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Who Is Going to Read all This?

2005; Wiley; Volume: 44; Issue: 35 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1002/anie.200502730

1521-3773

Peter Gölitz,

History and advancements in chemistry

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (the 18th century poet, critic, philosopher, and opium abuser) is said to have been the last man “to have read everything”. Today it is no longer possible for scientists to even read everything (carefully) that is published in their own field, let alone in their discipline. As a result the questions of quality and selection of information become ever more pressing, and electronic search machines can only help a little. When we read a newspaper or watch a news program we want to be sure that the most important information is given quickly and reliably, it is no use finding out later which news was important and which was not. And it would be no help to put the news media to one side and to go directly to the vast amount of information that is made available by the news agencies, we would drown in information and in most cases we would lack the competence to differentiate important and right from unimportant and false. The same situation exists in science. Today it is certainly possible to make all the research results (including all the raw data) of all scientists available without further selection or improvement as soon as the author has placed the last full stop. In chemistry alone this approach would give far in excess of the approximately 700 000 articles currently covered per year by Chemical Abstracts1 because, without barriers and filters, the manuscript output would increase unabated. Even using electronic search engines with stringently selected criteria would still deliver an immense amount of information, you would still have to sort and select yourself. And if, for the sake of curiosity, you wanted to inform yourself about developments in neighboring disciplines, you would be helplessly lost in an ocean of information. The possibility of having a genuine and uncensored view of all information is one of the basic pillars of a democratic, enlightened society and in this point scientists see themselves as the avant-garde of such a society. However practicalities can not be ignored: Selection is necessary, more than ever! The main burden of responsibility lies with the authors, then with the publishers and editors, and finally, but also very importantly with the referees. The authors are the source of scientific information, and the others decide what information readers can find where; of course, scientists can be authors, editors, and referees all at the same time, but naturally all these roles can not be assumed for the same manuscript.1 Authors: Their number has increased dramatically again in recent years because with China a new scientific giant has emerged onto the stage. In addition, the productivity of scientists has increased remarkably in the last two decades. Twenty years ago an X-ray structure analysis could take months, today it is usually a matter of hours. A similar trend is true across the whole breadth of instrumental analysis, and the productivity of computer chemists has without doubt risen at an even faster rate. Today, the rate-limiting step in chemistry seems no longer to be obtaining new scientific results, or their publication, but the writing of manuscripts. The high scientific productivity, which is not to be confused with an increase in knowledge, leads to an enormous pressure to publish. This pressure is increased further through the competition for positions, funding, and prizes. Today, authors must publish frequently and publish in respected journals. The quality of a journal is currently all to often reduced to “one with a high impact factor”. The pressure of publishing lots has led to the search for the “Lowest Publishable Unit” (LPU) with a consequence that journals are flooded with “low-content/low-quality manuscripts”. The hankering after the high impact factor has resulted in many authors giving up a healthy amount of self criticism and sending their manuscript first to a journal in which it has no chance of being accepted. This ideology is already producing fruit as can be seen in the following: An author had a manuscript rejected from Angewandte Chemie after the assessment of three scientists. Deputy Editor Neville Compton recommended publication in the European Journal of Inorganic Chemistry (the editor of which is Karen J. Hindson) and shortly afterwards received a letter containing the passage reproduced on the previous page. Clearly not only science administrators but also more and more scientists themselves are taking a completely uncritical view of impact factors. Naturally, journal impact factors can give a general impression about the importance of a journal and its articles, but very little about the quality of an individual article. How often an article is cited depends on many factors: Most important, is the number of researchers currently working on that topic; articles on unfashionable or highly specialized topics, which can certainly be or become very important, are naturally less cited than articles on current, main-stream research. Angewandte Chemie publishes articles from the full spectrum of chemistry and thus highly cited articles and less cited articles can stand side by side. The journal's very high impact factor, which increased still further in 2004 (Figure 1), should certainly not be interpreted as indicating that all the articles in Angewandte Chemie have the same “impact” or even the same quality—the most cited are perhaps not the most important. Authors should however use the high impact factor to decide, before they submit a manuscript, if their manuscript complies with the high expectations of the journal and its readers. In 2005, Angewandte Chemie once again has to cope with a huge increase in the number of manuscripts submitted. In the first six months alone we received 2069 Communications, which is nearly 30 % more than in the first six months of 2004. This growth in submissions comes not only from China, but from almost all regions of the world (see Figure 2). The land of origin for the submitted Communications in 2004 is shown in Figure 3. Currently, nearly 70 % of submitted Communications are rejected, though the rejection rate for manuscripts from individual countries varies from 40 % to 90 %. We would be delighted if the high impact factor led to better journal selection by the authors.1 1 1 1 1 1 Impact factors of three important chemistry journals. The impact factors are determined by the Institute of Scientific Information (ISI); see http://www.isiknowledge.com Country or region of origin for Communications submitted to Angewandte Chemie in 2003–2005. The values for 2005 