I'm working on a review of literature for a research proposal.  What's one good way of vetting journal articles given that there are predatory journals about?  Is the existence of a DOI enough to rule out the possibility a research article was published in a predatory journal?
45439
What are the best strategies for assessing if a journal is a &quot;vanity&quot; or &quot;predatory&quot; journal that should be avoided (both for publishing in and reviewing for)? For example, how would one go about determining if a journal/publisher belongs on ?
7846
I (an undergrad) and 2 other profs from my department have been working on something and we were thinking of submitting our work to a conference (a pretty well known one) this week. The fact is there is no related work that has been done on the problem we are solving and therefore there is no paper which we can cite as a starting point for our work. The only existing things that we make use of are trivial definitions from mathematics (like Riemann Integral) and also definitions that are pretty well known in my area (CS). So again, we do not think there is a need to cite any particular papers for that.   Now my question as stated was - is it acceptable to have a paper with no references? Or do you think we should just mention some papers (we never had to use them) where those definitions were actually proposed?  PS: I'm sure some of you might suggest me to ask those profs. But quite frankly none of them have much experience as far as publishing papers is concerned. So it would be great if some one could give me a good advice and help me out.   Edit: Thanks everyone for the answers. Of course somewhere a little sarcastic and ridiculing, but I can understand since this is a little weird. Actually yes, I had the notion that a paper wasn't worth citing unless I use some results from it (say an algo or some theorem). But I guess that isn't the only reason why I should be referencing as many seem to suggest here. The fact is we had seen quite a few survey papers before we started this out and I was under the impression that there wasn't a need to cite them since anyone could find them. But now, things are bit more clear and I guess I should cite them and I will :)
65941
Being a young researcher myself I received a comment from my colleague that some of the journals are paying reviewers for the reviewing process.  When I gave it a thought, it started to make more sense. In case of high quality, respected journal, an institution may consider itself privileged to have a reviewer of such journal and allow the reviewer to dedicate small proportion of his/her daily activities just on the reviewing process.  The reviewer being paid, has more obligations to provide thorough in depth review.  Does that hold true for some journals or is it just a myth?
42288
The recent question  made me realize that I don't have any understanding of why one would upload to a preprint site.  (I don't work in a field where they seem to be common.)  Why would one be concerned about getting a manuscript on arXiv, if it's already under review with a journal?   Is it because of the long publishing timeline of journals?  (That could explain why computer science &mdash; which publishes much more in conferences &mdash; doesn't seem to do much with them.)
10640
I managed to successfully publish my old bachelor thesis in a good quality national journal in my country. However, I am thinking of retracting the article due to certain circumstances. First, I felt really embarrassed by the low quality research methodology used in my bachelor thesis. I only used simple correlation in my research. After it was published, I realized that the journal editor team forgot to include a reference in that article because they were rushing me throughout the editing process. I informed them about their mistake and it seems that they have done nothing to fix the problem. I became a bit annoyed because the editor team has never made this problem in the past.  I felt that it would be better for me to simply ask for retraction to solve this issue, but I am a bit afraid of negative consequences in the future. Is it okay to do this? I am really interested of entering the academic world in the future.
52973
I am currently writing 2 conference papers. One is highly quantitative in nature and the other is absolutely qualitative in nature. I am submitting both papers to conferences having deadlines in the next couple of months.  The papers present results on 3 different research questions on the same topic and are highly related with each other. You could argue that paper A + paper B together present a holistic view of the answer to these research questions. Individually, paper A and paper B show a different side to the problem since you generally get alternate points of view from quantitative and qualitative works.   Since the papers and their results are highly interrelated, there exists a compelling reason for me to ensure that they cite each other. I have seen  question and  question which are also highly related to my question. However, my question is different enough, in my opinion to warrant a separate question.    How should I cite these papers? (one paper is going to be in APA style and the other will be in ACM style) Does it make good sense to contact the Associate Chairs of these conferences for further clarification? The most important question for me is, is this ethical? Does it not break the double blind review system? I am ready to not cite these papers if that is the case.   I am having conversations with my adviser about this but just want some broader perspective from different disciplines if I am somehow missing something.
36894
Many years ago, when I was very new to the world of scientific paper publishing, I was a co-author to a paper that was subsequently retracted after an investigation of the findings. This was before I did my PhD (was a Master's student in a different field that I am currently in).  To explain, my role in the data collection and analysis was quite specific, and in the investigation it was deemed that my part of the work was verifiable and sound. In hindsight, I have long realised that I should have taken on a more active role in proof-reading the article as a whole, cross checking the findings and being more active in the article writing process. For that, I have always taken responsibility - so, even though I do not have anything to do with the lead author anymore - I am not blaming anyone.  Since then, I have been co-author and first author of over a dozen more papers - many are published without difficulty (we check, cross-check and check everything again nowadays).  But, the question remains, in terms of applying for postdocs, funding, grants and the like - how damaging is it to have been a co-author of a retracted paper?
