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The Scientist: NewsBlog:
More articles, fewer citations
Posted by Andrea Gawrylewski [Entry posted at 18th July 2008 06:03 PM GMT]
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Return to Top comment: Research citations and piece-meal publications by Dr ANIL VISHNU MOHARIR [Comment posted 2008-07-23 03:33:16] The increasing number of research journals going on-line is encouraging. What is regretted being their restricted availability for commercial earning despite the fact that almost 90% of the research in various fields is predominently conducted from public funds. There is a tendency on the part of scientists to report their findings in piecemeal by splitting their findings in several papers and get them inconsistently published in diverse journals (which may or may not be globally available uniformly to researchers everywhere) rather than publishing a comprehensive consolidated account of their findings in a single article. This tendency is seen for several reasons; 1. number of papers published is used as a bench-mark for further career advancement; 2. restriction of number of pages or words as a criteria by good journals for accepting publications and 3. rush for publication on the part of researchers before the study is completed and a thorough holistic look is taken over the data. There is no harm if any piece of research is reported based on publications reported several years before if those had remained neglected for some reasons or the other but I have seen research papers being rejected by so called reviewers just because there is no recently published paper being cited in the area (unless otherwise demanded or unavoidably justified, and despite the fact that there had been no research reported in the area beyond the cited papers). I would like the publishers of scientific research journals to make the publications available to all interested in the area of research and development (not necessarily scientists/researchers), because future thrust may come from anywhere, anyone and from any quarter. Inter-disciplinary hybridization of ideas is the hallmark and the undercurrent of a holistic approach to scientific research and progress. Return to Top comment: Cite the new and just a few by Michael Zimmer [Comment posted 2008-07-21 18:06:02] I think the more recent study hits it. Online databases gives us more access to older articles, and it would be stupid not to use them. However, I think there is a tendency to cite the newest and latest research.
I found when putting my Honours thesis together I could track forward to the most recent research, and backwards to more older research, thanks to handy tools like citation maps. Definitely much better than doing it manually and trying to translate different journals' referencing styles. Return to Top comment: Looking at things a bit differently by George Garrity [Comment posted 2008-07-21 12:21:13] Perhaps these studies are not so much a reflection of the articles being cited as it is the manner in which researchers use the literature. Comment on this blog |