An Apology

I am, by temperament, an intellectual magpie. I pick up ideas, frameworks, and images from papers, talks, conference slides, and conversations, and then carry them around in my head until they re-emerge—sometimes polished, sometimes altered, and, in this case, without the clear lineage they deserve. That tendency serves me well as a writer and quality professional, but it also comes with a responsibility to keep better track of where things come from.

In my recent article on USP <1220> and the analytical lifecycle, I included a figure that closely reflected a slide originally developed by Christopher Burgess and later incorporated into the ECA Foundation’s “Guide for an Integrated Lifecycle Approach to Analytical Instrument Qualification and System Validation,” Version 1.0, November 2023, Figure 13. While my version was redrawn, the structure and conceptual flow were clearly derived from that original work, and I did not provide proper attribution when I first published the post. That was my mistake, and I regret it.

I want to state clearly that the ECA guidance document, and the work of Christopher Burgess and Bob McDowall in particular, is excellent and deserves to be read in its original form by anyone serious about analytical lifecycle thinking. The “Guide for an Integrated Lifecycle Approach to Analytical Instrument Qualification and System Validation” is a rich, thoughtful piece of work that offers far more depth than any single blog figure can convey. If my article or the adapted graphic spoke to you, you should absolutely go to the source and read the ECA paper itself.

I am grateful to Dr. Markus Funk and the ECA Analytical Quality Control Group for reaching out in a collegial and constructive way, rather than assuming bad intent. Their note made it clear that they did not object to the use of the underlying concept, only to the lack of proper attribution. That distinction matters, because it reinforces a core principle in our community: ideas can and should circulate, but credit should travel with them.

In response, I have updated the original post to include an explicit reference to the ECA document and to identify the figure as an adaptation of their work, using the wording they suggested. That is a necessary corrective step, but it is not enough on its own. I also want to be transparent with you, my readers, about how this happened and what I plan to do differently going forward.

The honest explanation is not malice, but intellectual untidiness. I often sketch and rework ideas first for internal presentations or personal notes, then later re-use those visuals in blog posts when they seem generally useful. Over time, the original provenance can blur in my mind: what started as “inspired by X” slowly feels like “my standard way of explaining this,” and unless I am vigilant, the attribution falls away. That is still my responsibility, and “I forgot where I saw it” is not an acceptable standard for publication.

Intellectual humility, for me, means acknowledging that most of what I write sits on foundations laid by others. It means admitting, publicly, when I have failed to make those foundations visible. It also means tightening my own practices: keeping clearer notes on the origin of figures and concepts, double-checking sources before I hit “publish,” and erring on the side of over-attribution rather than under-attribution.

So to the authors of the ECA guidance document, to Dr. Funk and the ECA Foundation, and to you as readers: I apologize. I used a graphic that was substantively derived from their work without clearly crediting it, and that fell short of the standards I believe in and advocate for. I am committed to doing better, and I appreciate the chance to correct the record rather than quietly moving on.

If there is a positive takeaway here, I hope it is this: even in a niche world like analytical quality and validation, we are part of a living conversation. Being an “intellectual magpie” can be a strength when it helps us cross-pollinate ideas—but only if we are careful to honor the people and organizations who first did the hard work of thinking them through.