RE: [tips] Are You Past Your Peak or Strange Publication Practices
Thanks for sharing this additional bit of information, Mike. I had also noticed some discrepancies in dates of published articles identified by Google Scholar. I hope I am wrong, but I believe that some of these new trends in science publishing (e.g., news articles based on press releases, the rise of predatory publishers) will ultimately result in the further erosion of the public's trust in science. Regarding EPA ... Ugh ... I feel I must share my odyssey of what happened. My plan had been to attend the meeting for just one day as I am recuperating from foot surgery and still hobbling around in crutches. Our poster was scheduled for 8:00 Friday and because of the 6-8 inches of snow that were scheduled to fall (and did fall) on Thursday and out of concern for his safety, I had earlier on Wednesday talked the one student of the group who had planned to attend to stay home and not do the drive by himself on Thursday evening. So, on Friday I left my house at 4:30 AM for what would normally have been a 2.5 hour drive to Philadelphia, budgeting another hour to account for rush hour and other traffic delays, registration, etc. But, the roads in my area (Monmouth County) were in such poor condition that 45 minutes into the trip after seeing a couple of cars fish-tailing in front of me I decided to turn around. I just thought I would not have made it in time for our poster. I note that there was a 35 mile per hour posted speed limit for the two major arteries in that part of NJ: The Garden State Parkway with barely two lanes open out of 3 and also in the NJ Turnpike. Ironically, and I am totally mortified after I learned this news, a colleague of mine who had left Staten Island at around 6:00 AM made it to the hotel by 8:15!. It turns out that, in spite of the posted 35 mph speed limit, the NJ Turnpike was in very good shape and there was little traffic getting there. Live and learn ... Miguel From: Mike Palij [m...@nyu.edu] Sent: Saturday, March 07, 2015 9:29 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Cc: Michael Palij Subject: RE: [tips] Are You Past Your Peak or Strange Publication Practices On Sat, 07 Mar 2015 11:23:58 -0800, Miguel Roig wrote: Mike, it would not surprise me if what you describe will soon become a trend in science publishing representing a step beyond the now familiar 'online ahead-of-print' approach. I hope not but it certainly is one way to generate interest in an article before it comes out. Another strange thing publishers are doing is adding a published online date for old articles. That is, an article may have been published in a journal during the 1980s but wasn't converted into an electronic format and available on the publishers website until, say, 2006. This appears to confuse some of the software that tracks publications and their citations (e.g., scholar.google.com). I am co-author on a paper that was originally published in the late 1990s but made available online in the middle of 2000s and it shows up as two publications in some searches. This makes no sense to me. Be that as it may, and given that some types of press releases are known contain plenty of spin (and so do some journal articles themselves!), http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1001308, one can only hope that the news article is in the APS website is based on a review of the actual soon-to-be-published-on-line-ahead-of-print paper and not based on a press release or some other news media summary of that work. Thanks for the link to the above article. I guess that celebrity culture is making greater inroads into scientific publications. It's always been there but I think to a small degree. It seems to be growing. One wonders which group of researchers will be the equivalent of the Kardashians. ;-) -Mike Palij New York University m...@nyu.edu P.S. I hope your EPA presentation went well. __ From: Mike Palij [m...@nyu.edu] Sent: Saturday, March 07, 2015 9:56 AM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Cc: Michael Palij Subject: [tips] Are You Past Your Peak or Strange Publication Practices Did you know that certain types of cognitive skills APPEAR to peak at certain ages? For example, it once was believed the knowledge of vocabulary peaked in the late 40s but newer data suggests it peaks in the late 60s or early 70s -- though it is unclear how this is affected by the rate of introduction of neologisms (i.e., new words) into common usage as well as reading patterns, media exposure, social interactions, and a bunch of other variables. I was vaguely aware of such things (I'm working on figuring out whether there are critical period for certain cognitive abilities or merely sensitive periods) but I became aware of this because I read a news article from the MIT news office on research conducted by two MIT'ers. You can read it here: https
RE: [tips] Are You Past Your Peak or Strange Publication Practices
On Sun, 08 Mar 2015 05:06:08 -0700, Miguel Roig wrote: Thanks for sharing this additional bit of information, Mike. I had also noticed some discrepancies in dates of published articles identified by Google Scholar. I hope I am wrong, but I believe that some of these new trends in science publishing (e.g., news articles based on press releases, the rise of predatory publishers) will ultimately result in the further erosion of the public's trust in science. I think that the general public is only dimly aware of these things but specific political/business/ideological groups are more likely to know about these problems and exploit them for their own ends. Regarding EPA ... Ugh ... I feel I must share my odyssey of what happened. My plan had been to attend the meeting for just one day as I am recuperating from foot surgery and still hobbling around in crutches. Our poster was scheduled for 8:00 Friday and because of the 6-8 inches of snow that were scheduled to fall (and did fall) on Thursday and out of concern for his safety, I had earlier on Wednesday talked the one student of the group who had planned to attend to stay home and not do the drive by himself on Thursday evening. So, on Friday I left my house at 4:30 AM for what would normally have been a 2.5 hour drive to Philadelphia, budgeting another hour to account for rush hour and other traffic delays, registration, etc. But, the roads in my area (Monmouth