Another unfortunate aspect of this sort of editorial policy is that many of these papers contain almost no technical information at all, except for the supplement. I've started to avoid using Nature papers for class discussions becuase they leave the students so puzzled, and with a glossiness-is-all-that-matters idea of science.
===================================== Phoebe A. Rice Dept. of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology The University of Chicago phone 773 834 1723 http://bmb.bsd.uchicago.edu/Faculty_and_Research/01_Faculty/01_Faculty_Alphabetically.php?faculty_id=123 http://www.rsc.org/shop/books/2008/9780854042722.asp ---- Original message ---- >Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2010 17:12:26 +0000 >From: CCP4 bulletin board <CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK> (on behalf of John R >Helliwell <jrhelliw...@gmail.com>) >Subject: Re: [ccp4bb] Citations in supplementary material >To: CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK > >Dear Victor, >I strongly support the stance that is in the Acta D Editorial. >Manfred Weiss worked very hard assembling those details and over quite >some time; he deserves our thanks. >Greetings, >John > > >On Wed, Nov 17, 2010 at 4:06 PM, Victor Lamzin <vic...@embl-hamburg.de> wrote: >> Dear All, >> >> I would like to bring to your attention the recent Editorial in Acta Cryst D >> (http://journals.iucr.org/d/issues/2010/12/00/issconts.html), which >> highlights the long-standing issue of under-citation of papers published in >> the IUCr journals. The Editorial, having looked at the papers published in >> 2009 in Nature, Science, Cell and PNAS, concluded: >> >> 'almost half of all references to publications in IUCr journals end up being >> published in the supplementary material only... Not only does this mean that >> the impact factor of IUCr journals should be higher, but also that the real >> overall numbers of citations of methods papers are much higher than what is >> reported, for instance, by the Web of Science' >> >> Although this topic may seem to concern mostly methods developers, I think >> the whole research community will only benefit from more fair credit that we >> all give to our colleagues via referencing their publications. What do you >> think? >> >> Victor >> > > > >-- >Professor John R Helliwell DSc
