ACS Ethics and Professional Conduct in Chemistry 1 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: The ACS Code of Ethics requires chemists to avoid conflicts of interest. Which action best demonstrates compliance with this principle?
- Disclosing financial relationships with companies when publishing research (Correct answer)
- Withholding company affiliations to maintain objectivity in peer review
- Accepting gifts from suppliers as long as they are under $50 in value
- Delegating conflict-of-interest decisions to a department supervisor
Correct answer: Disclosing financial relationships with companies when publishing research
Disclosing financial relationships ensures transparency and allows readers or reviewers to assess potential bias, which is the foundation of conflict-of-interest management in the ACS Code of Ethics.
Question 2: According to ACS ethical guidelines, what is a chemist's primary obligation when they discover a significant error in their published research?
- Wait to see if other researchers identify the error independently
- Promptly notify the journal editor and issue a correction or retraction (Correct answer)
- Republish the corrected data in a new paper without referencing the original
- Disclose the error only to immediate colleagues and supervisors
Correct answer: Promptly notify the journal editor and issue a correction or retraction
ACS guidelines mandate prompt disclosure of errors to maintain the integrity of the scientific record, requiring notification to the journal editor and issuance of a correction or retraction.
Question 3: Which behavior violates the ACS principle of responsible communication of chemical information?
- Citing all sources used in a manuscript
- Reporting negative or inconclusive experimental results
- Selectively reporting only data that supports a hypothesis (Correct answer)
- Submitting a preprint before peer review is complete
Correct answer: Selectively reporting only data that supports a hypothesis
Selectively reporting data that supports a hypothesis while suppressing contradictory data constitutes data manipulation, which violates ACS standards for honest and complete communication.
Question 4: Under ACS ethical standards, when may a chemist submit the same manuscript to two journals simultaneously?
- When the research is of urgent public health importance
- When both journals have open-access publication models
- When the two journals serve entirely different scientific disciplines
- Simultaneous submission is never acceptable without explicit permission from both editors (Correct answer)
Correct answer: Simultaneous submission is never acceptable without explicit permission from both editors
ACS standards prohibit duplicate or simultaneous submission to multiple journals because it wastes peer-review resources and can lead to dual publication of the same work.
Question 5: The ACS Code of Ethics states that chemists should advance the chemical sciences and contribute to the literature. Which action best fulfills this obligation?
- Publishing only research that will attract high citation counts
- Sharing research findings through peer-reviewed publications and professional presentations (Correct answer)
- Keeping proprietary discoveries confidential to maintain competitive advantage
- Limiting publication to work that generates commercial licensing revenue
Correct answer: Sharing research findings through peer-reviewed publications and professional presentations
Sharing findings through peer-reviewed publications and presentations advances collective scientific knowledge, which is central to the ACS obligation to contribute to the chemical literature.
Question 6: A chemist discovers that a colleague has fabricated experimental data in a joint publication. According to ACS ethical guidelines, what is the most appropriate first step?
- Immediately retract the paper without notifying the colleague
- Confront the colleague privately and document the conversation
- Report the misconduct to the institution's research integrity office (Correct answer)
- Publish a rebuttal paper exposing the fabrication
Correct answer: Report the misconduct to the institution's research integrity office
ACS guidelines recommend reporting suspected research misconduct to the appropriate institutional authority (research integrity office), which is empowered to investigate formally.
Question 7: Which of the following constitutes plagiarism under ACS publication ethics?
- Paraphrasing a concept from another paper while citing the source
- Reproducing a figure from your own prior publication without disclosure (Correct answer)
- Using standard chemical nomenclature without citing IUPAC
- Citing a review article instead of the original primary source
Correct answer: Reproducing a figure from your own prior publication without disclosure
Reproducing your own previously published figure without disclosure is self-plagiarism, which violates ACS publication ethics because it misrepresents prior work as new material.
ACS Ethics and Professional Conduct in Chemistry 1
The ACS Code of Ethics requires chemists to avoid conflicts of interest.
Which action best demonstrates compliance with this principle?