County) were in such poor condition that 45 minutes into the trip after seeing a couple of cars fish-tailing in front of me I decided to turn around. I just thought I would not have made it in time for our poster. I note that there was a 35 mile per hour posted speed limit for the two major arteries in that part of NJ: The Garden State Parkway with barely two lanes open out of 3 and also in the NJ Turnpike. Ironically, and I am totally mortified after I learned this news, a colleague of mine who had left Staten Island at around 6:00 AM made it to the hotel by 8:15!. It turns out that, in spite of the posted 35 mph speed limit, the NJ Turnpike was in very good shape and there was little traffic getting there. I'm sorry to hear of your difficulties but if it will make you feel any better, I think that Staten Island may have had better access to the Garden State Parkway (NYC clearing of roads in SI and NJ making access roads to NYC clear). Let me share a story, especially since we just sprung ahead into Daylight Saving Time: EPA has a tendency to be held on the weekend that this change occurs and back in the 1990s when I was more involved in EPA matters, I was chairing a session at 8am on SUNDAY morning. The session had six speakers, 3 per hour for the 8-10am slot. I stayed at the hotel so I could get to the meeting room early and make sure that everything was set-up properly. When I got there, there were only three speakers: 1 from the 8-9 slot and 2 from the 9-10 slot. At first I didn't understand but then remembered that we had the time change on Sunday morning. Fortunately, the first speaker was there and the second speaker showed up late, and the three speakers for the second hour were all there. But the third speaker wasn't there. I started the session and hoped that the third speaker would show up eventually. After the second speaker finished and the third speaker was a no-show, I decided to provide a brief description of what the third speaker might have said (I had the long abstract that the speaker had submitted and had some familiarity with the topic). So, I spoke for about 5 minutes, told the audience that if they wanted more information to write to the speaker to get a copy of the paper that was supposed to be presented, and I then said let's break until 9am so that we'll stay on schedule. When 9am came around, the scheduled speaker gave his presentation. Then the person who was supposed to give the talk at 8:40am showed up. During the question period he came up to me, told me that he had forgot to set his clock ahead, and was sorry about being late. I said it was okay and that I'd tell the audience that he was here if anyone wanted to talk to him about his presentation. I would later recommend to EPA NOT to hold its meeting during such time changes. The only worse situation I've been involved with was a session at Psychonomics which I chaired and was one of the last sessions on a Sunday afternoon (I think it was a 2-4 slot; they too met from Friday to Sunday back in the day). At the beginning of the session only two of the presenters were there. I started to worry that I was going to have give a bunch of summaries and/or end the session earlier. Instead, presenters showed up when their talk was scheduled and left when it was over. One of the speakers was a well-known memory researcher who did this and I was disappointed by the lack of professionalism shown by the people did this. But I guess since it was the last session,
RE: [tips] Are You Past Your Peak or Strange Publication Practices
Mike, it would not surprise me if what you describe will soon become a trend in science publishing representing a step beyond the now familiar 'online ahead-of-print' approach. Be that as it may, and given that some types of press releases are known contain plenty of spin (and so do some journal articles themselves!), http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1001308, one can only hope that the news article is in the APS website is based on a review of the actual soon-to-be-published-on-line-ahead-of-print paper and not based on a press release or some other news media summary of that work. Miguel __ From: Mike Palij [m...@nyu.edu] Sent: Saturday, March 07, 2015 9:56 AM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Cc: Michael Palij Subject: [tips] Are You Past Your Peak or Strange Publication Practices Did you know that certain types of cognitive skills APPEAR to peak at certain ages? For example, it once was believed the knowledge of vocabulary peaked in the late 40s but newer data suggests it peaks in the late 60s or early 70s -- though it is unclear how this is affected by the rate of introduction of neologisms (i.e., new words) into common usage as well as reading patterns, media exposure, social interactions, and a bunch of other variables. I was vaguely aware of such things (I'm working on figuring out whether there are critical period for certain cognitive abilities or merely sensitive periods) but I became aware of this because I read a news article from the MIT news office on research conducted by two MIT'ers. You can read it here: https://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/brain-peaks-at-different-ages-0306 But, hey, the research described is supposed to be published in the Association for Psychological Sciences' (APS) journal Psychological Science and I thought Hey, I'm a member of APS, why don't I go over to the APS website and get a copy of the article!?! So I go over to the APS website, go to the section for Psychological Science and do a search for one of the authors (Joshua Hartshorne). And this is what I found: http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/releases/cognitive-skills-peak-at-different-ages-across-adulthood.html This is basically a news article based on the MIT news article (there's a link at the bottom of the page that connects to the MIT page for additional info). A sidebar box to the APS article says: For a copy of the research article and access to other Psychological Science research findings, please contact: And I got to wondering: wait a minute, I'm already on the APS website, the articles imply that the research is published in Psychological Science, so where is it? If it isn't available to APS member yet, why was it made available to the media? If you search for Joshua Hartshorne and Laura Gemine in news.google.com you'll find a growing number of mass media websites reporting on this research (they all could be relying on the MIT press release instead of the original article). This raises the question of why one would want to release research to the popular media before the official release of the research article? How is one to evaluate how accurate the reporting is in the popular media account if one does not have the original research article? Is this shameless self-promotion or the well intentioned desire to make readily available important research results? But if it is the latter, why isn't a pre-publication version of the article made available (I can't find any link to it on either the MIT or APS sites; I did not bother to go to Hartshorne's website to see if it is there -- it also does not seem to show up on scholar.google.com). So, what is going on? -Mike Palij New York University m...