Abstract
This journal strives to publish high quality scientific information and we are quite fortunate to receive numerous manuscript submissions for our review. We continuously refine our process and announced changes in our editorial process coincident with our monthly publication in 2011. 1 The manuscript acceptance rate is used by some as a measure of quality. PMLS has a 50% rejection rate at the present time. The rejection rate has steadily increased over time, which demonstrates an ongoing commitment to select only the highest quality work for publication. The editorial process is rigorous, with each manuscript being evaluated by three or more reviewers and with the submissions checked for plagiarism and duplication using iThenticate™ software in addition to copy editing for language and content clarity. Authors must also provide a disclosure of relevant conflicts of interest as pertains to their work. Such practices are consistent with the standards of other scientific publishers and are representative of a collective effort to present and publish material that adds significantly to the body of scientific knowledge and that meets standards for scientific and professional integrity.
It is this scholarly publication process that forms the nucleus of this editorial. Most of us who have been involved with scientific research and discovery have had to deal with some form of rejection. Perhaps this came in the form of the manuscript that was rejected for publication or the grant that was not funded. The specific details for the negative outcome may vary and their basis might have been appropriate, or perhaps the decision might have stemmed from real or perceived bias on the part of the evaluators.
It is abundantly clear that not every manuscript is accepted for publication, and that the authors' selection of a target journal to which their manuscripts are submitted for consideration is an important process. Calcagno and colleagues investigated the prepublication process and uncovered some surprising findings. 2 They had hypothesized that authors would initially submit their work to high impact journals and that low impact factor journals would receive and ultimately publish articles that were rejected by the high impact factor journals. They surveyed authors of scientific research papers published in 923 scientific journals in the biological sciences between 2006 and 2008. They were able to retrieve information for 80,748 articles. 2 They sent an e-mail survey to 200,000 corresponding authors asking whether the paper had been sent to other journals before the one it was ultimately published in, and if so, which one immediately preceded the successful submission. Their data demonstrated that 75% of papers were submitted to the first journal that would publish them and that authors generally did an excellent job of targeting their work to an appropriate journal. To their surprise, however, Calcagno and colleagues found that high impact journals published proportionately more articles that had been resubmitted from another journal. 2 Even the highly respected journals Nature and Science were publishing articles that had been rejected previously by the other.
Stepping down to a journal with a lower impact factor after an initial rejection occurred in 25% of cases. Calcagno's group found that within this 25% group, papers that were submitted more than once tended to be published in journals with a lower impact factor than the journal that was the initial target of submission. 2
Another interesting and unexpected finding of Calcagno's research was that the number of times a resubmitted paper was cited was higher than that of other papers in that journal, regardless of whether a paper was ultimately published in a higher or lower impact factor journal, with the exception of papers that were resubmitted to journals in a different field. 2 They concluded that this phenomenon was a positive benefit of manuscripts having gone through multiple rounds of peer review and revision. Therefore, the manuscript's authors and competing journals benefit from the initial rejection.
Kim et al. investigated whether there is a psychological basis to support the concept often espoused by eminently creative people that the experience of social rejection is a fuel for creativity. 3 They posited that for individuals with an independent self-concept, rejection may amplify feelings of distinctiveness and increase creativity by conferring the willingness to recruit ideas from unusual places and move beyond existing knowledge structures. They hypothesized that rejection will reinforce the desire for individuals with an independent self-concept to differentiate themselves from others and that mindset would lead to more creative outcomes. 3 They conducted three studies of college students to test their hypothesis. They demonstrated that the experience of rejection itself may indeed promote creativity. They also cautioned that rejection may constrain individuals with a more interdependent self-concept by activating inclinations to devote resources to reparative social strategies. 3
Suffice it to say, our discussion has been focused thus far on the concepts that rejection may indeed spark creativity and that rejection and revision actually improves the overall quality and worth of a particular work in the case of the scientific literature. However, these phenomena are difficult for some to reconcile with the pressures of academic performance and productivity, as individuals compete for tenure, promotion and grant funding. Such pressure leads some individuals toward the darker side of creativity, which is academic fraud and misconduct. Scientific misconduct can take many forms, including plagiarism, data falsification and fabrication, duplicate publication, and even fake peer review. 4 This latter form of fraud involves the creation of bogus e-mail and contact information for so-called preferred reviewers, who are in fact the authors of the manuscript. Glowing reviews are written, which in some cases use the name of high profile and respected scientists, linked to bogus accounts created by the researchers. 4 Unwary journal editors have been tricked by these tactics. Close scrutiny of reviewer contact information in retrospect often reveals suspicious addresses or e-mail services, or phone contact information that is inconsistent with the location of the supposed reviewer. 4 PMLS maintains an electronic database for its authors and reviewers and preferentially refers review requests to individuals known to us and whose contact information is verifiable.
A recent study by Fang et al. 5 reported on a detailed review of biomedical and life sciences research articles that were indexed by PubMed as retracted as of May 3, 2012. The authors retrieved 2, 047 articles. They found that only 21.3% of articles were retracted as a result of errors, whereas 67.4% were removed because of scientific misconduct. Fraud or suspected fraud accounted for 43.4%, duplicate publication accounted for 14.2%, and plagiarism accounted for 9.8% of the retractions. 5 They noted that there has been a 10-fold increase in the percentage of articles retracted for fraud since 1975. Fang also noted that most articles retracted for fraud originated from the United States, Germany, and Japan, and preferentially affected high impact journals. 5 These countries of origin, with the addition of China, accounted for 75% of retractions because of fraud or suspected fraud. Plagiarism and duplicate publication tended to occur more frequently in lower impact journals and most commonly were associated with articles originating from China and India. 5
These statistics are both sobering and alarming. It is our collective responsibility to remain vigilant regardless of our role and bring any concerns regarding suspected fraud, misconduct, plagiarism, or duplicate publishing to the attention of the journal immediately. Fortunately, such instances represent a very small minority of individuals, and a handful of publications relative to the vast scientific literature. Unfortunately, these occurrences reduce our collective credibility, despite their relative rarity.
Science and scientific publishing are far from perfect. Creativity and inquisitiveness are, thankfully, most frequently channeled appropriately. We continue to learn and improve, even from our mistakes and missteps.