Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Simple Rules for Getting Published ?

There is an editorial series in PLoS Computational Biology named "Ten rules" which describe tens rules for everything in sciences. Weeks ago it is "Ten Simple Rules for Getting Published". Take a look if you are interested.

Okay, okay, I know some of them are cliches; here is a feedback to it, also on PLoS Computational Biology - "The Long and Thorny Road to Publication in Quality Journals", in which the author mentioned a very interesting study at 1982. Here is a direct quote:

Indeed, this “experiment” by Peters and Ceci provided empirical evidence 25 years ago that to get a paper accepted for publication can be very difficult for lesser-known scientists from less-recognized institutions. In this study, 12 psychology articles that had already been published by prestigious scientists from prestigious institutions were resubmitted to the journals that had accepted and printed the papers in the first place. Data presentation remained almost unaltered, but fictitious names and not-well-known institutions replaced the original ones. Only three of the resubmissions were identified as such, and of the other nine manuscripts, eight were rejected, mainly for methodological reasons. The Peters and Ceci study was widely discussed, and one interpretation for their observations was that work from lesser-known researchers may be subjected to a more critical peer review than material submitted by well-known investigators in institutions with a long track record. To exemplify this notion, 1977 Nobel Laureate Rosalyn Yalow commented on the article by Peters and Ceci “. . . . I am in full sympathy with rejecting papers from unknown authors working in unknown institutions. How does one know that the data are not fabricated? . . . on the average, the work of established investigators in good institutions is more likely to have had prior review from competent peers and associates even before reaching the journal”


I think this experiment is difficult to be re-done nowadays since papers are not that difficult to be accessed as 80s. However, I do believe the same "problem" is still there. Names of authors and institutes without any doubt have impacts to the peer-review. Hide this information during the reviewing process might be one way to improve it. However, it cannot be denied what Rosalyn Yalow said is also somehow true. It is just tough to climb up while you are in a low position.

Here I can add another cliche at the end as the conclusion, to the current peer-review system - although it is not perfect, the biggest problem is, however, we cannot find another better system to replace it.

Is that true?

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Reading extension:

Peters DP, Ceci SJ (1982) Peer-review practices of psychological journals: The fate of published articles, submitted again. Behav Brain Sci 5: 187–255.
Yalow RS (1982) Competency testing for reviewers and editors. Behav Brain Sci 5: 244–245.

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