There is a significant wave in publishing lots of papers on scientific journals. However, is that really relevant? What is better, publishing 10 papers in a year or 1 or 2 really good papers that makes significant contributions (practical and theoretical) ?
What is your view on that?
Quality is more important than quantity when it comes to publishing research. Thus two quality papers, albeit long, are better than multiple mediocre papers during a year's time period.
The response depends on who's answering. For a senior scientist, yet one more paper may mean almost nothing. For such a scholar it may be more important WHERE it is published, or with WHOM. For a junior ditto it probably is a lot different, as she/he needs to prove her/his worth to the community; for the latter category, the "where" may matter less.
Just remember this when you talk about quality: there is no such thing as "a quality paper". "Quality" is a rather fuzzy term whose scale along which may mean different things for different people. In any case, the term "quality paper" says NOTHING - except that something lies somewhere along a scale (from low to high quality). A "quality paper" hence is just a paper - it does NOT make a remark on its quality, however you define it. Learn English.
Guilherme - For any researcher (but most likely to be neophyte researchers as Michael hints at) quantity over quality is not a good idea. There is a mistaken belief that quantity impresses - but that is not always the case. If researchers are publishing 'anything, anywhere' - then it could actually be damaging to reputation. Better a single, quality article in an established, reputable journal than several in others. It is far more likely to be read, cited and impact practice. That is what employers are really looking for - rather than numbers of publications. In this scenario - best to accept the limitation that a quality focus on publication(i.e. high impact, high citation) usually equates to decreased number of outputs - especially as review processes, time-to-publication etc are longer in such journals - but, overall, is probably more desirable. Do heed Michael's warning as well that quality can be subjective - although established metrics i.e. IFs and Q-ratings (no matter how flawed) offer some form of established benchmark.
@ Guilherme Frederico No doubt quality wins over quantity. Conducting a good quality research and getting it published in a reputed journal or presenting it in a conference should be the aim of a researcher. Not only this, the research must add some thing new to the universe of knowledge.
Always publish a good article based on actual facts and figures that can benefit to society.
Hoarding of many articles is not a better way of research.....
Guilherme - A good quality paper published in a top ranking journal can fetch a person a job or a promotion and a reputation for carrying a good research. It is always better to publish papers in good quality journals than in low standard journals.
It is not necessary for a junior to publish in bulk to prove his/her worth to the community. My experience shows me that during interviews for jobs and promotions, quality has an edge over quantity.
There should always be quality and impact. With new authors there is also their professional and working context to consider. Academic REF is always a consideration, and discussions on what star a paper can contribute. I believe publication is like a journey, you start out to publish and get your first article, and all the family and friends you know get a copy! As you progress (with a good mentor in publication and research) you begin to look at the quality depth and significance of your outputs. I always ask what impact or difference will my article bring. I am not a prolific publisher and I am still learning the 'ropes', but as Dean notes considering what you publish is so important.
:-) The English teacher inside of me cringes. We do not have "a quality paper" but instead "a paper of high quality", or maybe "a paper A that is quite a lot better than another paper B" - so now I hope you see that there is NO information whatsoever in stating that you have written a "quality paper" - as it literally only means that it lies somewhere on a scale where at one end we have worthless junk, and in the other Nobel prize contenders. Ok? The word quality on its own means nothing. And if you still phrase your sentences using "quality paper" instead of something like "a very good paper in relation to that other one", or even "I have seen no better paper in the field than paper Q", I shall ask every editor I know to haunt you, and hunt you down. :-)
Nobel prize's winner Lev Landau had less than 30 papers in all his life (+ the famous course of theoretical physics too, of course).
Publishing in a high impact journal is undoubtedly the best way to go!
Researchers must follow the philosophy i.e. quality always wins over quantity. To add something new to the universe of knowledge should be the aim of researcher otherwise its better not to publish..
Quantity and quality are two separate things. I belives that quality is more important then quantity.
Writing THE great paper that everyone in a field will cite for many years, I should think, will trump quite many ordinary ones; I just can't provide a figure, as how hard it is to publish in very good journals are not uniform over all sciences. But I would rather have a few extremely good and influential ones than, say, 200 ordinary.
As difficult, as it is to publish in high impact journals, it is better one strive to publish in them no matter how few, hence, make a unique contribution to knowledge. For me, quality over quantity!.
Publish your research at the best level that you can make. Don't look on the number of papers per year.
