Rejected Scientific Paper Recycled as an Ad

Roland Piquepaille writes "In this article, The Scientist reveals a curious and probably unique story. Two years ago, a researcher at Brown University submitted a paper to a scientific medicine journal. Then he received a note from the editor saying that his paper would not interest the journal readers. Thinking that his article was unfairly rejected before peer review, he decided to publish a two-page ad with the contents of his paper in the same journal. He even asked readers if they thought the contents interesting and received 33 positive replies. Read this summary before telling me what you think and if you've heard about a similar story."

Comments

approach

[phloydphreak]

The intersting point in the 'The Scientist' article is Egilman's (advertisment placer's) approach to a system which he considers to be corrupt. from TA: the JOEM "(has)indirect ties to Dow Chemical and its strategic partner, GlaxoSmithKline}. By posting his article as an advertisement, Egilman bypassed a system of information suppression. His motives were not for fame or glory, but to publish material to those who are interested and have a say in such issues. I for one give Egilman a thumbs up. Very insightful approach to the problem.

Re:approach

[Otter]

Since you're the only person commenting on the subject, I'll stick my points here:

1) Peer review is there to determine scientific correctness, not whether a paper should be published or not. There is nothing inappropriate about editorial prescreening for fit and impact -- otherwise the peer review system would be overrun. This manuscript was a criticism of a paper in a different, obscure journal and it's not in the least surprising that it was rejected before review. It should have been submitted as an unreviewed letter to the original journal.

2) Any additional exposure his paper may have gained through this stunt is more than balanced out by the fact that Egilman will now permanently be known in the field as "the nut who ran his stupid letter as an advertisement".

3) The "indirect ties" thing is ludicrous. Anyone who works in a field has "indirect ties" of that degree. Egilman, as I said, is a paranoid nut but the real idiot here is the editor at International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health who used this as an opportunity to throw dirt at a competitor. As though his journal has never rejected a paper about which a similarly far-fetched conspiracy theory could have been made.

Another Roland Piquepaille special!

[WasterDave]

Because of Slashdot's famously high editorial standards, another Piquepaille blog plug gets popped onto the front page.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, another few hundred links that may actually be of interest to nerds and that may actually matter go rotting in the submission queue.

Jesus wept. What have we done to deserve this?

Dave

Re:33 replies of Interesting....

[PsiPsiStar]

This guy wasn't rejected after peer review, though. He didn't choose to skip peer review. He was rejected because his research "wasn't interesting."

This is what he was protesting, I think.

If he had been rejected after peer review, it would have been a different story.

Re:ahhhh!!!!!!!

[NanoGator]

" keeps posting your non-stories reflects extremely poorly on the status of any journalistic integrity /. claims to have."

Where does Slashdot claim to have any journalistic integrity?

Re:ahhhh!!!!!!!

[QuantumFTL]

I agree that Roland's "stories" have got to stop - but is there anything we can do to further this end? (and I don't mean hack/ddos his site, although I'm surprised that hasn't happenned yet). I'm all for complaining when things suck, but seriously is there anything we *CAN* do to stop this? Maybe a firefox plugin that filters Roland out?

I know that the editors don't actually read the site - the dupes pretty much prove that - but seriously, I'm paying for this site. I made a choice to subscribe, before Roland came around. Slashdot has had it's moments but seriously... Come on guys!

Re:just some thoughts....

[Otter]

In other words, he argued that the industry funded paper was a lie, but had a hard time getting his arguments published.

Here's an analogy to what he did: let's say you read something in your local newspaper that you think is improperly argued. You write up your objection and ask the New York Times to run it as a bylined piece. They return it and tell you to try it as a letter to the editor in the newspaper that ran the original story.

The guy isn't facing total suppression of his work by The Man; he's insisting on publishing it in a far more prestigious form than any reasonable person could think it warrants.