I’m in the middle of preparing a talk that I’m scheduled to give in Madrid in a few days. The talk is called “Myths and realities of publishing in the Nature journals”, and its goal, at least in part, is to dispel the myth that our journals discriminate against, say, Spanish-speaking countries or developing nations, and that we favor countries like the USA and Britain.

Thinking about the comments I’ve heard from people, this myth can be divided into at least four parts:

1. The fame myth — “to publish in the Nature journals, you have to be a big name.”

2. The friends myth — “to publish in the Nature journals, you have to be a friend of the journal, and you have to be on first-name terms with everyone in the field so that you always draw positive reviewers.”

3. The language myth — “to publish in the Nature journals, you have to have the Queen’s English, or the editors won’t even read your paper.”

4. The surname myth — “to publish in the Nature journals, it’s better if you are Dr. White and not Dr. Blanco. In fact, if I were to change the names of the authors in my paper to anglosaxon names, I’m sure you would have sent it out for external review at least.”

Each of these myths can be rebutted, and part of my talk will consist of data proving that this is not the way we operate. For example, you don’t need to be famous to publish in Nature Medicine. Just flicking through the last four issues of the journal (including April 2008), I found that 75% of the articles we published were authored by people I didn’t know about before their submission.

That being said, I’m most interested in any evidence you may have in support of the myths. I want to make sure that my perception of the fairness of our processes is a legitimate one. So, if you know of any specific instance of discrimination, please send it over. I may even include it in the talk.

Sighs of relief from the whole editorial community were heard this weekend, following a ruling denying Pfizer accces to confidential peer-review documents from the NEJM.

Pfizer is facing a lawsuit over injuries believed to have come from use of their drug Celebrex. So, this January the drug company filed a motion asking for peer-review documents — including reviewers’ names and confidential comments — that might be relevant to the lawsuit and useful for its defense. (If you want to read all the details about the legal showdown between Pfizer and the NEJM, I would recommend that you read this excellent blog entry in “”https://pipeline.corante.com/“>In the Pipeline”.)

This past Friday, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois ruled that “it is not unreasonable to believe that compelling production of peer review documents would compromise the process”. And as Pfizer didn’t explained in sufficient detail what they expected to find in the confidential documents, the court decided that “whatever probative value the subpoenaed documents and information may have is outweighed by the burden and harm that would result” to the journals.

I was also delighted by the news, but I’m somewhat uncomfortable by the fact that the decision in favor the journals was shaped in no small measure by Pfizer’s inability to produce convincing-enough arguments. I wonder what would happen if a future motion makes a good case for what a company or any other party expects to find in our confidential information. Would the court then rule in favor of the company, setting a devastating precedent?

I must admit that my understanding of all the legal aspects that surround matters of this sort is very limited. But if journalists are protected from identifying their sources in court (what is often referred to as “privilege”), is that the same kind of protection that our “sources” — our referees — get when they share confidential information with us and when we promise to protect their anonymity? If this is not the case, why not? And is there something that we, the editors of scientific journals, could do to make sure that we have “privilege”?

The ruling favored us this time, setting some sort of precedent for the protection of confidential information at scientific journals, but the matter is far from closed, and heaven knows what will happen next time.

Have a look at this report from Siri Carpenter that just came out in Science‘s “Science Careers”. It’s about how to publish translational research, focusing on what journals look for in the submissions they receive. It features interviews with (and pictures of) several editors, including yours truly.

Not a bad read to kick off the weekend, I reckon.

“How did you get into publishing and how do I pursue a career in that field?” As the cliché goes, I wish I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard that question.

So, lazy as I am, I thought I would write down an answer to the second part of the question (how I specifically got into publishing is too uninteresting to write about), so that next time I get an e-mail asking me for advice on the subject I simply send a link to this post.

There are different ways to get into publishing. Let’s start with copy editor. In broad terms, copy editors are in charge of correcting the style and language of the articles we accept prior to publication, as well as making sure that the changes made by the authors when they review their proofs are correctly incorporated. As language is such an important part of the job, employers tend to prefer people whose first language is English. In the case of scientific journals, scientific training is definitely a plus. However, if you have a PhD or postdoctoral experience, this position may not be for you, as you may not find it particularly stimulating from the scientific point of view. Furthermore, employers may find you overqualified for the position.

