It is an old discussion but still such topics are needed to be raised in modern times to understand the approach of the system. Scientific writing: Is quality important or quantity? Although I am not a policy maker, but still I want to know that why some organizations prefer to have high quantity and compromise on quality. What advantages do we get from such a research which has no constructive application in the society?? Please feel free to answer and comment.
In my joint paper with Torbjörn Larsson - "Subben's checklist and the quality of articles in OR", published about a year ago in Computers & Operations Research - we discuss what a complete article is, and how to assess the article's quality. Those lists should be used both when writing a paper, and for a referee that assesses it.
While it is difficult to make statements that cover every scientific discipline, it is clear to me that the world of publishing is in a bad state.
- When someone looks for a new job in science, there is hardly anyone who is capable, willing AND able to actually assess the submitted papers in detail. (It's not only the fault of the scientist being asked to assess the submission - most scientists simply have too much to do everyday to be able to focus enough strongly and for a sufficiently long time on the assessment of the submitted papers.Hence, as you mention, the only criterion will be a simple count of the number of papers, perhaps weighted by that rusty old measure called the Impact Factor.
- When someone submits a paper to a scientific journal, most journals will nowadays have a much more sloppy refereeing system going; plenty of journals even guarantee a verdict in a couple of weeks; how serious is that!? I know of a few journals that still maintain a high profile - a serious refereeing system - and therefore they are held in high regard, but plenty of journals will publish almost anything, especially if the journal is of the publication-cost-per-page open access type.
When I was a PhD student we did not have access to databases on our computers, through which we could quickly search for papers, download, browse, and perhaps add to our database. We had Science Citation Index books, where you browsed subjects according to a classification system, looking for hours on end for abstracts in the relevant sections that hinted that they could be of interest, and used reference lists of those potentially good papers to search for more.
We had a telex machine that was hooked up to an Italian data base, costing a fortune every hour. The telex machine was fed with carefully selected search terms, and back would come broad sheets of paper with hits - typically only article titles, that might be relevant, or not. Those that were interesting were then telexed again in order to obtain the abstracts. Those that were identified as potentially good were then looked up physically in the library shelves. This way research of course took longer in some ways, but the system also made us keep us focused - focus is a nowadays lacking everywhere! :-)
The fact that we were more focused meant - I think - that the paper took longer to write, but its completeness was more or less ensured. Hence I can safely say that the average quality was higher, while we definitely wrote less papers per year. I can guarantee you that the papers that I am the most fond of are not those that were done quickly - I do have a few of those as well - but those that caused sweat and hard work. And they are the ones that now are cited the most, and have been the most influential!
I know, by experience from open-access journals and others, that the publishing business is in a bad state. The editors will ask you to add as many papers into the reference list that you can that are published in the same journal, in order to inflate their scores. They do all they can to make YOU work, but they do very little for you.
I will probably embark on a project to assess this process over time - how something that used to be ok to take time and become complete, nowadays much more often is quickly assembled just because you need yet another paper published - one that most probably never will be read by anyone, not even fully by the reviewers. :-)
There are still journals that have a high profile - you should find them and remain with them!
Mr. Partriksson,
Thank your answer. I think your answer is a guideline to many new researchers. I would definitely take your advice and will try to keep on with the quality.
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