"Dirty Truth" Drives Dubious Remedy

"A dirty truth pervades academic publishing," confides Brian Martinson, in the current issue of Nature, viz., that researchers write papers to gain credit in the academic marketplace. These pubcoins, as Martinson, who has led NIH-funded projects in research integrity since 2001, dubs them can be quite tangible, as recent reports confirm.

One needn't agree with his problematic proposal to restrict research publication to concur that its motivations have shifted and the role of sharing knowledge has received short shrift in the process. Indeed, it is precisely the latter that prompts this academic editor to demur. Surely there are positive reinforcements that bear exploring ― revisiting how tenure is awarded, comes to mind. 

Simple Rules for Getting Published

"The best papers are those in which complex ideas are expressed in a way that those who are less than immersed in the field can understand," Philip Bourne, editor-in-chief of PloS Computational Biology, advises in "Ten Simple Rules for Getting Published." While Bourne's guidance is intended for scientific writers, its practical relevance extends to the craft as a whole as in rule number one: "Read many papers and learn from both the good and the bad work of others." As I advise my academic writing students: Read, read, read. Write, write, write. Revise, revise, revise. All this and more can be found in Prof. Bourne's informative article.

It's Academic

“Throughout the history of American higher education, the academic library has supported the university in its academic mission,” Dr Stephen E. Atkins writes in The Academic Library in the American University. Noting its evolution over three-and-a-half centuries, the former president of the American Library Association continues, “The academic library has become a depository of materials that support faculty and graduate student research in an almost infinite variety of disciplines.” For my part, I shall be forever grateful to the academic libraries of Brazil for that is where I found my beloved wife, a reference librarian in the humanities.

Method to the Madness

As readers of Verbum Sapienti who have been with us from the onset know, the creation of this blog was initially inspired by students in my English for Academic Studies Writing course. Our final assignment was the writing of papers suitable for publication in academic journals. Drawing on the logical chronology set forth by  Prof. Gilson Volpato, we have reviewed, in order, the pertinent sections, including methods, usefully distinguished from methodology by Prof. Pat Thomson. methodology isn't methods...or...what goes in a methods chapter

Are Scientists Normal?

Media stereotypes of scientists run the gamut from megalomaniacs out to conquer the world ― think Dr. No ― to affable, if zany, absent-minded professors ― Flubber, Back to the Future, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, etc. A more knowledgeable analyst, Dr. Steve Caplan, associate professor of biochemistry and biology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, concludes that for the most part, scientists are quite normal and experience the same stress and anxieties that afflict the rest of us. Are Scientists Normal People? 

The Science of Fabrication

The scientific community's barriers against “an epidemic of false, biased, and falisified findings” are weak, Daniele Fanelli, a research fellow at the University of Edinburgh, concedes at the onset of his column in Nature. “Only the most egregious cases of misconduct are discovered and punished,” he continues, while “subtler forms slip through the net, and there is no protection from publication bias.” Dr. Fanelli delineates the deficiencies of the present system with its overreliance on whistleblowers and proposes an alternative. One need not endorse his remedy, however, to concur with his judgment that researchers should be held accountable for what they write. Redefine Misconduct as Distorted Reporting

Throwing the Book at Them

“The writer of a dictionary is an historian, not a lawgiver,” observed the renowned semanticist S.I. Hayakawa. Perhaps, that is why the citing of dictionaries by the U.S. Supreme Court was so rare prior to 1987. Over the past 25 years, however, as Profs. James Brudney and Lawrence Baum note in their Fordham Law Legal Studies Research Paper, as many as one of  three statutory decisions by the High Court have invoked dictionary definitions. As is frequently the case with dictionary definitions, the connotations merit our consideration. Oasis or Mirage: The Supreme Court's Thirst for Dictionaries

Data Driven

Our ability to amass droves of data drives certain assumptions. Among them, as David Brook notes in the New York Times, are these: that everything that can be measured should be; that data is a reliable, transparent lens that filters out ideology and emotions; and that data will enable us to foretell the future. In introducing what promises to be an informative, ongoing exploration of what he dubs “data-ism,” Brooks extols data's capacity to disabuse us of views that fly in the face of the evidence and to shed light on emerging and overlooked patterns of behavior. The Philosophy of Data

Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall

The narcissistic queen's mirror of vanities hung on her castle wall. Many today indulge their fantasies via online walls. According to researchers at Berlin's Humboldt University and Darmstadt's Technical University, viewing photos of Facebook “friends” oft evokes envy, misery, and loneliness. The scientists, who studied users logging on the ubiquitous social network, found that one in three felt worse after visiting the site. “The most common cause of Facebook frustration came from users comparing themselves socially to their peers,” Time reports. As so often, the Bard puts it best, “comparisons are odorous.” Why Facebook Makes You Feel Bad About Yourself

Racket Bawl

As arbiters of science's reputation system, journal  publishers acquire copyright to the world's leading scientific output for free. They then charge scientists, who authored and reviewed the articles, and taxpayers, who funded the research, $8 billion a year to access the findings. The exit from this  revolving door lies in creating new reputation metrics, Academia.edu's Richard Price argues. 

Search . . . for the Motive

In a day in which “Google” has assumed the status of a verb, the increasing role of search engines is readily apparent. Less well known is the significance of the ongoing shift from keyword to semantic search. Yet, as physicist and computer scientist W. Daniel Hillis points out, with semantic search results are determined not by data but by the proprietor's Weltanshauung. Thus, search engines have moved from indicators of what is important to arbiters of truth. “From now on, search engines will have an editorial point of view, and search results will reflect that viewpoint,” he concludes. “We can no longer ignore the assumptions behind the results.” Nor Hillis' analysis. The Opinions of Search Engines

Pursuing Knowledge Is Never Useless

As an inveterate researcher, I have often advised those engaged in the lifelong quest for knowledge that the relevance of a specific finding may rest in doubt for years, perhaps a lifetime. In a puzzle in the order of magnitude and complexity that is life, a missing piece oft remains undetected until its adjacent counterparts have been discovered. On her aptly named site Brain Pickings, Maria Popova cogently encapsulates a seminal 1939 essay by U.S. educator Abraham Flexner on “The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge.” As Flexner rightly observes, “The world has always been a sorry and confused sort of place.” Thanks to Popova and Flexner, however, a tad less.