When publishing the results of a technical project, strange things can happen conceptually or actually. For example, peers and colleagues will suddenly become useful. Consequently, those involved in the project must make adult decisions about what needs to be done to finish the project and how to handle their authorship. A highly recommended source for this help is the magazine’s own publishers.

The situation.

Imagine yourself as a young researcher in a technical organization. He is finally ready to publish the results of a small project that he has had to do alone from the beginning. Although his project was small, he had been looking for partners from the beginning. But, few were interested. None would help with conceptual or actual work. The ones who showed a slight interest would chronically hesitate with you instead of trying to contribute to it. All openly shied away from a lengthy written proposal that might fail or be rejected. Also, no one had time for extra work. Only one or two managers gave you brief advice while you did the whole project yourself.

Now that you’re drafting a proposed manuscript of your results, several colleagues suddenly want to be helpful. Two predatory guys tell management behind your back that you were following their suggestions all along; therefore, their names should be on your next report. Another tells them that you owe them past favors, or that they have special qualifications to post it with you.

Under these conditions, ending your proposed publication could be fortuitous. As an author, he may stock up on toilet paper or change jobs, especially if his current environment forces him to self-corrupt and make unethical deals to alleviate the needs of his peers. Still, with some extra effort, he can finish the proposed post honorably. You owe it to yourself, to science, and to the cause of writing to give it a try, even if your technical skills are much stronger than your writing skills.

Help is available.

Free or hired help is available. Experienced researchers, technical writers, reviewers, advisors, mentors, editors, and sympathetic managers who have been there before will be happy to help you with your draft. Without charge. They will tactfully instruct you on how to structure or revise your manuscript without ransom. You will not need to plagiarize yourself for any reason, no matter how plausible such an act may seem on the part of those who authoritatively offer their help at the last minute.

Furthermore, all you need to do is clearly present your technical findings. Scientists don’t have to be professional writers to publish their findings. Most are not. However, they will sometimes seek help for this task. They can also brush up on their writing skills by taking a technical writing course, which will oppose plagiarism of any kind. Additionally, scientists can hire a professional writer to help them with their manuscripts.

Furthermore, scientists need courage and self-confidence to do this kind of work in the first place; otherwise they probably shouldn’t. Giving up such skills by entering into unethical deals at the time of publication could mean giving up any future work. After all, you wrote the project proposal, which your superiors understood. Otherwise, they would not have approved it. He also searched the literature for related works and noted the citations in his manuscript. In addition, he designed the project’s experiments and tested them, collected the data, and interpreted the results. Now all you need to do is post the final results with your recommendations.

Give credit.

You will, of course, acknowledge your employer, funding sources, and those who supported you during the project. But letting someone else take credit for what he didn’t start doing is self-defeating and misleading. In fact, a common concept is: letting someone else copy your work is just as bad as copying someone else’s. Unethical treatment at this point will corrupt you, your project, and your employer. Also, if you cheat here, you might lose your ability to do this technical job effectively because you’ve corrupted yourself. Therefore, you must finish your project honestly and responsibly. Your superiors have the same obligation.

Trust the magazine editors.

Convince your colleagues and superiors that journal editors are the best judges of proposed technical publications. This endeavor can be difficult if your colleagues and superiors want to be editors. Still, your trust in real publishers is a good thing to do. Magazine editors review hundreds of submissions regularly. They can quickly see what a draft can become and which magazines are best suited for it. Also, most journal publishers only want actual contributors to be listed as co-authors on their published articles. Additionally, all authors listed must be able to answer any questions about the article and be willing to give public talks on the article.

In conclusion, to successfully publish the results of your technical project, do your technical work accurately and completely, and collaborate only with those who actually contributed. You and your managers may have to make tough decisions about honest and responsible authorship. Trust yourself and your close advisors to do it.

Plus, trust yourself to manage your own data, reports, and manuscripts. For additional professional support, rely on their top managers, experienced researchers, writers, and especially journal editors to help review and publish your technical results for you and your organization. For more information on ethical writing, check out these sites.