Ghostwriting Firewall

Mindful of the need to ensure the highest degree of scholarly reliability, the Editorial Board of the “Teka Komisji Prawniczej PAN Oddział w Lublinie” periodical implements the recommendations of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education regarding safeguards against guest authorship and ghostwriting.

Guidelines of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education regarding Ghostwriting and Guest Authorship

Reliability and integrity in science are at the heart of its quality. Readers should always be able to approach a piece of scholarly writing as a transparent, reliable and honest picture of Author’s work, regardless of whether he or she is the direct author or have enlisted the assistance of an expert party (natural or legal person). Evidence of researcher’s ethical attitude and the highest editorial standards should be the disclosure of information about any parties contributing to the publication (subject-matter, material, or financial contribution, etc.), which testifies not only to author’s decency but also to social responsibility. Ghostwriting and guest authorship are just opposite attitudes.

Ghostwriting occurs when someone has made a significant contribution to a publication, however without being disclosed as one of the authors or without their role being mentioned in the acknowledgements.

Guest authorship ( or honorary authorship) occurs when the actual author’s contribution is negligible or next to none, and, yet, he or she is named the author/co-author of the publication.

To counteract ghostwriting and guest authorship, editors should have appropriate procedures in place corresponding to their published field or discipline of science or implement the following solutions:

  1. editors should require authors to disclose the contribution of individual authors to the relevant publication (including their affiliation and actual participation, i.e. information on is behind the concept, assumptions, methods, procedure, etc. employed in the publication), with the author submitting the manuscript being held responsible in the first place. Authors are required to submit to the Editorial Board → Author’s Statement.
  2. In the Guidelines for Authors, the Editorial Board explains that ghostwriting and guest authorship are deemed scientific misconduct, and all detected and confirmed cases thereof will be exposed, including by notification to relevant bodies (institutions employing authors, scientific societies, associations of scholarly editors, etc.).
  3. The Editorial Board needs to obtain information on the sources of funding for the publication, the contribution of scientific and research institutions, societies and other entities (financial disclosure).
  4. The Editorial Board documents any cases of scientific misconduct, especially violations and infringements of ethical behaviour in science.