When you choose to publish with PLOS, your research makes an impact. Make your work accessible to all, without restrictions, and accelerate scientific discovery with options like preprints and published peer review that make your work more Open.

Journals
More Content

About PLOS Blogs

PLOS is a nonprofit, Open Access publisher empowering researchers to accelerate progress in science and medicine by leading a transformation in research communication. Our blogs provide a venue for Open Science news and updates as well as diverse perspectives on science and medicine from across our researcher communities.

Scroll down for Community Guidelines

Two Types of PLOS BLOGS

1. PLOS staff-written and edited blogs

Beginning with the launch of the organization’s main blog, plos.org, now known as The Official PLOS Blog, back in 2006, PLOS quickly realized how informal communication can catch PLOS authors and readers’ attention and help share and explain important scientific ideas. PLOS ONE then launched their journal blog, EveryONE in March 2009. Two months later, the editors of PLOS Medicine started Speaking of Medicine to interact with those interested in global health, now including the PLOS NTDs and PLOS Pathogens communities. In 2012, PLOS Biology created a staff written and edited blog which now also reflects the interests of followers of PLOS Genetics and PLOS Computational Biology, titled PLOS Biologue. In 2013, the PLOS Product and Development staff created PLOS Tech as a blog to engage interested community members in such topics as Article Level Metrics, and other software and hardware subject areas. In 2015, PLOS initiated its Collections blog to highlight the newest curated research collections with articles coming from across the PLOS journals.

2. Independent blogs hosted by PLOS

There are currently six independent blogs hosted by PLOS on its PLOS Blogs Network. Here, you’ll find a mix of science journalists and researchers tackling diverse issues in science and medicine. The shared mission of these contributors is to promote greater understanding of breakthrough science for a variety of reader types, including policy makers, the academic science community, researchers, medical and mental health practitioners, journalists and the general public.

PLOS BLOG Network is managed by PLOS Senior Communications Manager, Dave Knutson. Contact him at community@plos.org with questions, concerns or offers of guest posts.

Views expressed by independent PLOS Network bloggers are solely those of individual authors, and not necessarily those of PLOS. PLOS does not screen, edit, or otherwise meddle with content on the these blogs in any way. PLOS independent bloggers and site users are held to exactly the same standards, and the community guidelines apply to everyone that uses our site.

These community guidelines can be summed up as follows: The PLOS Blogs Network offers explanatory science, expert insights and an exchange of civil debate and discussion by authors and readers on matters of scientific interest. This excludes critiques or attacks of a personal nature i.e. on the author’s character — not the substance of the matter. As a publisher of scientific research PLOS reserves the right to not post comments on its blogs that — in our view — are not sufficiently supported by scientific evidence. Further, we encourage commenters with extensive critiques of individual studies discussed in the blog post to post those criticisms on websites of the original articles where the authors can respond. Our bloggers are mostly volunteers whose time is limited and thus cannot always respond to each comment. In such cases, we will sometimes close the comment function on a particular post or blog site.

Community Guidelines for PLOS BLOGS Network Posts and Comments

  • Don’t plagiarize.
  • Don’t defame others.
  • Don’t name-call, attack, threaten, or use profanity.
  • Don’t use posts to promote products or services.
  • Limit the number of links in your comment to three or fewer.
  • Don’t use third-party content without permission.
  • If you have permission to use third-party content, give proper attribution.
  • Arguments based on belief are to be avoided. For example the assertion, “I don’t believe the results of Study X” must be supported.
  • The content of comments should be confined to the demonstrable content of the specific blog post and should avoid speculation about the motivations or prejudices of its author.
  • In its moderation of comments, PLOS BLOGS reserves the right to reject, at our discretion, any comment that is insufficiently supported by scientific evidence, is not constructive, or is not relevant to the original blog post.
  • PLOS BLOGS reserves the right to remove any content that violates any of these guidelines, to block repeat and/or egregious violators from posting, and to suspend accounts as we deem necessary.
  • PLOS Blogs is the final arbiter of the suitability of content for inclusion on its PLOS BLOGS Network.

In most cases, PLOS Bloggers monitor their own comment threads. Exceptions include guest bloggers, whose posts appear either on staff or independent blogs. In these cases a PLOS staff person will usually monitor comments, or comments will be turned off.  (Please note: The comment function for all archived blogs are turned off, thus you can read but not write new comments.

Licensing, Copyright and Reuse of PLOS BLOGS Network Content

Unless otherwise noted, material posted to any PLOS staff or independent blog on the PLOS Blog Network is available for reuse by readers under a CCBY Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0

Creative Commons CC-BY image

Under a CCBY license, the individual blogger keeps copyright but allows anyone to copy and distribute the work provided the individual blogger is given credit as the author, and PLOS BLOGS is credited as the source. For more information: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Certain independent blogs housed under the heading of “Archived Blogs,” maintain a CCBYNC Creative Commons Distribution license. Any blog posts carrying this license require different reuse terms as follows: the blogger keeps copyright and allows anyone to copy and distribute the work, provided the reuse is for noncommercial purposes only, the blogger is given credit as author, and PLOS BLOGS is credited as source. For more information: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

Please note; for either CCBY or CCBYNC blog posts, an image used within a blog post does not necessarily carry the same license as the text. If an image caption reads “All Rights Reserved” it is not available for reuse without permission.

Please email blogs@plos.org to process any request for commercial reuse of a CCBYNC PLOS BLOGS post. PLOS will forward such inquiries to the individual bloggers.

Fair use: If you include third-party content in your posts or comments, you alone are responsible for complying with applicable laws and for getting permission from the content owner as necessary.  If you rely on fair use to justify use of third-party content, you alone are responsible for making sure your use constitutes actual fair use under the law.

Attribution: Proper attribution includes listing the author or creator of the content, the title or other name of the content, a link to the content, and a statement of the license under which the content was made available (if any). Snake Bite In Asia: A Review, Alirol, et al, http://www.plosntds.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pntd.0000603, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.

*For more information on the Creative Commons Attribution License that PLOS applies to articles it publishes, see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Back to top