In the summer of 2022, a researcher in Indonesia submitted a case report to Annals of Medicine and Surgery, one of several open-access journals founded and edited by Riaz Agha, a plastic surgeon and publisher in London. The manuscript, Agha responded, needed various changes to be considered for publication.
Among them: It should cite Agha’s paper on how to write surgical case reports, published two years earlier in the highly ranked International Journal of Surgery (IJS), the plastic surgeon’s flagship publication.
“Thanks Sir,” the Indonesian researcher replied. “I’ve added [the reference] to the manuscript.”
Although practices vary, the journals Agha founded aren’t alone in requiring authors to follow, and sometimes even cite, reporting guidelines. But a conflict of interest can arise when an editor demands authors reference guideline papers published in the editor’s own journals – as Agha does in his instructions to authors, reporting guidelines and editorial correspondence.
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