If you want to stay in closer contact with the science, there are several options.

In journals that have professional editors, such as the Nature journals, titles from the Cell Press stable and Science, research editors read submissions and decide whether something is worth sending out for external review by experts in the field. For this job, a broad understanding of and interest in science is very important. It is also necessary to be able to express your ideas (scientific and otherwise) clearly. And crucially, you must have a very thick skin, as authors don’t like it when you send them a rejection letter (which happens most of the time), and they can be very aggressive in their interactions with you. For this position, we normally hire people who have 4-5 years of postdoctoral experience, but there have been cases of people who join us after relatively brief postdocs.

Another class of professional editors are reviews editors, whose job is to think about review ideas, commission articles from suitable authors, developmentally edit the papers and organize the peer-review process. Scientifically, the requirements for the position are similar than those for research editors, although our company has sometimes hired people straight from their PhD with no post-doctoral experience. The reviews editor job can be construed as more creative than the job of a research editor — you try to develop a useful review article, as opposed to trying to find what’s wrong in someone’s work as a reason to turn it down. Owing to your need to develop the articles you receive, your command of English and your attention to detail need to be very good, probably more than in the case of a research editor. At Nature Medicine we don’t have a reviews editor, but we have a News & Views editor, whose job is similar to what I just described.

For both jobs, it’s very useful to be socially skillful, as you need to develop good relationships with the community so that they agree to write review articles, act as referees and/or submit their research to your journal. Last, all of the above jobs (particularly copy editor) require you to have the ability to work to tight deadlines — the journals need to come out on dates that have been established at least a year in advance, and these deadlines are rather firm.

In none of these jobs appeals to you, some publishing firms recruit other types of editors, which are variously referred to as managing editor, executive editor and so on. These people may or may not make scientific decisions on papers. Instead, they often act as liaisons between authors and the editorial board of the journal — the scientists who ultimately decide what can be sent out to peer review and choose the referees. Depending on the journal, the managing editor may also be responsible for coordinating the production process of the publication, acting as manager of the copy editors and production staff, interact with the advertising and marketing departments, and other activities that don’t necessarily require you to have a PhD. For this kind of position, in fact, it varies a lot whether your scientific background is relevant or not, although I’d say that, more often than not, it is relevant.

Last, but certainly not least, there are science journalists — people who often work for a newspaper or other periodical, either as member of staff or as freelance writer, and whose job is to report on scientific advances for the readership of the publication. Some of these journalists have a very sophisticated understanding of science, whereas others are generalists who write about science the same way they write about politics or art — in very broad terms for a very broad audience. The key issue here is that these people tend to be journalists, not scientists. In other words, you need a degree from journalism school to get one of these jobs. That said, if you want to be a freelance writer, you can get away without a journalism degree, provided you can write in a journalistic style. Some of the people who have written in the past for Nature Medicine‘s News section fall in this category of scientists turned journalists, but our News editor, who is responsible for choosing the stories we’ll cover every month and for editing the work of our contributors, is a journalist by training.

In part II of these post, assuming there’s interest and that my colleagues in the journal don’t veto the idea, I’ll tell you a bit about how we go about recruiting someone when there is an opening, in case you ever need to interview for one of these jobs.

A couple of days ago we got a comment from one of our referees, saying that it’s unreasonable for us to get more than three reviewers for any given paper that we consider for publication. He stated that having to deal with the comments from more than three referees places an undue burden on authors, which may put the community off from sending us new submissions.

We are certainly familiar with some (unfavorable) comparisons that are made between our journal and other publications that use only two reviewers per paper. I’d like to say, first, that we don’t get more than three referees for any given paper as a matter of course. When we do, it’s sometimes because one of the referees has not reviewed for our journal before. We aren’t therefore sure how his/her comments will compare with what other, more experienced, referees may have to say about the paper — sometimes new referees are either too tough or what we call “wet”. So, as different journals have different standards and criteria, referees often go through a “training period” during which they come to be familiar with the kind of papers a journal looks for.

