Most authors are aware that plagiarism is an unethical publication practice. However, it is still a serious problem and arguably the most common ethical issue afflicting medical writing.

The World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) defines plagiarism as:

Plagiarism is the use of others’ published and unpublished ideas or words (or other intellectual property) without attribution or permission, and presenting them as new and original rather than derived from an existing source. The intent and effect of plagiarism is to mislead the reader as to the contributions of the plagiarizer. more…

In 2011, BMJ Journals implemented a new production tracking system called ‘Publishing At Work’. The system enables a range of users (authors, production staff, editors and suppliers) to track the progress of articles from acceptance through to Online First and issue publication.

To track the progress of your accepted article, please follow the steps below:

1. Go to http://bmj.publishingatwork.com/ (either directly or by following a link from the footer of each journal’s website)
2. Click ‘log in’ (top left corner of the screen) more…

Tim Berners-Lee created the Web as a scholarly communication tool but some argue that the Web has revolutionised everything but scholarly communication. One of the major adherents of this view is Jason Priem, co-founder of the altmetrics project, whose website states:

In the 17th century, scholar-publishers created the first scientific journals, revolutionising the communication and practice of scholarship. Today, we’re at the beginning of a second revolution, as academia slowly awakens to the transformative potential of the Web.

In growing numbers, scholars are moving their daily work to the Internet. Online reference managers, such as Zotero and Mendeley, have grown in popularity, the latter claiming to store over 120 million articles (substantially more than PubMed). As many as a third of scholars are on Twitter and a growing number cultivate scholarly blogs. more…

A key feature of the new manuscript submission system being used by the BMJ Journals is its connected functionality with other Thomson Reuters products, namely Web of Science and EndNote. Through Optima, authors can create their manuscript in EndNote and seamlessly submit it for review using ScholarOne. Its integration with Web of Science also means that reviewers and editors have one-click access from the manuscripts to the times cited, related records, and links to the full record files, allowing for a well-organised and proficient reviewing process.

Authors can upload their manuscripts from EndNote directly onto the submission system

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