Improving transparency and scientific rigor in academic publishing.
Eric M Prager, Karen E Chambers, Joshua L Plotkin, David L McArthur, Anita E Bandrowski, Nidhi Bansal, Maryann E Martone, Hadley C Bergstrom, Anton Bespalov, Chris Graf
Author Information
Eric M Prager: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey. ORCID
Karen E Chambers: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey. ORCID
Joshua L Plotkin: Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York. ORCID
David L McArthur: Department of Neurosurgery, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, California. ORCID
Anita E Bandrowski: Center for Research in Biological Systems, University of California at San Diego, San Diego, California. ORCID
Nidhi Bansal: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey. ORCID
Maryann E Martone: Center for Research in Biological Systems, University of California at San Diego, San Diego, California. ORCID
Hadley C Bergstrom: Department of Psychological Science, Program in Neuroscience and Behavior, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York. ORCID
Anton Bespalov: Partnership for Assessment and Accreditation of Scientific Practice, Heidelberg, Germany. ORCID
Chris Graf: John Wiley & Sons, Oxford, United Kingdom. ORCID
Progress in basic and clinical research is slowed when researchers fail to provide a complete and accurate report of how a study was designed, executed, and the results analyzed. Publishing rigorous scientific research involves a full description of the methods, materials, procedures, and outcomes. Investigators may fail to provide a complete description of how their study was designed and executed because they may not know how to accurately report the information or the mechanisms are not in place to facilitate transparent reporting. Here, we provide an overview of how authors can write manuscripts in a transparent and thorough manner. We introduce a set of reporting criteria that can be used for publishing, including recommendations on reporting the experimental design and statistical approaches. We also discuss how to accurately visualize the results and provide recommendations for peer reviewers to enhance rigor and transparency. Incorporating transparency practices into research manuscripts will significantly improve the reproducibility of the results by independent laboratories.
