WhiskerWiki:Contributor guidelines

WhiskerWiki seeks to follow the recommendations set forth by Carraway (2009) in Ethics for and responsibilities of authors, reviewers and editors in science.

Fair usage WhiskerWiki legally incorporates in a manuscript statements published in someone elses paper. These statements either are restated or exactly quoted. Restating published statements involves the process of paraphrasing, i.e., understanding information contained in statements in a publication well enough to convert it into your own words. A citation for the source of the rewritten statements must be included. When published statements are quoted, they must be presented in quotation marks and the citation (including the page number on which the statements appeared) of the original publication provided. The published statements must be quoted exactly, errors and all. However, it is acceptable to insert words in brackets for added clarity, to insert ‘[sic]’ following misspellings, and insert an ellipsis (. . .) to shorten the quotation as long as the original meaning of the quotation remains unchanged. Contrary to the opinion of some authors, simply deleting some punctuation and changing a word or two from the original or including published statements verbatim, then treating them as your own, is not acceptable fair usage of information presented in the original publication.

Use of copyrighted materials.—Usually figures or photographs published in journal articles or books are owned by either the author, illustrator or publisher. This means that the owner holds the copyright for the figure or photograph. Thus, if you are not the holder of the copyright, you do not have the right to use the published figure or photograph (i.e., by scanning or photographing) without expressed permission of the copyright holder. There are no acceptable excuses for violating a legal copyright. Consequently, if you are unwilling to take the time, energy and effort required to obtain permission from the copyright holder for reasonable 2009 CARRAWAY: ETHICS AND SCIENCE IN THE 21ST CENTURY 149 usage of the figure or photograph in question, then do not use it. This means that either you produce original illustrations or redraw illustrations included in a publication. However, for the latter, you still are obligated to include an explicit statement ‘‘. . . in the figure legend stating ‘Figure [drawing(s), map, or whatever is appropriate] modified (or redrawn) from (insert citation of publication from which the figure was derived)’ ’’ (Carraway, 2007:422).

References

Carraway, L. N. (2009). Ethics for and responsibilities of authors, reviewers and editors in science. The American Midland Naturalist, 161(1), 146-164.