are extrapolated on the basis of the first six months. Country or region of origin for Communications submitted to Angewandte Chemie in 2004. Publishers and Editors (and their advisors from Editorial Boards etc.) are in the front line in dealing with the manuscript flood, and for most journals the selection occurs in several stages: At Angewandte Chemie around 10 % of manuscripts are rejected immediately (and this figure is increasing), all the others are selected after refereeing. Controlling the manuscript flood requires ever more skilled and trained personnel. The fate of manuscripts and the selection of referees is determined by me, the two Deputy Editors, Neville Compton (Inorganic Chemistry) and Haymo Ross (Organic Chemistry), and four Senior Associate Editors, Frank Maass (Inorganic Chemistry), José Oliveira (Organic Chemistry), Guy Richardson (Inorganic Chemistry), and Diane Smith (Supramolecular Chemistry). All these editors have Doctorates in their specialist areas and in most cases postdoctoral research experience as well as many years experience as full-time editors. We select manuscripts in the interests of our readers—when our readers open an issue or look at Early View articles on the computer screen they should have the guarantee that they are reading something important and not wasting any time. “You've got to feel the heat when you read a journal” Peter Dervan, a member of the International Advisory Board of Angewandte Chemie once remarked. Editors can make mistakes, and in the eyes of authors, almost every rejection is a mistake. However, a rebuttal should only follow if the decisive referee comments are inaccurate or wrong. When it is “only” a difference of opinion on the importance of an article then a rebuttal is usually rejected immediately. The decisions of editors are not based just on the simple mathematics of addition, that is, the receipt of one positive and one negative report does not mean that a third referee must be consulted. Not all referee reports are equally good. After reading the manuscript and the reports (or the only report in some cases) the editors in most cases are quite capable of deciding on the fate of a manuscript. In any case the decision has always to be justified if a member of the Editorial Board or the International Advisory Board asks for this. Referees are naturally extremely important in the selection process. Working together, editors and referees are able to avoid making unjust and incorrect decisions. In the refereeing phase the system is placed under further pressure: Not only the pressure to publish lots in respected journals, but also the demand to publish quickly. Authors want to see their manuscripts published as fast as possible, even if the collection of the results took years and there is no competition on the horizon. Journals want to be the fastest, “instant publishing” seems to be desired. Referees complain that they have too many manuscripts to assess, and teaching, lectures, and administration can not wait. After the LPU comes the MRR (minimalistic referee report). Many reports for Angewandte Chemie demonstrate the expertise of the referees and the desire to help the authors even if the manuscript is recommended for publication in another journal. Regretfully, however, many of these manuscripts are then sent on to the next best journal without improvements—and the same referees might see it again and react accordingly. The refereeing load for Angewandte Chemie was carried by over 2000 scientists in the first half of 2005, although of these, round a half gave only one report in the six months. However, in this time 27 referees also had over 10 manuscripts to review (see Table 1). I would like to thank all our referees for their continued support and advice. Referees Reports 1 ≥20 2 19–15 24 14–10 176 9–5 148 4 243 3 436 2 1116 1 Several years ago, the then Editor in Chief of the Journal of the American Chemical Society, Allen J. Bard wrote that “quality should never be sacrificed for speed”. There is no reason to change this view today. That in the first six months of 2005 we have been able to reduce publication times from first receipt to online publication for Angewandte Chemie from, on average 150 days to 110 days, has been made possible through the enormous efforts of the editorial staff and the decision that all manuscripts should be published online in the Early View mode as soon as the corrections from the galley proofs have been incorporated. Many Communications are published (after critical refereeing and careful editing) within three months of submission, and when “danger is looming” in the form of competition, then manuscripts of high-enough quality can even be published in days. Instant publishing is not magic, with current technology any publisher can do it, it is the quality of the manuscript that makes the difference. Through fast publication (and high impact factors) most people forget that what is actually important is that the manuscript is promptly read by many and that its content is used rapidly and productively. A high immediacy index indicates these tendencies; its development from 2003 to 2004 is shown in Figure 4. Immediacy indices 2003 and 2004; see http://isiknowledge.com “Chemistry creates new structures” is the motto of the Annual Conference of the Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker (German Chemical Society, GDCh) which takes place this year, September 11–14 in Düsseldorf. The excellent program helps, just like every issue of Angewandte Chemie, to recognize new structures. To help our readers see the trees and the wood, to ensure they do not miss important work in their own field, and to help them recognize the big discoveries in Chemistry, is what we aim to do.1 Dr. Peter Gölitz PS: As occasionally in the past, there is a new journal to introduce, which, with the help of Angewandte Chemie, should have a successful start. Following on from ChemBioChem (www.chembiochem.org) and ChemPhysChem (chemphyschem.org) comes ChemMedChem (www.chemmedchem.org). The Societá Chimica Italiana (SCI) will close its journal Il Farmaco at the end of the year and, from 2006, in conjunction with the GDCh and the publishers Wiley-VCH, will launch ChemMedChem. The new journal, which will offer a European forum for articles from the whole world, will be dedicated to all aspects of drug discovery, with medicinal chemistry in the foreground. From bioinformatics and relevant chemical biology and molecular biology through to combinatorial chemistry, drug targeting, and toxicology a broad pallet of relevant articles (reviews and original research articles) will be presented. High quality is assured by the Editorial Board and the International Advisory Board which are headed by Professors R. Metternich (Schering, Berlin) and G. Tarzia (Università degli Studi di Urbino, Italy)