature (see above) and will change in concert with the Code. The online version of the article in itself does not represent a published work according to the ICBN, and hence the new names contained in the online version are not effectively published under that Code from the online edition alone.

To comply with Article 29 of the code, therefore, we ask all authors (one author if the paper has multiple authors) to print out copies (in a single print run) of their paper from the relevant PLoS journal website on the day of publication and ensure that they post these copies on that day to multiple relevant institutions (ten are recommended in ICBN Rec. 30.2 of the Vienna Code), including the names indexing centre for the group in question (i.e. IPNI for flowering plants and ferns, MycoBank and Index Fungorum for fungi). Confirmation that the article has been posted can be added as a comment to the online publication.

PLoS will also make a printed version available for outside parties (at a cost of $10, to cover postage and printing) of the online-only article (which remains freely available).

In addition, we ask that authors add the following information about archiving to the online version of the article before it is finally accepted.

The following paragraphs provide an example of the type of wording that is recommended for a new botanical taxon description in a PLoS journal. The names of the libraries and institutional repositories should be included, as appropriate.

The institutions listed are to be chosen by the author, and GUIDs are likely to replace LSIDs and should be cited where available. Also, neither MycoBank nor Index Fungorum has a local resolution service, so for fungal names please use, and refer to, the TDWG LSID resolver.

Globally unique identifier. In the results section, the GUID (LSID) should be listed under the new species name:

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10. Submission of Related Manuscripts

When submitting an article, all authors are asked to indicate that they do not have a related or duplicate manuscript under consideration (or accepted) for publication elsewhere. If related work has been submitted elsewhere, then a copy must be included with the article submitted to PLoS. Reviewers will be asked to comment on the overlap between related submissions.

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11. Reviewer and Editor Exclusions

Upon submission of a manuscript, authors are asked whether they wish to exclude any specific academic editors or reviewers from the peer review of their article. The editorial team will respect these requests so long as this does not interfere with the objective and thorough assessment of the article. See the relevant guidelines for reviewers and more general information on PLoS policy regarding competing interests.

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12. Confidentiality

Editors and reviewers are required to treat all submitted manuscripts in strict confidence.

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13. Corrections and Additions

PLoS can post minor and formal corrections directly to the online version of the article. Minor corrections indicate small errors and clarifications to the article, whereas formal corrections are reserved for errors that significantly affect the utility or understanding of the article. Formal corrections are also indexed in PubMed Central and PubMed. The decision to indicate a posting as a minor or formal correction is the responsibility of the PLoS staff. See the guidelines on How to Add and View Corrections for more detail. It is also possible to send requests for formal corrections directly to the journal editorial staff.

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14. Publication Ethics

All PLoS Journals are members of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), abide by its Code of Conduct and aim to adhere to its Best Practice Guidelines.

We will vigorously investigate allegations of publication misconduct in PLoS journals (both before and after publication) and reserve the right to contact authors’ institutions, funders or regulatory bodies if needed. If we find conclusive evidence of misconduct we will take steps to correct the scientific record, which may include issuing a correction or retraction. The PLoS journals have a Journal Ethics Committee composed of representatives of all the journals, which sets ethical policies for the PLoS journals and also investigates specific issues.

The following list outlines some key issues in Publication Ethics. It is not an exhaustive list. For further details authors should consult the journals’ specific policies and the references below.

In cases of suspected or alleged misconduct, the COPE flowcharts will be followed. We may also seek advice on specific cases at the COPE forum.

Any concerns about the above should be addressed to the Editor in Chief, Chief Editor, or Executive Editor as appropriate of the respective PLoS journal. Please direct inquiries to these individuals via the respective journal address.

More extensive resources are available here: COPE, WAME.

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15. Blogs, Wikis, Embargoes, and the Media

Authors may present and discuss their findings ahead of publication: at medical or scientific conferences, on preprint servers, in public databases, and in blogs, wikis, tweets, and other informal communication channels. We recommend, however, that authors not contact the media or respond to such contact unless an article has been accepted for publication and an embargo date has been established. Respect for press embargoes will help to ensure that the work is reported accurately in the popular media and that the full peer-reviewed paper is freely available to any interested reader when the news item is published. However, if a journalist has covered a piece of work ahead of publication, this will not affect consideration of the work for publication. See also our embargo guidelines for journalists and scientists.

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16. Studies Sponsored by Specific Funders

Pharmaceutical companies. We support GPP2 Good Publication Practice for Communicating Company-Sponsored Medical Research.

Tobacco industry. PLoS Medicine, PLoS Biology, and PLoS ONE will not consider for publication papers in which any of the research costs or authors' salaries have been funded, in whole or in part, by a tobacco company. For an editorial giving the reasoning behind these journals' policy, see: The PLoS Medicine Editors (2010) doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000237.

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