Or simply what is the weightage difference (in terms of service for sciences) between the two?
From the instruction of ''Journal of Plant Physiology'' I got the following statement:
''A Short Communication is not a publication that contains too few or preliminary data to justify a full paper. It should report "urgent data" that should be communicated to the scientific community prior to the completion of the full investigation.''
I think this information will be helpful for you.
According to my knowledge impact factor is same for short communication and full length research paper
The journal and not the articles published in it has the impact factor. A short communication in a journal is generally considered a preliminary study that insufficiently complete to merit publication as a full research article. I have published a few short communications and do not feel that they have had any less impact than many of my full research articles. My opinion would be that a short communication in a higher impact journal is better than a full article in a journal with lower impact.
Well, in my opinion, short communication is a complete study that is more limited in data than is found in full-length papers. For example the journal Ecological Entomology* states that: "A Short Communication should be a concise report of an independent line of research, which does not require a detailed full-length paper. As with Original Articles, manuscripts submitted as Short Communications should be novel and of wide general interest. We are flexible in the types of material submitted as a Short Communication, for example, manuscripts might develop and/or test novel methodological techniques, might describe natural history observations, or might present new empirical or experimental data."
* http://www.wiley.com/bw/submit.asp?ref=0307-6946
You are correct Nilson, I could have worded my answer a little better! The definition above seems appropriate.
Nagamoto above covered the essence of the publishing aspects when contrasting these two kinds of reports. He’s absolutely right; although there may be some variations across the wide spectrum of journals out there. I serve as reviewer in a few journals and I must admit sometimes I rather enjoy those short communications for those very reasons Nagamoto underscores. However, I was wondering in what context do you ask the question? Are you simply inquiring on the impact it has on science as a whole or as acumens to your scientific career? I believe the answers to each of these questions may be different. Now, let me be the devils advocate and contend that they do not have the same weight. While we would like to believe that short communications have the same impact one can easily see how on occasions that will not be the case. It all depends on the scope of the work. Full article manuscripts are or should be more comprehensive and should have a complete set of empirical data that strongly support the claims on the report. Short communication can be a bit more relax on that regard and they could even supplement other scientific work as it was point out above. I do not wish to take away from short communications but the reality is that in many cases one must assign more weight to those full article manuscripts. Now, how much weight? Again, that will depend on the scope of the work and the journal you are to publish it in. As you can see this can all be sort of murky and relative but as O’Grady points out it is the journal that carries the impact factor and as a consequence your manuscript will fall under that valuation system. Of course this is my take on the matter and I’m sure you’ll here different opinions on it. Good luck to you sir!
Yes my friend! Inclusive, at least in Brazil, an original article or short comm. in press has the same value as the published in selections for teachers or researchers.
Well Thx every body for your valuable inputs I never thought that the answers will come out as so much interesting facts, @ Angel Riveria: Yes you are correct the reason for asking the question was career oriented, because I wonder that if some one adds the number of publications on It's CV, it never tells if it was a short communication or a full length article, So on a bit lighter side it looks like short communication is a short cut! I will agree with Nagamoto and Santiago too, if its a research paper, it must have something in it! and apart from that some time I find short communications more research target oriented rather than putting the mixture of salad and spices to over weight the paper, which sorry to say is sometime the requrement of full length papers!
Same value no difference between full length manuscript or short communication...... a short communication is consider to be incomplete research and further work has to be done on it...... or on that particular topic or problem....... but the impact of that particular journal will be same fr short or full length manuscript............
Ok Imran! In that case you'll be glad to hear that in conversations with well established professors and professionals I found that the consensus for these two forms of publication is that their stand equal. Like you mentioned in your CV the citations do not make the distinction. Best of luck!
Ok guys! I agree with the view that depends on the weight of the information contained on short communication to science, at least in that line of research. Great discussion!
I agree that both has same impact as far as research part is concerned, but sometimes it also depends upon journal in which it is published. My personal experience says that short communications in reputed journals has more impact than a full paper in an average journal. Quality wise speaking, if the work presented is one of a kind then it is appreciated, It hardly matters whether it is a short communication or a full length paper.
Hi all, Great discussion! In many cases now for CV evaluation H factor is of growing interest, In this case the length of the paper becomes less important than the number of citations it is accumulating. I think this is an interesting point in the view of having a long CV or having a cited CV and factor H is going to give this kind of view, probably is not the best way but is good index.
Journal impact factor was and should have been the deciding factor. But now a days as the revolution of open access has made it very difficult to decide on publication weightage
Regarding the type of paper( short report, full paper, correspondence) it is our prejudice as some journals( the good one) due to lack of space accept paper as a correspondence rather than short or full communication:
Any scientific communication will be significant and will necessarily add to the current data
While the impact factor of a journal is not changed based on what kind of articles are published, I agree with the argument British journal made in 2004 as to how certain kinds of articles can affect the impact factor of a journal a lot. If a Journal chooses to publish more communication kind of articles, over a period of time the impact factor of a journal was shown to go down. Here is what the journal said, "Reviews and Clinical Investigations have higher impact factors than Short Communications and Case Reports (Br. J. Anaesth. (2004) 92 (1): 7.doi: 10.1093/bja/aeh027)". So I feel that yes Short communications do have lesser value and impact factor.