Second, a good number of submissions to Nature Medicine tend to be multidisciplinary, making it very difiicult for just two people to evaluate the full manuscript. For starters, most of our papers include human and animal data. So, right off the bat we may need one person with technical expertise on the animal experiments and another person to advise us on the potential relevance of the findings to human disease. If you then consider that you may want to have a second opinion about the same points, we’re already talking about at least three reviewers and have not even started talking about papers that stretch over two or more disciplines.

Third, when we look at all of the referees’ concerns, we don’t necessarily ask authors to address every point, particularly if the criticisms bring up points that are clearly part of a subsequent study. So, two referees times two does not necessarily equal four sets of comments.

To finish, I should say that two or three years ago we followed up with people who had published in our journal, some of whom had to go through the “four-referee ordeal”. We ask these authors if they felt that the review process had significantly improved their paper. The overwhelming majority of these authors agreed that the referees’ criticisms had really made a difference and were frankly appreciative of our peer-review process. I guess you can’t please everybody all of the time.

I don’t post much on this blog, but when I do, I’m like the bass drum in an orchestra — it doesn’t sound often, but when it does…

OK, the last entry of the day is about the lively debate between the Journal of Experimental Medicine and Thomson Scientific — the creators of the Impact Factors (IFs). Have you been following it? In a nutshell, last December the JEM published an Editorial thoroughly criticizing Thomson for their lack of transparency in the way they calculate IFs. Thomson wrote a long rebuttal, to which the JEM subsequently replied.

I find it somewhat amusing that the JEM has started this cruzade against IFs. First, IFs are subject to the same competition rules that affect any other product available to researchers. If the product is useless, you stop using it, the same way that you stop using an antibody that gives you a high background or a journal that publishes bad science. If IFs are still in the market and are still going strong, it’s because the alternatives aren’t as useful. Why would they want to change the way they do business unless there is pressure from the marketplace?

Second, some of the arguments the JEM uses to criticize the IFs strike me as equally amusing. For example, they suggest that the median, not the mean number of citations would be a more reliable indicator of a journal’s impact, and they wonder why IFs include citations to Review and News & Views articles instead of just focusing on primary research. As you can already imagine, if these changes were made, they would lead to a higher IF for the JEM. In fact, I once heard a talk from a member of the JEM staff in which the IFs of several journals (including mine) were recalculated using the median number of citations, taking out cites to Reviews and a couple other cosmetic fixes. Do I even need to tell you that the difference between the JEM and Nature Immunology or Nature Medicine wasn’t too large any more?

All of this is well and good but it seems to me that, if we’re not satisfied with the IFs, journals are not the right advocates for change, as we have a vested interest in having the highest impact for the communities we serve. In other words, it would be disingenuous for me to start advocating that citations to Reviews must stay in the calculation and suggest new things that will make my journal’s IF be higher. To my mind, the scientists should be the ones fighting this battle, assuming they care. Alas, I suspect the care more about figuring out what they need to do to publish in a journal with a high IF as opposed to trying to find a way to level the field across journals.

To me, the situation is quite simple. IFs will carry on being influential until something else outcompetes them in the marketplace. In the meantime, if you want a higher IF and Thomson counts citations to Reviews, then publish more Reviews. And if they choose the mean over the median, then try to publish articles that will give you a higher mean number of citations. Everything else is commentary.

The other day I posted something about the ordeal my friend Andy Marshall was going through as a result of something he published about a researcher who works on genetically modified crops.

One of the many interesting comments we got on that entry had to do with the distinction between perceived and actual conflicts of interest. I mentioned at the time that we would discuss this matter at some point in our editorial, and we finally got around to doing it (click here to read it).

I’m sure this will not be sufficient to satisfy everyone, but we will be delighted to hearing your views about this question. We’re constantly revising our Conflicts of Interest policy, and your views are certainly important to help us shape it.

Speaking of blood, my friend Andy Marshall, the editor of Nature Biotechnology, told me the other day that he’s been mentioned at the British Parliament, no less.