71854
Someday, as strange as it feels to me right now, I might be asked to review an article for publication. A while ago my advisor and I were talking about this, and it hit me that I don't really know how to be a good reviewer, beyond the basics:   Respond timely to things, Make your report clear and detailed, Have actually read the paper, Etc.   Beyond this, though, I'm completely in the dark. So I'd like to ask:     What's some good advice for a first-time reviewer?   My field is math, but I'm really interested in general advice (although advice specific to math, or another field, would also be interesting and useful).    I'd like to make this question "community wiki" or analogous, but I can't seem to figure out how - if someone can do so, please do, and then I will delete this paragraph.
88768
As a student, I make mistakes all the time, and stealing my idea will not face heavy retaliation. I don't mind if someone comes up with concurrent works, but I do mind if my key idea is leaked. Many graduate students in my field therefore only use pre-print services if their papers are either publicly presented or conditionally accepted. I am looking for a website that can do most of what ArXiv does, with an additional private option or limited visibility, for example an option to make the paper unindexed by search engines. This way, my paper cannot be seen for at least a few months. By doing so, I can at least claim that I am one of the first few researchers who got the idea right. And most importantly, I can privately correct my mistakes, if any. Publishing mistakes is embarrassing and sometimes harms one's career. Many mistakes will be revealed during the peer-review processes and I have a chance to correct them before publicizing. Please kindly think twice before giving ethically and &quot;politically correct&quot; comments like no one will scoop me, everyone will cite me, and the scoopers will be punished. At least in my field, scooping and idea-stealing is commonly observable, and big-names don't care about publicizing pre-prints because they have resources to punish the scoopers. I do understand that keeping my work private might harm the community as the information becomes less transparent. However, it could also be possible that my un-reviewed flawed works misguide the community, and a paper reviewed will benefit the society more. I personally wasted six months because of someone else's mistake in a published work.  I heard that in molecular biology there is a widely-used service to upload your research data, like protein structure and sequencing, to get a timestamp. The uploaded materials can be set to be private for a period, and fully disclosed later. A lot of people do use this function. This is not exactly what I am looking for but shares some similar ideas. If I remember correctly, there is an interesting paper studying the scooping patterns with the aid of this database.  Solutions found!  and some other university-run pre-print services do have an embargo function. Moreover,  is a widely used repository, that, unlike arxiv, only displays the newest version to the general public, although still keeps a tag on the first submitted date!
86569
I think the title asks the question, but once again in more words:  Suppose you submit a paper to a journal and it is accepted by the journal.  By this I mean that the journal tells you that they have decided to publish your paper but you have not submitted or examined final proofs and -- especially -- not signed any paperwork allowing the journal to publish the paper.    I wonder how people feel about the ethics of deciding not to go through with the publication because you now feel that the paper could be published in a better journal?  This could happen either because of outside feedback you received in the meantime or because of feedback from the referees/editors of the journal itself.  (Added: In case this was not clear, I am assuming that upon submission one was seeking to publish in that journal conditional on not learning that one has "shot way too low".)    As far as I can see, it is absolutely legal to do this, so I am not interested in the legality of it, but rather its ethics and ramifications as an academic practice.  I also think I will get better answers if I do not telegraph my own feelings about this; I will be happy to document them later on.  Let me just say (i) this is a hypothetical question, but (ii) based on my own experience it is not ridiculous that it might be in the interest of the author to engage in this practice, if it happened to be kosher to all parties involved.  Note: I had previously asked a related question, at the time wondering whether it would be better asked separately.  Based on the way things have gone thus far, I now think it is better to post this followup question separately (not necessarily right away).
73888
Please submit, with the manuscript, the names, addresses (including   countries), and e-mail addresses of five potential referees who are   outside the authors' institutions and must not have conflict of   interest with the authors.   Do you think I should name 5 researchers from a similar area that are not affiliated with my university and co-authors? Is this what referees are?
58807
I noticed that, for each research project, there comes a point where I have to consult the literature, and find all the previous research related to the current project.  Unfortunately, I seem to be very inefficient in my approach. I spend a lot of time digging through papers that are really interesting, but only of tangential importance to my current work, just to find the few papers that actually do similar things. (The pile of "cool paper, read when time" just keeps growing.)  Hence, I'm wondering: What is the most time efficient way to get a thorough overview of the literature in a specific niche of a field?    While searching for an answer I came across these questions:   - This question is quite similar and I liked the approach. I debated with myself if this is a duplicate, but I think it is focused more on how to be sure the search was exhaustive, whereas I'm worried about time efficiency. (Also, I'm a bit curious if things have changed since 2012.)   - The answer provides tips on how to identify what literature generally is important in a field, but I am looking for the most cost effective (least time consuming) way to do it in an area, where I know the broad literature, but not the specifics.
