Category Archives: science publishing

ICYMI No. 2: Time for positive action on negative results

Posted on 7 March 2016 by Stephen

Today I had a short opinion piece in Chemical and Engineering News on publishing negative results, a topic that I covered about this time last year in the Guardian on the occasion of the publication my lab’s first paper on an … Continue reading →

Posted in Academic publishing, Chemical and Engineering News, ICYMI, science, science publishing | Comments Off on ICYMI No. 2: Time for positive action on negative results

Psychology Journal Bans Almost All of Statistics

Posted on 3 March 2015 by Bob O'H

Amongst the big news last week (besides the octopus-squid battle, a dress, and a singer falling over whilst – presumably – sober) was the release of an editorial from the journal “Basic and Applied Social Psychology” (BASP) which announced that … Continue reading →

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Ghost un-authorships

Posted on 7 November 2014 by Bob O'H

I’m currently reading Ben Goldacre’s Bad Pharma, in which he documents all the naughty things done by the Pharma industry. One of the many infelicities he mentions is their habit of ghostwriting academic papers, and then asking an academic to … Continue reading →

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Gut Feelings

Posted on 17 February 2014 by Henry Gee

Decisions, decisions. The job as a manuscript editor at Your Favourite Weekly Etcetera largely consists of making decisions – whether to consider a manuscript for publication, or to send it on its way elsewhere. Because we receive a very large … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Gigerenzer, Gut Feelings, recognition heuristic, Research, science communication, science publishing, Writing & Reading | Comments Off on Gut Feelings

Open Access and the self-forming journal hierarchy

Posted on 18 January 2014 by Steve Caplan

I recently posted a piece on Occam’ Corner explaining why I think instituting radical changes in science publishing should not be a major focus of scientists at this juncture. As those who have read the post will realize, my point … Continue reading →

Posted in editor, editorial board, journals, manuscript, Open Access, paper, priorities, Research, science, Science Funding, science journals, science publishing | Comments Off on Open Access and the self-forming journal hierarchy

Research with impact

Posted on 31 August 2012 by Bob O'H

After Stephen’s posts about impact factors and the like, I have a couple of serious posts brewing. But for now (and because it’s Friday), I want to admit to my reaction today to an advert I got about a journal, … Continue reading →

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Sick of Impact Factors: Coda

Posted on 19 August 2012 by Stephen

My ‘Sick of Impact Factors‘ blog post seems to have struck much more of a chord than I anticipated. At the time of writing it has attracted over 12,900 page views and 460 tweets, far higher than my usual tallies. The … Continue reading →

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Open Access: Who Pays the Copy-editor?

Posted on 2 July 2012 by Stephen

My article on open access in the New Scientist provoked an email from copy-editor Miranda Potter. Starting from the article’s mention of my recent paper in PLoS ONE, she raises the question of who is going to pay for copy-editing … Continue reading →

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Why does PLoS hate openness?

Posted on 25 April 2012 by Bob O'H

My frustrations for the day – I’m co-author on a manuscript submitted to PLoS. We’re now trying to upload the final version but we’re hitting silly problems that are caused by PLoS seemingly being beholden to Microsoft. The originate because … Continue reading →

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Why I chose to decline an invitation to review by Elsevier

Posted on 28 January 2012 by Stephen

All relationships suffer tensions from time to time, especially those based on love-hate. Scientists have a complex relationship with their publishers — they love to get published in high-impact journals (most of which are run by major publishing companies) but … Continue reading →

Posted in elsevier, love-hate, Open Access, science, science publishing, Scientific Life | Comments Off on Why I chose to decline an invitation to review by Elsevier