A Sharp Rise in Retractions Prompts Calls for Reform

An interesting article from the New York Times about the sharp rise in retractions of published articles. Another blog post about the rise in the number of retractions and the responsible (irresponsible?) journals.

Baloney Detection Kit and brainpickings.org

This link from Bogdan Antonescu: The Baloney Detection Kit: A 10-Point Checklist for Science Literacy In fact, brainpickings.org has a lot of good posts about books, creativity, life, and writing. Enjoy surfing!

Unintended consequences of choosing coauthors

I had been trying to track down this paper for several years. Finally, I was able to get my hands on it. Like many papers you get, they turn out to tell you something different than what you were hoping to hear. In this case, it was a pleasant surprise. The principal result is that […]

Rejected for publication: What now?

So, your manuscript was rejected? Before you start firebombing the editor’s place of work and writing screeds on your blog, consider the following. Put yourself in the reviewer’s shoes. It may be hard to do so, but it is often the best way to understand what the reviewer is trying to communicate. If the reviewer […]

The Boycott of Elsevier

As pointed out by Chris Fairless in the comments on a recent blog post of mine, a movement has started to boycott Elsevier because of their aggressive business practices that hurt libraries and restrict information. The petition is called http://thecostofknowledge.com/ and started with a blog post here. You can take a stand by signing up […]

The politicization of the scientific publishing process

On one topic, Congress seemed to be moving in the right direction. Over the past few years, emphasis was placed on making the research that taxpayers funded open access—in other words, free for all to view. According to a recent article by Wired, a bill called the Research Works Act introduced by Reps Carolyn Maloney […]

A letter from the frustrated author of a journal paper

Paul Roebber sent me this hilarious letter written by a frustrated author to the Editor. Enjoy! Glass, R. L., 2000: A letter from the frustrated author of a journal paper. The Journal of Systems and Software, 54, 1. [PDF] Image from http://lightsallaround.wordpress.com/author/jackieleasommers/

The decreasing number of studies with negative results

When I lived in Oklahoma, Chuck Doswell used to lament to me that it was difficult to publish null cases in meteorology (for example, when something was forecast to happen, but didn’t). Later, when talking to Roseanne McNamee at the University of Manchester, she lamented the same. There are even several journals for negative results: […]

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