Writing #6--Where to publish your work
This post doesn't exactly fit into the theme of the rest of this blog, but it's something I feel compelled to write anyway. I recently was asked to provide expert opinion about two colleagues for the purposes of an award, in one case, and promotion, in the other.
The nominee for the award is very well known in his/her field. Everyone thinks the world of him/her. The award is for outstanding research only. When I got into the CV, I thought, wow, this is going to be easy. The nominee has lots of peer-reviewed publications. When I got further into it, I was surprised that more of them were not in peer-reviewed journals. The rest were in various kinds of publications, no doubt all peer reviewed, but not the most rigorously peer reviewed. Many were in conference or special volumes.
Then came the real shock. A person of his/her stature and longevity should have a huge number of citations. In fact, the most highly cited papers were old (from the 70s and 80s), and there were only a couple of them. The rest never topped 100 citations and most of them were 60 or fewer. Even papers that I had considered classics (from familiarity with the work) were poorly cited.
The first thing I started to wonder was whether I should be using Google Scholar to get a perspective on the citations. So I looked up my own record, and from knowledge of the response to my own work, I thought the citation count was probably pretty accurate. One would expect the citation count of older, pre-digital publications to be lower, but that was not the case, either for me or for the nominee.
When I got into the nominee's record--and mine--a little more, I saw a pattern. The papers published in conference volumes and special papers were cited much less, in the nominee's case and in mine. I mentioned above the papers of the nominee's that I considered classics but were not well cited. Those were all in conference volumes.
I had figured out in early mid-career that publishing in these volumes was not the way to go if I wanted my work to be read. The reasons were (1) the books are expensive, so few people would buy them, and even fewer would be interested in a specific paper (i.e., mine); (2) they were not included in the Science Citation Index, which is how a lot of papers were found by others; (3) libraries would sometimes be slow to acquire the books and, when they did, one did not necessarily know; and (4) authors wouldn't get reprints of those papers from the publisher.
Nowadays, those reasons still hold true (although I'm not sure about the Science Citation Index problem), but there is an additional problem: The individual papers from most books are not available electronically, at least not as soon as the book comes out. (A few publishers are starting to release the individual chapters, but only after a one-year embargo.) Libraries still get these books, but who goes to the library any more? In fact, I found myself slightly resenting the fact that I would have to go to the library to refresh my memory of some of the nominee's classic papers because I didn't have copies myself and couldn't get them online.
So where does the candidate for promotion come in? I was actually less familiar with the candidate's work than I was with the nominees. Fortunately, scans of at least a few of the papers from that CV were included with the promotion package. They are great papers! Then I noticed something. The best papers were published in, you guessed it, conference volumes and special papers. As soon as I find out if the candidate has been promoted, I'm going to contact him/her to pass along the advice to publish only in journals. It makes me sad to know that a lot of people may never find these wonderful papers because of where they are published.
When you are just starting out, it is flattering to receive an invitation to contribute to a coherent volume of papers on the same subject; it's a bit flattering even if you are a later-career scientist. But you should resist the temptation.
Potential editors of such volumes (and I include myself in that list, although all mine were in the pre-digital age) should refuse those assignments until publishers are willing to treat the individual papers just like they would journal papers. I know that will cut into book sales, but so be it.
The nominee for the award is very well known in his/her field. Everyone thinks the world of him/her. The award is for outstanding research only. When I got into the CV, I thought, wow, this is going to be easy. The nominee has lots of peer-reviewed publications. When I got further into it, I was surprised that more of them were not in peer-reviewed journals. The rest were in various kinds of publications, no doubt all peer reviewed, but not the most rigorously peer reviewed. Many were in conference or special volumes.
Then came the real shock. A person of his/her stature and longevity should have a huge number of citations. In fact, the most highly cited papers were old (from the 70s and 80s), and there were only a couple of them. The rest never topped 100 citations and most of them were 60 or fewer. Even papers that I had considered classics (from familiarity with the work) were poorly cited.
The first thing I started to wonder was whether I should be using Google Scholar to get a perspective on the citations. So I looked up my own record, and from knowledge of the response to my own work, I thought the citation count was probably pretty accurate. One would expect the citation count of older, pre-digital publications to be lower, but that was not the case, either for me or for the nominee.
When I got into the nominee's record--and mine--a little more, I saw a pattern. The papers published in conference volumes and special papers were cited much less, in the nominee's case and in mine. I mentioned above the papers of the nominee's that I considered classics but were not well cited. Those were all in conference volumes.
I had figured out in early mid-career that publishing in these volumes was not the way to go if I wanted my work to be read. The reasons were (1) the books are expensive, so few people would buy them, and even fewer would be interested in a specific paper (i.e., mine); (2) they were not included in the Science Citation Index, which is how a lot of papers were found by others; (3) libraries would sometimes be slow to acquire the books and, when they did, one did not necessarily know; and (4) authors wouldn't get reprints of those papers from the publisher.
Nowadays, those reasons still hold true (although I'm not sure about the Science Citation Index problem), but there is an additional problem: The individual papers from most books are not available electronically, at least not as soon as the book comes out. (A few publishers are starting to release the individual chapters, but only after a one-year embargo.) Libraries still get these books, but who goes to the library any more? In fact, I found myself slightly resenting the fact that I would have to go to the library to refresh my memory of some of the nominee's classic papers because I didn't have copies myself and couldn't get them online.
So where does the candidate for promotion come in? I was actually less familiar with the candidate's work than I was with the nominees. Fortunately, scans of at least a few of the papers from that CV were included with the promotion package. They are great papers! Then I noticed something. The best papers were published in, you guessed it, conference volumes and special papers. As soon as I find out if the candidate has been promoted, I'm going to contact him/her to pass along the advice to publish only in journals. It makes me sad to know that a lot of people may never find these wonderful papers because of where they are published.
When you are just starting out, it is flattering to receive an invitation to contribute to a coherent volume of papers on the same subject; it's a bit flattering even if you are a later-career scientist. But you should resist the temptation.
Potential editors of such volumes (and I include myself in that list, although all mine were in the pre-digital age) should refuse those assignments until publishers are willing to treat the individual papers just like they would journal papers. I know that will cut into book sales, but so be it.
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