Thought of the day
March 20, 2014
If you don’t ever publish papers that are only of interest to yourself….that’s sad.
DrugMonkey
biomedical research, just another job…
Recent Comments
biomedical research, just another job…
If you don’t ever publish papers that are only of interest to yourself….that’s sad.
DrugMonkey 
March 20, 2014 at 8:56 am
That sentence is a little hard to parse, but are you saying you should sometimes publish things just as a little present to yourself, even if they have no relevance to anything in the outside world?
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March 20, 2014 at 9:01 am
This is in response to a suggestion that if you have papers that are never cited by anyone other than yourself that this is bad. I agree that if nobody is interested in any of your work, this might be a problem.
But if you never, ever pump out a paper that isn’t cited? I think that is unfortunate. It implies a lack of independent scientific interest to me. It implies you aren’t following your own muse enough.
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March 20, 2014 at 9:01 am
(and now I better check if I have any papers that qualify)
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March 20, 2014 at 12:12 pm
I published a paper no one gives a shit about. It’s an h-index millstone around my neck.
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March 20, 2014 at 12:39 pm
Papers can’t subtract from h-index….only improve.
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March 21, 2014 at 4:14 am
“But if you never, ever pump out a paper that isn’t cited? I think that is unfortunate. It implies a lack of independent scientific interest to me. ”
What? It’s the first day of spring – a little too early for April fool’s.
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March 22, 2014 at 3:12 am
Eli has a two pager with NO cites that pretty much killed off an entire experimental method.
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March 22, 2014 at 7:15 am
The only papers I’ve ever published with no citations are ones that just came out. A few weeks ago.
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March 23, 2014 at 5:20 am
Well, one doesn’t necessarily know whether a seemingly trivial and whimsical foray into navel-gazing might actually end up being of interest to others. So one should arguably publish that sort of stuff and let the mob be its judge…
… unless, of course… it concerns some hair-brained Friday afternoon experiments on the proteomics of bong water or whathaveyou. That shit needs to just stay on one’s hard drive where it cannot offend the rational sensibilities of one’s fellow right-minded colleagues. Navel-gazing is one thing; wondering around the playground in a dirty mac flashing the fruits of one’s questionably pertinent exertions is quite another.
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March 23, 2014 at 5:38 am
Do self-citations count?
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March 24, 2014 at 3:39 pm
Why publish something that you think others won’t care about?
That’s like putting movies of yourself masturbating on the internet.
Oh, wait…
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March 24, 2014 at 4:40 pm
I thought that looked like the other Dave in the video…
Oh wait…
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