Ingelfinger rule

In scientific publishing, the 1969 Ingelfinger rule originally stipulated that The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) would not publish findings that had been published elsewhere, in other media or in other journals. The rule was subsequently adopted by several other scientific journals, and has shaped scientific publishing ever since. Historically it has also helped to ensure that the journal's content is fresh and does not duplicate content previously reported elsewhere, and seeks to protect the scientific embargo system.

The Ingelfinger rule has been seen as having the aim of preventing authors from performing duplicate publications which would unduly inflate their publication record. On the other hand, it has also been stated that the real reason for the Ingelfinger rule is to protect the journals' revenue stream, and with the increase in popularity of preprint servers such as arXiv, bioRxiv, and HAL many journals have loosened their requirements concerning the Ingelfinger rule. In a defense of the policy, the journal said in an editorial that the practice discouraged scientists from talking to the media before their work was peer reviewed.

The rule is named for Franz J. Ingelfinger, the NEJM editor-in-chief who enunciated it in 1969. An earlier version of the policy had been expressed in 1960 by Samuel Goudsmit, editor of the Physical Review Letters, but did not become as well known.

See also

• List of academic journals by preprint policy
• News embargo
• Network effect

Further reading

• Relman, AS (1981). "The Ingelfinger Rule". The New England Journal of Medicine 305 (14): 824–6. doi:10.1056/NEJM198110013051408. PMID 7266634. 
• Spain, A (26 February 2011). "Casting a critical eye on the embargo system: one year of Embargo Watch". Association of British Science Writers. http://www.absw.org.uk/news-and-events/features/casting-a-critical-eye-on-the-embargo-system-one-year-of-embargo-watch. 
• Altman, LK (1996). "The Ingelfinger rule, embargoes, and journal peer review–Part 1". The Lancet 347 (9012): 1382–6. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(96)91016-8. PMID 8637347. 
• Toy, J (2002). "The Ingelfinger Rule: Franz Ingelfinger at the New England Journal of Medicine 1967–77". Science Editor 25 (6): 195–198. http://cseditors.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/v25n6p195-198.pdf. 
• Harnad, S (2000). "Ingelfinger Over-Ruled: The Role of the Web in the Future of Refereed Medical Journal Publishing". The Lancet Perspectives 356: s16. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(00)92002-6. PMID 11191471. 
• White, E (2014). "Why the Ecology Letters editorial board should reconsider its No vote on preprints". Jabberwocky Ecology. http://jabberwocky.weecology.org/2014/06/30/why-the-ecology-letters-editorial-board-should-reconsider-its-no-vote-on-preprints-2. 
• Desjardins-Proulx, P; White, EP; Adamson, JJ; Ram, K; Poisot, T; Gravel, D (2013). "The Case for Open Preprints in Biology". PLOS Biology 11 (5): e1001563. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001563. PMID 23690752.