Research Interests

Ethical guidelines for mathematical research and its presentation

The healthy development of mathematics depends heavily on the environment in the mathematical community. Unethical behavior often hurts mathematicians' researches and careers, sometimes very seriously, and consequently hurts the mathematical community and might jeopardise the mathematical research in the relevant directions.

The American Mathematical Society has a set of ethical guidelines for mathematicians. The European Mathematical Society also has a code of practice.

Though there are such guidelines and code of practice, they cannot be enforced. I hope that mathematicians who wants to maintain a healthy research and teaching enviroment do not coorporate with or conform to those mathematicians who violate these basic ethical guidelines or code of practice.

The most recent version of the ethical guidelines of the American Mathematical Society was adopted in 2005. The full guidelines can be found here:

ETHICAL GUIDELINES OF THE AMERICAN MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY.

Here is the section of the ethical guidelines for mathematical research and its presentation:

The public reputation for honesty and integrity of the mathematical community and of the Society is its collective treasure and its publication record is its legacy.

The knowing presentation of another person's mathematical discovery as one's own constitutes plagiarism and is a serious violation of professional ethics. Plagiarism may occur for any type of work, whether written or oral and whether published or not.

The correct attribution of mathematical results is essential, both because it encourages creativity, by benefiting the creator whose career may depend on the recognition of the work and because it informs the community of when, where, and sometimes how original ideas entered into the chain of mathematical thought. To that end, mathematicians have certain responsibilities, which include the following:

To endeavor to be knowledgeable in their field, especially about work related to their research;

To give appropriate credit, even to unpublished materials and announced results (because the knowledge that something is true or false is valuable, however it is obtained);

To publish full details of results that are announced without unreasonable delay, because claiming a result in advance of its having been achieved with reasonable certainty injures the community by restraining those working toward the same goal;

To use no language that suppresses or improperly detracts from the work of others;

To correct in a timely way or to withdraw work that is erroneous.

A claim of independence may not be based on ignorance of widely disseminated results. On appropriate occasions, it may be desirable to offer or accept joint authorship when independent researchers find that they have produced identical results. All the authors listed for a paper, however, must have made a significant contribution to its content, and all who have made such a contribution must be offered the opportunity to be listed as an author. Because the free exchange of ideas necessary to promote research is possible only when every individual's contribution is properly recognized, the Society will not knowingly publish anything that violates this principle, and it will seek to expose egregious violations anywhere in the mathematical community.

The code of practice of the European Mathematical Society came into effect on November 1, 2012. The full Code can be found here:

CODE OF PRACTICE OF THE EUROPEAN MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY.

Here is the section of the code of practice on the responsibilities of authors:

Individual researchers and authors should understand and uphold high standards of ethical behaviour, particularly in relation to the publication and dissemination of their research. An aspect of good practice is the granting of proper credit, and the referencing of the work of others, with appropriate bibliographic references.
It is important to note that it is not unethical to be mistaken in the attribution, or lack of attribution, of results, provided that authors have carefully sought to determine whether their claimed results are new, and provided that errors of attribution are corrected in a timely and appropriate manner, as they are discovered or pointed out.
Publication of mathematical results as one's own when the author has learned of the results from others, for example through published material, lectures, conversation, or earlier informal publication, constitutes plagiarism: this is a form of theft, is unethical, and constitutes serious misconduct.

Each co-author should have contributed significantly to the research reported in any published work, and each person who contributed significantly to the relevant research should be named as a co-author. Further, all named authors should accept joint responsibility for any submitted manuscript and final publication. It is misconduct for one author to submit and to publish joint research without the consent of his or her named co-authors.

Most mathematics is published by the submission of manuscripts to journals or conference proceedings (including those that will appear only online), or by the writing of books. Our guiding principle is that an author or authors who submit a work to editors or publishers take responsibility for the integrity of what they have written, seeking carefully to ensure that the mathematics presented is correct and that the work of others is appropriately acknowledged.

In mathematics simultaneous or concurrent submission of a manuscript describing the same research to more than one publication constitutes misconduct. Similarly, in mathematics the publication of the same research in more than one journal or outlet without appropriate acknowledgement and citation constitutes misconduct.

Translations of published or unpublished works should always fully acknowledge the source of the work.

Mathematicians should not make public claims of potential new theorems or the resolution of particular mathematical problems unless they are able to provide full details in a timely manner.