They’re writing a Nature paper!

Abstract

IT WAS John Lawton, I think, who many years ago referred to a tendency of researchers to respond to a question about their research interests with a detailed description of the complex analyses they intended to apply to their data. Sadly, the points of real interest — the organisms they worked on and why they felt the work mattered - were buried under the sediment of statistical sophistication. Such answers still occur, but in my experience they are often replaced by mention of the journal in which the work was (or is hoped to be) published, or citation statistics about the impact of a publication. A typical exchange might be: ‘What is x’s group working on at the moment?’ ‘It’s pretty exciting — they’re working on a Nature paper. They’ve involved y, whose papers routinely receive over 100 citations, so it’s going to be big.’ Of course, one is pleased for x’s group — if the grand plan comes off — but what exactly are they writing about and why is this topic big news? This growing tendency to spout a journal name or ‘citation potential’ instead of discussing the work puts the focus on the social context of doing science rather than the findings.