Regards
GB
These are two extremes. The reality is in-between. In an ideal world, better less but of a high quality
The lab head or department boss would not be cut out for her/his job if her/his position would be that "the more papers the better" - as it would, most often, result in shallow papers, that no-one would read, because the contribution is too small. Since we would like to contribute to making an impact for yourself and your university, you should strive for a few excellent papers, published in journals with a conscience and a strive for knowledge and excellence - rather than money.
Those universities that implement systems in which you get a type of bonus for each paper published should be blacklisted. Why? Because it creates an incentive to write just rubbish.
I think the story is completely different from one country to another one and even university to university. In well known universities they encourage to publish in high ranked journals and other universities just look for the number and figure.
At the beginning I should think that it is easy to have the notion that you should/must publish rather quickly, in order to make a name for yourself, and to make sure that you have enough good papers when you reach the stage when you shall defend your PhD dissertation.
On the other hand this must not be a go-ahead to publish luke-warm, incomplete, and disconnected papers in parasitical journals that you might be (almost) ashamed of a few years on. Take the good advise from your peers, and your supervisor(s), so that you will have a few journal papers that you - and them - can be proud of many years later!
Also, while you learn, and eventually publish papers, you will probably to come to terms with what type of writer you are, or want to be - and you might not even notice the changes ... :-)
Highly citeed papers are required for reputation. These are essential.
To become a highly cited researcher volume publishing is necessary. There are no highly cited researchers with a production on 1-2 papers per year. This is insufficient.
Of the 2.5 million articles published each year, it is estimated that nearly half have not been cited after five years. Between 10-20% of those cited, have been only by the same authors in other articles. At some point, researchers stop being people and become numbers to compare.
Good quality papers usually depend on the work you have done, which means they are not be guaranteed by clear targets. So just publish you work no matter the quality, and try to improve the quality of your work.
If anybody having useful research work to publish, than go for it ...... no matter whats the no. it may be 1 or....... 10!
There is a sad story behind this: plenty of "scholars" - yes, in quotes! - have a symbiosis with shamelessly bad journals that take your money and print whatever baloney you have written - with basically no real editor in sight. The only ones who gain are the publisher and editor, as with the lousy papers that will result from publishing with journals without a conscience is - basically - worthless. At least it is useless for the reader ...
Perhaps the corruption has gone even further; perhaps entire universities have deals with some shady publishers who prints any open-access junk? In that case, I would sue them for their immoral conduct. :-)
As long as each paper has a meaningful message and high-quality scientific content, publish as many articles as you can.
Xingrui Chen I find your message disturbing: "So just publish you work no matter the quality, and try to improve the quality of your work."
I advise you to NOT publish anything that you are not very proud of. What is the use of a paper that you are not proud of?? Publishing for the sole purpose of shelling out yet another paper is very wrong - you shall only publish a paper that is complete, solves an important problem, and is well-written - that's what you should do!
Do you really want to be redundant in the world of science???
Now get to work!! :-)
Take special care to the issue of Aim and Goal!
Scientific publications should not be considered as posts in social media. They have to be Like-refractory! If so, the number and the quality do not make any sense!
Great question. I planned to start this discussion which is hazardous for research environment and human resources. I have seen some papers which have been published one month ago and they have more that 20 citations in google scholars.
There are some reasons to accelerate publishing many papers, instead of publishing one or few high impact articles.
1. Universities, governments, scholarships look on your citations and number of papers. Even for employing a faculty member, number of papers is the most important factor. Students who are going to apply for a university need papers. Professors need citation and so on.
2. Social media in research such as Researchgate and google scholars persuade and push people to compete and hence increase their citation.
All in all, I think it is required that sociologists study about this and researchers should have more conceptual discussions about the trends of research.
Best regards,
The number does not matter. Publish your work and it will find its way if it is good enough.
In my view it depends on your "academic title and aim". If you are a research assistant/PHd student and need for publications to finish your doctorate or to become Asst.Prof. you can publish "many articles". But after finishing PHd, more quality papers are better.
Different researchers can have the different abilities to do the same work in a stipulated time according to the intensity of their involvement in the research. However, the quality of the research should not be compromised as a published research is a scope and inspiration for the new ones.
Ghasem Eisaabadi No it won't be visible if you do not advertise it. The world of publishing is so vast that your screaming will not be heard at all.
The phrase "quality paper" is only used by those who do not understand English. Let me explain: "quality" carries with it a measure - a paper can be good, it can suck to high heaven, or it can be by darn the best you ever read. But there does NOT exist a "quality paper." Now get to work! :-)
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