91631
I am working to get a PhD, maybe next year this time around. Currently, this is my second year. I have published 3 papers. All of them are not about one problem but consider different problems. My strategy to find a research idea/problem is given below.  1 - Read papers whose titles are either interesting or I have some apriori understanding of those titles.  2 - Understand those papers as best as I can. That is, I try to understand each detail presented in the paper except the simulation results (this is because I think simulation results are hard to reproduce).  3 - I analyze the paper and try to find a very small problem which can be addressed (i.e. I can solve it) by the methodology of the paper.  4 - If I am successful at step 3 I start working on that problem otherwise I repeat the process from step 1.  By applying this strategy I have been able to write 3 papers and I have submitted a fourth (I am not satisfied with those papers because at very best they can be considered average papers). But my concern is that the problems addressed in those papers do not belong to one area. As far as I have seen, for the profiles of some of the renowned researchers in my field their PhD work is focused on one area. One main thing I console myself with is that almost all of those researchers had good supervisors. My supervisor does not even read the draft/reviews of my papers and the suggestions that he provides during the meetings are so broad that the problem becomes intractable. Under these circumstances what are your opinions: Is there any better strategy to do research?   I will be very thankful to you for providing me suggestions or commenting on my dilemma.
89329
Alice and Bob have co-authored a paper together. The contribution (data collection, analysis, writing) was 100% Alice and 0% Bob, except that the original idea was initiated during a conversation between Alice and Bob. Bob acknowledged several times in private that he did not contribute to the project, but he claimed co-authorship for the idea and Alice did not object to that. Alice spent almost an entire year working on the project. Bob spent less than a couple of hours in total. A manuscript with both names has already been circulated, submitted and rejected from one journal.  Bob is now trying to block the publication of the paper due to a personal conflict with Alice. In the meantime, Bob became envious of Alice's early successes and decided to do everything to slow down her career, even at the expense of his own publication record. Bob is already tenured and has no pressure to publish. Alice, by contrast, needs more publications for her forthcoming tenure review. Of course, Bob never explicitly refused to submit the paper. But instead of sending it to a prestigious outlet (where the paper would have a good shot) he insists that they send the manuscript to a non peer-reviewed and unknown journal, which would not help Alice's tenure case. Of course he makes no effort in trying to find an agreement, as he would be happy not to submit the paper at all. Clearly, his decisions are driven by spite and malevolence only and he takes great care into not writing anything incriminating for him.  Is there anything that Alice can do in that situation? Does she have to resign herself to never publishing the paper? What are the risks for her if she removes Bob's name without his agreement and submits the manuscript on her own?  PS: as a response to Captain Emacs' comment, Bob's only contribution was to say "why don't we study the causal effect of X on Y?" in an informal conversation. Alice did absolutely all the rest (literature review, design of the protocol, data collection, analysis, conference presentations, etc.). But there is no evidence of this, other than the fact that Bob would be unable to answer any question that goes into the detail of the paper.
113618
If an article, theorem, etc. is unpublished, presumably the work is only available to people who track down the author and get a draft copy. Today we have arXiv and can find many preprints on the Internet, but people have been citing unpublished works longer than arXiv has been around. It seems like an unscrupulous author could claim anything he wants, cite an unpublished work that doesn't support his claim (or even one that doesn't exist), and get away with it unless the bad claim is caught in the review process.  I suppose the reviewers could ask for a copy of the cited work, but I recently saw a citation that was just "private communication 1981" for a paper published in 1985, and that could easily have been a phone call where no record could be provided to a reviewer.  I've never published anything myself, so maybe I'm unaware of a part of the review process that is meant to catch this, but what prevents authors from making bad citations of unpublished works?
109308
While writing the literature review for my paper, I found another paper which is closely related to my research. Unfortunately, the paper’s publisher is on . Hence, I wonder if citing the paper will have any negative impact on my paper.
101970
From time to time, I cannot access a reference of an article that I am reviewing, either because my university did not  to some journals (and I failed to find it myself on , Google, and other places), or because the article doesn't seem to be available online.  Pinging the authors of the article (either the one that I am reviewing or the one that was cited) may work, but not always: legal issues (some publishers do not allow sharing papers online), unanswered emails, blind review preventing from contacting authors, etc.  Shall I just ignore the cited article in that case, even though it could be useful to review the article? Or are there other options, aside from asking my library to pay for it (hoping they would agree)?