Over the past few years, a lot of publications by Russian authors have been devoted to assessment of the quality of scientific publications – as a rule, with the focus on bibliometric indices that are calculated on the basis of the number of scientist’s publications and the number of their citations. Such emphasis is, on the one hand, based on the relative novelty of the widespread use of bibliometric indices in the Russian academic community; on the other hand, on the fact that these indices have acquired the status of one of the main and sometimes the only criterion for assessing the contribution to science and the quality of work of individual scientists, research teams and entire academic institutions. Due to this fact, little attention was paid to other aspects of the preparation of manuscripts for publication, such as correctness of citation, peer review process, interaction with editors. Such underestimation of their significance is fraught with decline in the quality of scientific publications. Understanding of scientific ethics is of particular importance for young researchers. These factors led to organization of a large event: in February 2016, the round table “Ethics of Scientific Publications” was held at the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Representatives and chief editors of the leading sociological and political science journals took part in the event. Agenda of the round table included relevant problems of academic publishing, such as ethical issues of interaction between authors, editors and reviewers, rules of citation, rules of assessment of the originality of scholarly texts, reprints of articles, and feasibility of signing an author’s contract in a printed form. After discussing the question of the criteria of originality of the scientific text, the audience came to the conclusion that the degree of originality is determined by whether the article contributes to the scholarly knowledge: it should either outline some new propositions and conclusions or offer a different approach to representation of the material. The experts agreed that bibliography of academic paper should include only the sources used in the process of its preparation. The editors unanimously stated that improper citation cannot be allowed in any form, while it is the author of the manuscript (and not the editorial team) who guarantees the credibility of used data and accuracy of citation. Considerable attention was paid to the issue of ethical standards related to the publication of the article in the Internet. The participants drew attention to the fact that publication of the article metadata is possible without any restrictions, while the publication of its full text requires a mandatory consent of the editors. The editors exchanged a number of their know- how: for instance, it was suggested that authors should submit their manuscripts along with a “passport” of their study, which includes additional information on it and facilitates work of editors and peer reviewers.