Unfortunately, the British Commons did not bring him up to praise his contributions to the advancement of science. Instead, this past week they released an Early Day Motion (# 425) to regret “the continuing attempts to silence or misrepresent scientists whose research indicates possible human health problems from GM (genetically modified) crops”.

The Motion specifically focuses on the case of Dr Irina Ermakova who, allegedly, “was misled by the editor of Nature Biotechnology into submitting an article to the journal to be published under her name, with the article in fact published under the editor’s name with criticisms by four well-known GM supporters not seen by Dr Ermakova prior to publication”.

I’ve spoken to Andy, and this is not exactly what happened. The article is more of a News Feature/Interview, which is why it’s authored by Andy. Furthermore, Dr. Ermakova has been given a chance to rebut the comments from the other scientists. Her reply will be published on Friday as part of the December issue of Nature Biotechnology.

I don’t want to steal their thunder and would therefore encourage you to read the whole article and the rebuttal once it’s available. The only thing I’ll mention here is another segment of the Motion, which specifically caught my attention. The Motion “calls on the Government Chief Scientist to protect the integrity and objectivity of science by reasserting the right of scientists to have their views published by journals without underhand interference by journal editors, and for the Chief Scientist to encourage journal editors to withdraw papers they have published which subsequently turn out to be grossly misleading or even fraudulent”.

Pretty strong words to use in a case like this one. In any case, I’ve promised Andy that, if he’s sent to prison, I’ll make sure to get him cigarettes, the newspaper and, every month, a copy of Nature Biotechnology.

Each year, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) gets over $28 billion dollars from taxpayers. The vast majority of that money goes to fund about 200,000 researchers who annually publish more than 60,000 articles. But most of those papers are off limits to the people who pay for the research—the public.

To remedy this situation, the NIH began asking researchers in 2005 to voluntarily submit their peer-reviewed manuscripts to a database called Pubmed Central. The plea fell on deaf ears. By 2006, only 4% of the articles eligible for submission had been turned in.

Now the US government is taking action. Language in the House Department of Health and Human Services appropriations bill, passed on 20 July, would require investigators to submit their papers to Pubmed Central. Those papers would be made available to the public within a year of publication. Similar language was passed in the Senate on 23 October.

The fight, however, is far from over. The provision must make it through House-Senate negotiations into a combined bill and signed into law by President Bush, who is threatening to veto.

Publishers are concerned that public access will land them in the poor house by driving away subscribers (why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?). But some scientists say that public access will speed innovation by making research readily available. Several journals are already trying the open-access model, but many require the researchers to pay for publication.

What do you think? Should I have the right to curl up with a cup of tea and a free copy of that 2006 paper on restless leg syndrome I’ve been dying to read?

Posted on behalf of Cassandra Willyard, Nature Medicine’s news intern.

Last Friday, Nature and Science shared the Premio Principe de Asturias for Communication and Humanities.

Considering that the Premios Principe de Asturias are a big deal in Spain and Latin America, I was somewhat surprised to see that the coverage that they got in the international press was somewhat minor. Not even the fact that Al Gore, Bob Dylan and Michael Schumacher were among the winners in other categories made much of a difference. I guess this goes to show that the Spaniards need to do a lot more of brand building around their Premios.

Even here at Nature Publishing Group, as international a company as we are, our awareness of the Premio Principe de Asturias was relatively limited. Rumor has it that the company had to be contacted a couple of times before realizing that the Award was legitimate and not one of those e-mail scams involving African Princes, which I’m sure all of you receive every once in a while.

I don’t know, but maybe someone in Spain got wind of that rumor and wanted to equalize the score on the day of the awards. Otherwise, how can one explain that, for a few hours, a picture of Nature‘s editor Phil Campbell shaking the hand of Prince Felipe published in the newspaper “El Pais” referred to Phil as the Editor of Science? Or is there something we don’t know, Phil?

Happily, as soon as our press officer got on the case, things were quickly sorted out, the caption was changed, and Phil could have a peaceful dinner with Spanish Royalty.