Are referees for second rate journals less likely to steal your article? On Fri, 29 Nov 2002, Arkadiusz Jadczyk wrote:
> I can't refrain from quoting the pertinent piece from "Chance and Chaos" by > David Ruelle. (Notes 5 and 7 to Chapter 11, p. 179-180) > > "A few words about rejected papers may be appropriate here. A prerequisite > for a successful profesional carreer, for many people, is to have > published scientific papers in refereed journals. In other words, > appointments and promotions are decided on the basis of number of published > papers. This situation forces many individuals who have neither interest > in nor ability for scientific research, to write papers and submit them to > journals. The referees, who are themselves research scientists, are thus > flooded with mediocre papers, about which they are required to produce > reports. Since they have more interesting work to do, the reports are often > hasty and superficial. Reasonable-looking papers are accepted, obviously bad > papers are rejected, and good papers that a bit original and out of the norm > tend to be rejected too. This is a well known problem, and nobody really > knows what to do about it. Fortunately, there are many scientific journals, > and a really good paper will eventually get published somewhere. > [...] > If you are a conscientious scientist, you will acknowledge the sources the > sources of all the ideas that you use (supposing you remember). If you are > unscrupulous, you will try to present as your own some results obtained by > others. For example, if you find a good idea in a paper that you referee, you > will try to stop the paper, and rush to publish the idea under your own name > (or have one of your students publish it). > [...] > I have myself worked in some areas in which I could freely discuss ideas with > collegues, and other areas in which it was unwise, because of the risk that > the idea would be stolen." > > Ark again: I think Ruelle lists explicitly certain very important issues > here. He gives possible reasons why, in some cases, publishing in second rank > journals, or just only on arXiv and similar (as advocated by Andrew Odlyzko), > is indeed a wise choice. > > ark > http://www.cassiopaea.org/quantum_future/ > Dr. David Goodman Biological Sciences Bibliographer Princeton University Library [email protected]
