WIKIMEDIA COMMONS Raysonho@Open Grid ScheduleA rejection notice never feels good, but new research suggests an upside to this routine disappointment in the scientific community. Chances are, if a researcher resubmits her work to another journal, it will be cited more often, according to an extensive prepublication survey published today (October 11) in Science. The finding should not only reassure frustrated scientists, but also persuade journal editors to perhaps reduce rejection rates and instead encourage revision.
“Part of the scientific process is picking a topic and doing the research, but at least half of the process is picking a journal and selling the paper and maybe reselling the paper,” said James Evans, a professor of sociology at the University of Chicago, who did not participate in the research. The new study provides insight into that selling part of science, he said.
The sometimes arduous task of getting a paper published is something that Vincent Calcagno, an evolutionary biologist and ecologist at the Institute for Agricultural Research in Sophia Antipolis, France, is all too familiar with. “I went through the frustration as a PhD student of having a nice piece of research that I really liked rejected by five, six, maybe seven ...