Attached is an article about impact factor that clearly shows that while short communications can have an impact fact a bit higher than a full paper, it is not comparable to the reviews (as they tend to have more citations) and is not as lasting as a full paper.
This is very interesting discussion. I don't see differences between full length papers and short communications since they both have the same handling and peer-review process and can be cited as well.
May be review articles are cited more : the quality one as they touch on aspects where the authors read the article rather than others to make their search easier on certain topics
I think the citation or impact of our paper depends on its content rather than the paper type (original, short, letter, case and editorial /reviews and many other types) in which it is published
I am an EiC of 3 biotech which started publishing in 2011. In terms of citations or impact there is no difference between an original paper or short note / research note. The main difference is that original papers report on complete set of complex data in which detailed methods have to be included and hence the length of the printed paper can run to 10 to 20 pages. However, the methods, for example in short papers are routinely used and do not need elaboration - citations / references usually suffice with a few lines on any modification to the technique. Short notes report on less complicated staright foreward data and are usually are more like records of information. Consequently, the length of the printed version of short papers is in the order of 3 to 4 pages. Many journals eg IJSEM accept only short papers. One of the reason I have already explained but the second reason is that papers can be easily and quickly reviewed by reviewers and the cost of production of the printed version of the papers is much less and many more papers can be fitted into the issue (space conservation).
I think we should be more bothered about the scientific content rather than the type of article because after it gets published depending on its visibility (open access), it will be cited by interested researchers
Take my own case i wrote a paper as full article and submitted it to a journal - it was later accepted as a letter and i had 3 citations
Dear imran congrats for the question that has initiated a healthy discussion. possibly it is the competition (between researchers or academicians) that has misinterpreted type of scientific publication (one is more important the other is less) else it is imperative that any scientific communication is significant and its fate is decided by its quality and the amount of interest it generates on readers
The answer here is strongly field dependent, for physics the consensus is that letters and rapid communications are more prestigious, and longer articles less so. This is despite the fact that longer articles are usually more useful as they can be more complete.
In the past this distinction was due to the fat that letters and rapid communications were processed faster, and hence it was important to get a quick notification out with the landmark result, which was fleshed out later in the full paper. Hence the initial letter had the precedence and would get most citations. However publication practises have often tended to mean that the follow up full papers don't get written, or if they do, are not cited as widely. This trend is a shame as I would rather read a full paper that is clear and complete, rather than something shoe horned into 4 pages. With this in mind, however, the prestige of the letter format has remained. This is why Physical Review Letters is the most prestigious of the Physical Review set, and was the top non-review physics journal before Nature Physics.
Dear all i think we are all very obscessded with comparision. In my opinionm only the quality of your paper will speak and not the type of the publication. letters to the editor/correspondence in many journals are hugely cited
Wondering if I can write short communication about misuse of terminology, definitions?
I suggest that the same impact is for regular papers and short communications because of novelty and quality is the same. In some cases for science short communications are prederable because of fast publication but full papers are good for details. Anyway, there is no big differences with volume of these types of papers, so both types are enough informative.
Actually question was about consideration of papers in promotion process; I think if two papers published in same journal; i. short communication and 2. original article; both would be considered as having same weight in your promotion point counting. Best of luck
Surely, it can. Warren and Marshal's first paper on H.pylori was a short one, and so was also Watson and Crick's paper on DNA structure
From the instruction of ''Journal of Plant Physiology'' I got the following statement:
''A Short Communication is not a publication that contains too few or preliminary data to justify a full paper. It should report "urgent data" that should be communicated to the scientific community prior to the completion of the full investigation.''
I think this information will be helpful for you.
No it doesn't carry the same, actually it varies subject to subject. In physics those outcomes are very much needed one, and also in computer sciences and Information technologies. Even in medical field it looks like important. So it is totally depend on subject.
Imran you just go ahead, short communication is the preliminary work. You can publish it. and i am suggesting you do the whole work and publish the work on a good journal.
All the best
I found one article studying on the issue, the results indicate that there are no significant difference of citations between the main articles and short communications.
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF02458477
The definition depends of the journal. A short communication has various functions:
- to publish urgent data values, importants for the scientific community;
-to stimulate the spread of a theme and the research about it.
-to stimulate the discussion about a determinate theme, but small for a review.
Each Journal acept the type of short communications that They want.
The scientifc value of the article or for the carrer is the same, and citations too.
