Publish or Perish - Will publishing in Nature or Science make your career? (Feb/19/2009 )
What bugs me is that I HATE writing (unless it's on a forum 
). I'm a lab rat, I love reading and learning and face challenges but when I am in front of an empty piece of paper...total paralysis. I'd have so many papers if I could write, but I don't because I am bad at it and thus, my CV suffers.
I think I'm an OK researcher and find it unfair to be punished not to be a good author. 
-Maddie-
T C on Feb 20 2009, 01:09 AM said:
Hey
Like they say, you need to open yr mouth in the end.
SO papers are important only to get an interview call in whatever field you look forward to make yr career in, then you got to show them wht you are and that by no means can any paper provide.....you need to know yr stuff and know it well.
But yeah having papers and good pedigree surely helps....but cannot gurantee anything if the means you choose are Fair. And if you are good you would never ever go the "not fair" way.
TC
Like they say, you need to open yr mouth in the end.
SO papers are important only to get an interview call in whatever field you look forward to make yr career in, then you got to show them wht you are and that by no means can any paper provide.....you need to know yr stuff and know it well.
But yeah having papers and good pedigree surely helps....but cannot gurantee anything if the means you choose are Fair. And if you are good you would never ever go the "not fair" way.
TC
110% agreed
-Marcos-
One relevant point is that a journal name does not reflect the quality of your paper. Only 25% of the Nature publications are responsible for 80% of its impact factor. I've seen not-so-good papers on Science/Nature and a lot of impressive papers on not-so-prestigious journals.
Seems to me that the innovation of the work is not a important factor to have your paper accepted in these journals, dispite what the editors say. The editors tend to prejudge papers not coming from traditional research centers. It's even worse if you don't have a previous work published on a high impact factor journal...
-Marcos-
I don't understand why peer-review journal should continue to exist! Longtime ago, all scientific and great discoveries came out without peer-reviewed journals!
Did Mandel, Darwin, Einstein, Newton,...and so on, publish their research in peer-reviewed journals?
So, why should we support the capitalist publishing policy to make them more and more rich?
Publishing is becoming business issue, not to publish scientific results!
I am an ardent supporter for the open publishing and eliminate the peer-reviewed policy!
Knowledge should be free and available to everyone without constraints!
-Biog-
Biog on Tue Feb 1 22:42:16 2011 said:
I don't understand why peer-review journal should continue to exist! Longtime ago, all scientific and great discoveries came out without peer-reviewed journals!
Did Mandel, Darwin, Einstein, Newton,...and so on, publish their research in peer-reviewed journals?
So, why should we support the capitalist publishing policy to make them more and more rich?
Publishing is becoming business issue, not to publish scientific results!
I am an ardent supporter for the open publishing and eliminate the peer-reviewed policy!
Knowledge should be free and available to everyone without constraints!
You realise that the majority of "good" open source journals are also peer-reviewed? Peer review is important otherwise you end up with work that is unacceptable scientifically (for methodology, reasoning/deductions/conclusions drawn etc) being published and wasting everyone's time working out what is a good paper and what is not.
-bob1-
bob1 on Tue Feb 1 22:56:56 2011 said:
Biog on Tue Feb 1 22:42:16 2011 said:
I don't understand why peer-review journal should continue to exist! Longtime ago, all scientific and great discoveries came out without peer-reviewed journals!
Did Mandel, Darwin, Einstein, Newton,...and so on, publish their research in peer-reviewed journals?
So, why should we support the capitalist publishing policy to make them more and more rich?
Publishing is becoming business issue, not to publish scientific results!
I am an ardent supporter for the open publishing and eliminate the peer-reviewed policy!
Knowledge should be free and available to everyone without constraints!
You realise that the majority of "good" open source journals are also peer-reviewed? Peer review is important otherwise you end up with work that is unacceptable scientifically (for methodology, reasoning/deductions/conclusions drawn etc) being published and wasting everyone's time working out what is a good paper and what is not.
People will be able to screen out the good from the bad, by critical thinking and reflection.
When you try something that doesn't work, it is likely to be bad. If you disagree with an author you relied on his work or results but got nothing, you can point it out and warn to rely on it. People will, so, be scared of incredibility if they publish something unreproducible. .
I hate the elitism! I hate Nature and Science magazines and all other elite names or brands, which harvest a lot of money for something that should be done for free.
-Biog-
Biog on Tue Feb 1 23:21:54 2011 said:
People will be able to screen out the good from the bad, by critical thinking and reflection.
When you try something that doesn't work, it is likely to be bad. If you disagree with an author you relied on his work or results but got nothing, you can point it out and warn to rely on it. People will, so, be scared of incredibility if they publish something unreproducible. .
I hate the elitism! I hate Nature and Science magazines and all other elite names or brands, which harvest a lot of money for something that should be done for free.
