I have made my feelings about the impact factor well known but still, far too many cling to it as if it were some sort of holy grail. Now it seems I was both wrong and right: it appears to be both deeply flawed but better than any of the alternatives. Readers should weigh in […]
Category: Writing for Publication
Anti helmet legislation revisited… and why replication is important
Another anti helmet legislation argument bites the dust When Ian Walker’s paper appeared in Accid Anal Prev in 2007 purporting to show that cars drove closer to helmeted than unhelmeted cyclists, it was quickly used as another argument against helmet legislation. But for me as a long time cyclist, something did not ring true. Jake […]
Beware the predatory OA journal!
For some time I have been corresponding with three WAME (World Association of Medical Editors) colleagues about our shared concern arising from the proliferation of predatory journals. These are those journals, almost invariably Open Access, that invite you to submit your best paper and assure you prompt peer review and quick publication. What they often […]
The Journal Impact factor revisited
On several occasions in the past I have moaned about the undue emphasis placed on the Journal Impact Factor (JIF) while accepting that wisely or otherwise, many Universities and Faculties that should know better rely on it for judging a candidate’s suitability for promotion, tenure, etc. As a consequence, many authors on the cusp of […]
Publish Negative Results
A provocative paper in The Scientist urges that more journals publish negative results. (Editor: I have always argued that these are as scientifically important as positive results, even if they are less appealing to the press.) As the paper states, “Hypothesis-driven research is at the heart of scientific endeavour, and it is often the positive, […]
Auction your paper?
I am not suggesting you accept this suggestion, but it is amusing, intriguing, and somewhat sensible. Given that it comes from Richard Smith, former editor of the BMJ, it deserves consideration. In his words, “instead of submitting your paper to one journal you should auction it to the highest bidder. Today I did it.” Smith […]
Injury Research in LMICs Requires a Fundamental Directional Change
I want to make the point that an essential shift in injury research from burden assessment to hypothesis testing is still lagging in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs) Every month hundreds of injury research publications originating from Low- and Middle-Income Countries find a place in scientific journals. Recent bibliographic analysis has revealed that the numbers […]
Watch these words!
I was recently going through some old files and found a letter to the editor of our Montreal paper in which I pointed out that the Lancet was not a ‘muckraking’ in the negative sense the paper’s editorial implied. As I noted, muckraking is a positive term; an activity that sheds light on bad behaviour, […]
Solid advice for authors (and researchers)
A discussion by World Association of Medical Editors on self-plagiarism prompted Iain Chalmers, one of the Cochrane pioneers at Oxford University, to remind us of that there are more important issues to contend with. He wrote: “Last week I was at a 2-day meeting hosted by the EQUATOR Network and the German Cochrane Centre. The standard […]
The upside of being rejected
When I taught a writing course I reminded my students that scientific writing was an iterative process involving many revisions. Hence, when a paper is rejected following a reasonable or better review, it should be seen as an opportunity for improvement. It seems my view is nicely reinforced by a recent paper in The Scientist […]