This weekly Nautilus column highlights some of the online discussion at Nature Network in the preceding week that is of relevance to scientists as authors.
The Nature Network week column is archived here.
Who gets most credit when publication of two (or more) papers is simultaneous? Hilary Spencer asks this question in the Nature Precedings forum. Is credit correlated with being the first (even if by a few days)? And is the most cited paper the one with the most impact? Opinions about visibility, findability, impact and citation practice vary among those participating in the online discussion.
Many people feel that visualization began with Charles Minard’s 1861 map/graph of Napoleon’s march to Moscow and back, writes Rob Cogan in the Visualization and Science forum. He asks readers if they have any favourites milestones and highlights of visualization that were conceptually advanced for their times. Some attractive pictures have been posted in response.
Brian Derby has just “read and assessed (we don’t use such 20th Century termas as marking any more) a number of 1st year student projects. I am sick to the core of seeing an axel of a car…. Why can’t students spell?”, he asks. Referring to an article in the New York Times on mobile text language making its way into the class assignment paper, one commenter asks: “What’s the science paper of the future titled? afawk, amygdala activation assoc w/ alol, rotfl, and rotflmao” (a translation is subsequently provided).
On a similar theme, in her post ‘In which I deconstruct the publication process’, Jennifer Rohn initiates a discussion on stock phrases in manuscripts. “Why is it, for example, that adverbs like ‘interestingly’ seem always to be deployed for the most boring results?” Various words, phrases, use of abbreviations and aspects of grammar are deconstructed in the comment thread. Meanwhile, Charles Darwin continues his entertaining analyses of how science is reported in a different forum from the peer-reviewed literature: today’s newspapers.
New blog of the week on Nature Network is A Meandering Scholar, in which Ian Brooks writes: “I hope to document the path of change: The continuing evolution of the Postdoctoral Fellow within academia.”
Volunteers are needed for the 2008 World Science Festival in New York from 28 May to 1 June. Chris Wiggins writes that 4-hour volunteer shifts are available each day, at various locations throughout New York City. Volunteers will receive a festival T-shirt and free entrance to some festival events. The group for planning the Science Blogging 2008 conference Science Blogging 2008, set up a few days ago, already has 36 members. If you are interested in blogging and the social web, or if you have a blog about science, please join the group and help to shape the form of the conference, which will take place in London on 30 August. You can also enter the competition to design a logo.