Iris Publishers-Open access Journal of Forensic Science & Medicine | Fragmentation of Research Papers: Some
Commentaries
Authored by Chee Kong Yap
I would like to humbly comment on the very attention-grabbing
paper published by [1] on ‘Changing trends in authorship patterns
in the JPS: Publish or perish’, in Journal of Pediatric Surgery
(2013;48:412–417). In my opinion, the good paper should
be read by all academicians worldwide since it is not only on
pediatric area but also very much has a positive connotation and
connection in other areas or disciplines of study as long as a good
scientific paper is concerned. Briefly, the paper has reasonably
divided the explanations for the authorship pattern changes (or
number of authors in published papers from three periods of
study namely 1981-1986; 1991-1996; 2006-2010), into justified
(ethical, acceptable) and unjustified (unethical, unacceptable)
categories, according to the International Ethical Guidelines. In
this paper, I would like to address my humble opinions on subject
‘Fragmentation’ as pointed out by [1], in order to add more
deliberations and discussions.
Firstly, according to [1], Fragmentation was one of the reasons for ‘Unacceptable (unethical) increase of number of authors per article’. However, it is not evidently shown that ‘A positive relationship between unethical increase of number of authors per article, and paper fragmentation’, does occur and thus debatable. In contrast, a negative relationship of the two could most likely be resulted because the first paper usually has a high number of authors per article while the subsequent papers by the similar main author has a fewer number of authorships.
Secondly, under ‘Fragmentation’, [1] pointed out that ‘By dividing papers, one paper may appear as multiple separate publications (MSPs).’, thus considered unethical. To a certain degree, I may agree that we should tell the whole story in a research paper but what if ‘A TV serial killer story consists of 10 episodes or 10 DVDs with 4.7 GB per CD.’ Assumingly, this may involve substantial research fundings, supporting staffs, research students/trainees, long duration of study (3-5 years) and collaborations.
Firstly, according to [1], Fragmentation was one of the reasons for ‘Unacceptable (unethical) increase of number of authors per article’. However, it is not evidently shown that ‘A positive relationship between unethical increase of number of authors per article, and paper fragmentation’, does occur and thus debatable. In contrast, a negative relationship of the two could most likely be resulted because the first paper usually has a high number of authors per article while the subsequent papers by the similar main author has a fewer number of authorships.
Secondly, under ‘Fragmentation’, [1] pointed out that ‘By dividing papers, one paper may appear as multiple separate publications (MSPs).’, thus considered unethical. To a certain degree, I may agree that we should tell the whole story in a research paper but what if ‘A TV serial killer story consists of 10 episodes or 10 DVDs with 4.7 GB per CD.’ Assumingly, this may involve substantial research fundings, supporting staffs, research students/trainees, long duration of study (3-5 years) and collaborations.
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