ABSTRACT
Research projects are often huge undertakings that lead to more than one publication. Editors want innovative, thought-provoking, original articles published in their journals. They know about the pressures to engage in slicing and dicing, and that authors may check the box that an article is "original" even if it comes out of a big research project. Most journals therefore have an explicit policy defining originality and asking authors to confirm at the time of submission that their paper is original. If the authors create an originality matrix comparing the two papers in terms of their component parts, it should be clear both to authors and to the journal editors whether there is sufficient differentiation to justify separation of the papers. Authors should edit accordingly to describe what has been done and what is planned. In addition to determining originality, there is an additional ethical issue involved in slicing and dicing: transparency.
