Who's Responsible?

Authors of articles in Annals are responsible for the honesty of their work and for what is reported in their article.Editors select articles for publication and try to help authors report their work clearly, assisted by reviewers and editorial staff. Editors' performance is apparent to readers in every issue and Annals' Editors are responsible to the Board of Regents of the American College of Physicians for the overall conduct of the journal but not editorial decisions. We select articles for Annals because we believe they present important information or points of view; there are no official Annals positions.

Annals' readers, when encountering an especially controversial or exasperating article, might well ask the question: Who's responsible? They may assume that everything published in Annals is official policy of the journal, its editors, or the publisher, the American College of Physicians. If so, they would be wrong.

Because misunderstandings about who is responsible can cause mischief, we provide this brief explanation of responsibility for what is published in Annals. Many of our policies are in common with other peer-reviewed medical journals and some are specific to Annals.

Authors are responsible for the honesty of their work [1]. Editors and their staff cannot verify the accuracy of the data, which would require directly reviewing laboratory procedures and databases, usually at the authors' institution. Authors are also responsible for what is reported in the article. It is their statement, not ours. Everyone else involved in the editorial processeditors, reviewers, statisticians, manuscript editors, and proof readersis only trying to help the authors report it clearly. Authors should not acquiesce to editorial suggestions they …