Uhhh no, try working in a field where there are a lot of papers each week on the topic, if you have the time to read 15+ new papers per week (and catch up on historical papers if you are new in the field) and be able to do bench work full time then you are likely to be a very successful scientist. In my field there are approximately 30000 already published papers on the one protein, not to mention all the other associated papers which are still relevant to the topic, and then there's methodological papers and the new ones at a rate of about 7-8 a week. Without peer-review, the rate of publication would go up (because they could be published straight away), the quality of the publications would go down because people could easily put in papers that weren't complete stories or had major flaws, just to get their publication list up.
Sure, in an ideal world it would be possible to screen out the good from the bad for yourself, but what about the papers where the ideas seem plausible or data has been falsified, but you would have to repeat the experiments to know for yourself... how many experiments can you do and how much money do you have in a week just to verify someone else's data which may or may not be accurate? Have a look at any non-peer reviewed system (e.g. the internet, newspapers) and see how much good stuff is out there, which isn't biased in some manner. Peer review works to screen out these problems to a large extent, though falsified data is difficult.
Nature and Science... well, if you don't like what they do, don't publish with them (though it might be difficult to avoid Nature Publishing Group), but I seriously doubt you will be able to convince many others to not try to publish in those journals, they have the rankings they do for a reason.
-bob1-
bob1 on Thu Feb 3 02:14:03 2011 said:
Biog on Tue Feb 1 23:21:54 2011 said:
People will be able to screen out the good from the bad, by critical thinking and reflection.
When you try something that doesn't work, it is likely to be bad. If you disagree with an author you relied on his work or results but got nothing, you can point it out and warn to rely on it. People will, so, be scared of incredibility if they publish something unreproducible. .
I hate the elitism! I hate Nature and Science magazines and all other elite names or brands, which harvest a lot of money for something that should be done for free.
Uhhh no, try working in a field where there are a lot of papers each week on the topic, if you have the time to read 15+ new papers per week (and catch up on historical papers if you are new in the field) and be able to do bench work full time then you are likely to be a very successful scientist. In my field there are approximately 30000 already published papers on the one protein, not to mention all the other associated papers which are still relevant to the topic, and then there's methodological papers and the new ones at a rate of about 7-8 a week. Without peer-review, the rate of publication would go up (because they could be published straight away), the quality of the publications would go down because people could easily put in papers that weren't complete stories or had major flaws, just to get their publication list up.
Sure, in an ideal world it would be possible to screen out the good from the bad for yourself, but what about the papers where the ideas seem plausible or data has been falsified, but you would have to repeat the experiments to know for yourself... how many experiments can you do and how much money do you have in a week just to verify someone else's data which may or may not be accurate? Have a look at any non-peer reviewed system (e.g. the internet, newspapers) and see how much good stuff is out there, which isn't biased in some manner. Peer review works to screen out these problems to a large extent, though falsified data is difficult.
Nature and Science... well, if you don't like what they do, don't publish with them (though it might be difficult to avoid Nature Publishing Group), but I seriously doubt you will be able to convince many others to not try to publish in those journals, they have the rankings they do for a reason.
I agree that peer-review is essential but I also agree that to the people at the top of the publishing business, it's all about the big bucks. I sure would publish in one of those journals (hopefully paying the charge needed to make the article open-access) but I would certainly feel dirty afterwards! A dirty sell-out is what I am!
I think a paper in one of these journals would help a lot to improve one's resume and with the field being so competetive, I can't afford to have such morals
-seanspotatobusiness-
seanspotatobusiness on Sat Feb 5 16:17:52 2011 said:
I agree that peer-review is essential but I also agree that to the people at the top of the publishing business, it's all about the big bucks. I sure would publish in one of those journals (hopefully paying the charge needed to make the article open-access) but I would certainly feel dirty afterwards! A dirty sell-out is what I am!
I think a paper in one of these journals would help a lot to improve one's resume and with the field being so competetive, I can't afford to have such morals
If you think you are being gouged for publishing, you should see what is charged for library subscriptions (as in the library has the subscription) for these journals - for Nature and Scientific American only a site licence for a middle size Uni (12,000-20,000 people) is US$11,552.00 per year.
-bob1-
Biog on Tue Feb 1 22:42:16 2011 said:
I don't understand why peer-review journal should continue to exist! Longtime ago, all scientific and great discoveries came out without peer-reviewed journals!
Did Mandel, Darwin, Einstein, Newton,...and so on, publish their research in peer-reviewed journals?
So, why should we support the capitalist publishing policy to make them more and more rich?
Publishing is becoming business issue, not to publish scientific results!
I am an ardent supporter for the open publishing and eliminate the peer-reviewed policy!
Knowledge should be free and available to everyone without constraints!
I can see how peer-review can be frustration. However, if it is done the right way it can improve your paper and your work. Unfortunately, sometimes competition and certain personalities can hinder this "intentionally positive process".
And I agree, publishing should not be a business issue.....
-Wolverena-