Research Integrity
Patient Consent for Case Reports and Clinical Photographs
Ethics approval is not consent, and an eye bar is not anonymity. A practical guide to obtaining, documenting and reporting patient consent for case re...
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Trusted Research · Since 2026
Directive Academy
Guides on peer review, research integrity & scholarly publishing — for authors, reviewers and editors
Scientific Writing
Case Report, Case Series or Cohort Study? Choosing the Right Design
The most common reason clinical papers are rejected is not weak data — it is a claim the design cannot support...
Directive Editorial Team · 4 min
Research Integrity
Clinical Trial Registration: Why Registering Late Gets Your Paper Rejected
Registering a trial after the first patient is enrolled is not a paperwork slip — under ICMJE policy it can ma...
Directive Editorial Team · 5 min
Scientific Writing
Beyond CONSORT and PRISMA: Reporting Guidelines for Surgical and Clinical Authors
CONSORT and PRISMA are the famous two, and neither applies to most surgical papers. A map of the guidelines th...
Directive Editorial Team · 5 min
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Open Science
What Your APC Pays For — and When You Pay Nothing at All
The single most useful question you can ask a publisher about money is not how much — it is when. Here is what an article processing charge funds, whe...
Open Science
Where We Are Indexed — and Where We Are Not
Most publishers list only what flatters them. This is the complete picture — the services our content genuinely reaches, the major indexes we are not...
Research Integrity
How We Verify an Editorial Board Member
Fabricated editorial boards are the most common single defect in questionable publishing — and the easiest to check. Here is the verification method w...
Peer Review
Nothing Has Happened for Six Weeks: Why Manuscripts Go Quiet in Peer Review
A stalled manuscript is usually stuck at reviewer recruitment, not sitting unread. Here is what causes the delay, two emails that move a file, and how...
Peer Review
How to Anonymise Your Manuscript for Double-Blind Review — and the Leaks We Do Not Close for You
Our policies tell you to submit an anonymised manuscript. They do not tell you how. Here are twelve places your name survives and the leaks we will no...
Open Science
How to Ask for a Fee Waiver: The Template, the Timing, and What Our Policy Actually Says
Eligible authors often never ask, in case asking marks the manuscript. Here is the wording, the timing, the three published routes, and the sequencing...
Scientific Writing
Reporting Surgical Complications: Clavien–Dindo Grading and the Harms Authors Leave Out
A complications table is a manuscript deliverable, not a formality. How to grade each event on a named scale, state the window your count covers, and...
Research Integrity
"The First Reported Case": How to Search Properly, and What to Write If You Cannot Prove It
"We report the first case of X" is a claim about the world, and it is easy to disprove. Make a claim about your search instead: how to run it, documen...
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