What percentage of preprints is never accepted for publication?

From: Stevan Harnad <harnad_at_coglit.ecs.soton.ac.uk>
Date: Wed, 6 Dec 2000 19:06:12 +0000

On Wed, 6 Dec 2000, hbosc_at_tours.inra.fr wrote:

> what about the articles which are simply rejected?
>
> I have heard that this could amount to 40% of the submitted articles in
> some biology periodicals.

According to Stephen Lock, former editor of the British Medical
Journal, virtually all biomedical papers are eventually published,
somewhere in the mid-80's. Have these figures changes in the ensuing 15
years?

    Harnad, S. (1986) Policing the Paper Chase. (Review of S. Lock, A
    difficult balance: Peer review in biomedical publication.) Nature
    322: 24 - 5.

> Will these pre-prints stay in an archive?

In general, I cannot see why they should not. Grown-up users are
capable of distinguishing between unrefereed reprints and refereed
postprints.

Biomedical papers that might be potentially dangerous to public health
are another matter, but I think there will be ways to handle those as
a special case.

    Harnad, S. (2000) E-Knowledge: Freeing the Refereed Journal Corpus
    Online. Computer Law & Security Report 16(2) 78-87. [Rebuttal to
    Bloom Editorial in Science and Relman Editorial in New England
    Journal of Medicine]
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Papers/Harnad/harnad00.scinejm.htm

    Harnad, S. (2000) Ingelfinger Over-Ruled: The Role of the Web in
    the Future of Refereed Medical Journal Publishing. Lancet (in
    press)
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Papers/Harnad/harnad00.lancet.htm

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Received on Mon Jan 24 2000 - 19:17:43 GMT

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