ResearchGate seems to assign the same IF to short communications/correspondence and full papers. I can imagine that these are cited far fewer than the overall IF of the journal (which only takes into account full papers).
In management journals, sometimes they have shorter articles which may be published as a "research note" relative to full-length articles. In my experience, I had two full length articles which the journal editor(s) encouraged to be published as shorter, research notes. At that time, I remember, feeling a little negative about shortening the article(s) to research notes. Today, I feel the opposite. Shortening the articles made them crisper, easier to read, and has probably boosted the citation and impact of the articles. If impact factor weights the actual citation rate of articles, probably shortening helps. Particularly, in this day and age of information overload, readers likely are thankful for an article that is shorter rather than longer. Of course, in all of this the contribution to length ratio matters a lot. Some of the best articles are length, thought provoking, and deserve the time it takes to read and process them.
One needs to differentiate between journal impact and article impact, see e.g. the discussion in our attached editorial at the International Journal of Internet Science. Only the article impact allows you to differentiate between impact of short communications and full articles.
In my opinion article impact generally is a much better way to measure actual influence. Think of it this way: to publish an article in a high impact (more widely read) journal means it has all chances of reaching a wide audience and receiving a high number of citations. How embarrassing if it doesn't! To publish an article in a low impact journal (maybe a specialty journal) that is then cited well and maybe even drives up the journal impact signifies much better influence. A respectable achievement!
http://www.ijis.net/ijis8_1/ijis8_1_editorial_pre.html
Another thought that I try to teach my students: scientific impact should not per se be related to amount of stuff done or length of article. Excellent articles have just the right size, be concise, succinct, appropriate in your writing!
A short communicaiton is published to clarify recent innovations. It should have the same impact with a full article. Simply speaking, the short communcation is a timely idea that has never been reported before, which may inspire many scholars to develop other new ideas and improvements. The full article is published to give more details. But, the full article requires more times to be reviewed by experts.
I fully agree that short communication should have the same impact. The editorial process with reviewing is the same as with full papers.
Short communications have the same impact factor as an original research or a review article. Since writing a short communication often takes as much care and effort as an original report, it is fair that they are equally evaluated.
This very interesting question and answers, really helped me to come out of my confusion and lots of worries about career based on numbers of published articles. Thank you everybody for their contribution.
Well, I wanted answers and views on this issue, all the learned fellows kept their" prudent views".
at this juncture-I too wish to put my view for consideration.
#A short communication in a prominent journal- for example- if you are reporting a rare case, or an organism for which there are fewer descriptions in the literature and antifungal data or molecular tools to confirm and that will for sure attract maximum citations and act as a guiding literation for future researchers.
So cheers up folks! a short case is not any small thing in comparing full-length article.
The various answers is going to help me a lot in my career. Thanks all
Brief report and Original article published in the same journal, of course, assume the impact factor of the journal. However, in terms of appraisal for promotion, will the Brief report be evaluated as a major article as we have in Original article , an as such be score equally, where the contents are of the same impact on the existing body of knowledge in their areas of focus?
I am not fully agree that short communication should have the same impact as with full papers. Because few universities do not accept the paper published in short communication for the requirement of MS or PhD degree.
Brief report and research article published from same journal will have the same impact factor?
What is the difference between brief report and short communication? Are they same?
I wish this similar question, will clear the doubts of many along with me. Thank you
Brief report and research article published from same journal will have the same impact factor?
What is the difference between brief report and short communication? Are they same?
I wish this similar question, will clear the doubts of many along with me. Thank you
Brief report and research article published from same journal will have the same impact factor? What is the difference between brief report and short communication? Are they same? I wish this similar question, will clear the doubts of many along with me. Thank you
Brief report and research article published from same journal will have the same impact factor, What is the difference between brief report and short communication? Are they same. I wish this similar question, will clear the doubts of many along with me. Thank you
short communication carry same impact factor as review article as well as full length articles
I would say (as always) it depends. If its for your publication list of your CV, just numerical, then I would definitely say "yes". If you are talking about science as our universal effort to understand the world, of course its a "no" because the space is too limited and likely you would likely leave away information (or even data) in order to keep the format. But then, all too often, that applies to full articles too. On the other hand, it may even make a story more clear if its stripped down to the essentials. So, as already said, it depends..... ;-)
But in the end, of course the ONLY true measure of the quality of an article is seen over time only, how often it was cited in its field and wow many people build on it. That can take a long time to find out.
Short communication , briefs in a good journal always have impact in the scientific community. But technically I have the doubt whether a Short-communication in a good journal later be converted into a "Full / Regular" paper in the same / other journal of same category / stature is possible or not !!
A short communication in a high-impact journal is better than a long article in a low-impact journal. Avoid preliminary results in a short communication, but only in an abstract or letter, so they can finally be published in an original article. See http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/Recommendations attached pp8-9.
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