Ingelfinger rule

The Ingelfinger rule is an eponymous rule named after Franz J. Ingelfinger, the The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) editor-in-chief who enunciated it in 1969. Editorials in most journals were published anonymously that time, so the paper was published without an author's name.^[1]. This rule - basically meant for scientific publishing, was originally meant only for NEJM. The rule was, that NEJM would not publish findings that had been published elsewhere, in other media or in other journals. The rule was subsequently adopted by several other scientific journals, and has shaped scientific publishing ever since.^[2] Historically it has also helped to ensure that the journal's content is fresh and does not duplicate content previously reported elsewhere,^[3] and seeks to protect the scientific embargo system.^[4]

An earlier version of the policy had been expressed in 1960 by Samuel Goudsmit, editor of the Physical Review Letters, but did not become as well known.^[5]

The Ingelfinger rule has been seen as having the aim of preventing authors from performing duplicate publications which would unduly inflate their publication record.^[6] On the other hand, it has also been stated that the real reason for the Ingelfinger rule is to protect the journals' revenue stream, and with the increase in popularity of preprint servers ^[7] such as arXiv, bioRxiv, and HAL many journals have loosened their requirements concerning the Ingelfinger rule.^[8] In a defense of the policy, the journal said in an editorial that the practice discouraged scientists from talking to the media before their work was peer reviewed.^[9]

References

^ "Definition of "sole contribution"". N Engl J Med. 281 (12): 676–677. September 1969. doi:10.1056/NEJM196909182811208. PMID 5807917.
^ Marshall, E (1998). "Franz Ingelfinger's Legacy Shaped Biology Publishing". Science. 282 (5390): 861–3, 865–7. doi:10.1126/science.282.5390.861. PMID 9841429.
^ "Ingelfinger rule definition". Medicine.net. 13 June 2000. Archived from the original on 2014-07-11. Retrieved 2011-08-20.
^ Schachtman, NA (20 June 2014). "Selective Leaking — Breaking Ingelfinger's Rule". Schachtman Law Blog. Retrieved 2015-05-23.
^ Lewenstein, BV (1988). "It's Not Really the Relman Rule". ScienceWriters. 36 (2): 17–18.
^ Lariviere, V; Gingras, Y (2009). "On the prevalence and scientific impact of duplicate publications in different scientific fields (1980-2007)". arXiv:0906.4019 [physics.soc-ph].
^ Heidary, Fatemeh; Gharebaghi, Reza (2021-05-31). "COVID-19 impact on research and publication ethics". Medical Hypothesis, Discovery & Innovation in Ophthalmology. 10 (1): 1–4. doi:10.51329/mehdiophthal1414. ISSN 2322-3219. PMC 10460218. PMID 37641621. S2CID 236407601.
^ Borgman, CL (2007). Scholarship in the digital age: information, infrastructure, and the Internet. MIT Press. p. 99. ISBN 978-0-262-02619-2.
^ Angell, M; Kassirer, J (1991). "The Ingelfinger Rule Revisited". The New England Journal of Medicine. 325 (19): 1371–1373. doi:10.1056/NEJM199111073251910. PMID 1669838.