@nyu.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: ro...@stjohns.edu. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=1632838.7e62b84813297f170a6fc240dab8c12dn=Tl=tipso=42842 or send a blank email to leave-42842-1632838.7e62b84813297f170a6fc240dab8c...@fsulist.frostburg.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@mail-archive.com. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5n=Tl=tipso=42865 or send a blank email to leave-42865-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
RE: [tips] Are You Past Your Peak or Strange Publication Practices
On Sat, 07 Mar 2015 11:23:58 -0800, Miguel Roig wrote: Mike, it would not surprise me if what you describe will soon become a trend in science publishing representing a step beyond the now familiar 'online ahead-of-print' approach. I hope not but it certainly is one way to generate interest in an article before it comes out. Another strange thing publishers are doing is adding a published online date for old articles. That is, an article may have been published in a journal during the 1980s but wasn't converted into an electronic format and available on the publishers website until, say, 2006. This appears to confuse some of the software that tracks publications and their citations (e.g., scholar.google.com). I am co-author on a paper that was originally published in the late 1990s but made available online in the middle of 2000s and it shows up as two publications in some searches. This makes no sense to me. Be that as it may, and given that some types of press releases are known contain plenty of spin (and so do some journal articles themselves!), http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1001308, one can only hope that the news article is in the APS website is based on a review of the actual soon-to-be-published-on-line-ahead-of-print paper and not based on a press release or some other news media summary of that work. Thanks for the link to the above article. I guess that celebrity culture is making greater inroads into scientific publications. It's always been there but I think to a small degree. It seems to be growing. One wonders which group of researchers will be the equivalent of the Kardashians. ;-) -Mike Palij New York University m...@nyu.edu P.S. I hope your EPA presentation went well. __ From: Mike Palij [m...@nyu.edu] Sent: Saturday, March 07, 2015 9:56 AM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Cc: Michael Palij Subject: [tips] Are You Past Your Peak or Strange Publication Practices Did you know that certain types of cognitive skills APPEAR to peak at certain ages? For example, it once was believed the knowledge of vocabulary peaked in the late 40s but newer data suggests it peaks in the late 60s or early 70s -- though it is unclear how this is affected by the rate of introduction of neologisms (i.e., new words) into common usage as well as reading patterns, media exposure, social interactions, and a bunch of other variables. I was vaguely aware of such things (I'm working on figuring out whether there are critical period for certain cognitive abilities or merely sensitive periods) but I became aware of this because I read a news article from the MIT news office on research conducted by two MIT'ers. You can read it here: https://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/brain-peaks-at-different-ages-0306 But, hey, the research described is supposed to be published in the Association for Psychological Sciences' (APS) journal Psychological Science and I thought Hey, I'm a member of APS, why don't I go over to the APS website and get a copy of the article!?! So I go over to the APS website, go to the section for Psychological Science and do a search for one of the authors (Joshua Hartshorne). And this is what I found: http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/releases/cognitive-skills-peak-at-different-ages-across-adulthood.html This is basically a news article based on the MIT news article (there's a link at the bottom of the page that connects to the MIT page for additional info). A sidebar box to the APS article says: For a copy of the research article and access to other Psychological Science research findings, please contact: And I got to wondering: wait a minute, I'm already on the APS website, the articles imply that the research is published in Psychological Science, so where is it? If it isn't available to APS member yet, why was it made available to the media? If you search for Joshua Hartshorne and Laura Gemine in news.google.com you'll find a growing number of mass media websites reporting on this research (they all could be relying on the MIT press release instead of the original article). This raises the question of why one would want to release research to the popular media before the official release of the research article? How is one to evaluate how accurate the reporting is in the popular media account if one does not have the original research article? Is this shameless self-promotion or the well intentioned desire to make readily available important research results? But if it is the latter, why isn't a pre-publication version of the article made available (I can't find any link to it on either the MIT or APS sites; I did not bother to go to Hartshorne's website to see if it is there -- it also does not seem to show up on scholar.google.com). So, what is going on? --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@mail-archive.com. To unsubscribe click here:
