Re: Publishing Papers

Anonymous wrote:
Is it possible to get papers published in a reputable
journal if one does not have a Ph.D. in the field?

Yes. All you need is a good paper.

WHAAT?! Are we reading the same journals? There's a
whole lot of crap (but high quality, pretty looking
professional crap) that gets published, even in the top
journals.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. All sorts of stuff *does* get
published that probably shouldn't, but I was clearly
referring to the way things are supposed to be, and
along the lines of another person who replied something
like "Don't submit a paper that looks like a first draft."
Please direct your complaints to someone who controls
the system instead of ranting at me.

I don't just mean the hooligans (Schon's
stuff in Science; fake stem cells in Cell and Nature;
etc.). I mean all the "me too" and "same old same old"
stuff. I mean stuff that is poorly edited (esp. in more
specialized journals that have less editing for grammar,
etc.). I know of lousy papers that got published for
the flimsiest of reasons (Editor: "Sorry for the delay.
I seem to have lost your submisssion. Send me another
copy and I'll publish it right away [no refereeing]
because I know you're a good guy." Problem: The paper
was blatantly wrong.)

Are you blaming me for this situation?

To paraphrase Russell.Martin tautologically, to publish,
"All you need is a PUBLISHABLE paper.", something that
will pass the referees and editor.

Yes, if one wants to get a paper published, it should be
a "PUBLISHABLE" paper. I once refereed a submission
that wouldn't have passed for a poor term paper in my high
school, literally just short of being written in crayon. At
least I didn't have to work hard to justify rejecting the paper
on the grounds that it didn't conform to the submission
standards of the journal. The science sucked, too. I
recommended rejecting a well done paper that was
completely, utterly, derivative, too. In fact, I think the editors
I know use me as a dumping ground for their really bad
papers and save their good reviewers for the good papers.
Oh well, I'm happy to do my small part for science.


However, generally page charges are not cheap, so it
is nice to have a grant to pay for them.

I think the guys with money (corporate, well-funded
academics) often pay. The rest don't. I've never
heard of anyone being penalized for not paying.

All I know is that the literature is growing too fast
for me; it's hard to tell the crap until AFTER you've
read -- or tried to read -- the paper. It's a huge drain.

Agreed. Again I have to why do you appear to be directing
these complaints at me though?

Cheers,
Russell

.

Relevant Pages
Loading