Over the past few years, scholarly publishers, including the American Physiological Society (APS), have experienced a dramatic increase in the number of publication ethics issues.  In response, APS has taken several steps to revise the publication process so that articles are reviewed for potential ethical concerns prior to publication. In particular, figures within accepted manuscripts are now screened for image manipulation. Manuscripts with images that appear to contain splicing, extreme contrast adjustment, selective editing, etc. are now placed on hold until the author corrects the figures and/or discloses the modifications.  While, the vast majority of the image modifications that are identified are considered to be minor presentation errors, a handful of manuscripts per year contain scientifically inappropriate image manipulation and are not published.  Thus, the image review process serves to educate authors on best practice for image preparation and to protect the journal, its authors, and readers, from publishing manuscripts that contain inappropriately prepared data.

Image manipulation in scholarly publishing: Setting standards and promoting best practice

247th National Meeting (2014)

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