what constitutes a "crappy" journal publication?

[Syndicate]

A manuscript of mine in which I am first author recently got accepted for publication into a journal with IF of around 3.0. It was originally rejected from a well-known journal in the field with an impact factor of 4-5. I'm a little worried not because of the minor decrease in impact factor but by the fact that the journal it is being published in now looks really sketchy and I highly doubt anyone has heard of the journal, even though a 3.0 IF is not that shabby.

Will publishing in a no-name journal (although with a respectable 3.0 IF) be viewed in a negative light in any way?

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[dempty]

Google "Yale Predatory journal list" and use the two links they archived to try searching for your publisher and journal (one link is journals the other is publishers). I would copy and paste it for you, but UWorld is open, so we know that isn't allowed. You can paste the links here if you want me to make sure it's what I was referring to, but I'm sure you'll find it! If they're not on that list, you can also check with your med school's librarian or research office to make sure you're not submitting to a predatory or sketchy journal.

If you clear those lists and the journal is PubMed indexed, I think it's probably not as sketchy as you think, but that doesn't mean it's not obscure.

 

[Syndicate]

The journal is not on that list and it is PubMed indexed. However, I am confident that it is extremely obscure and probably no program directors have heard of it. Does this impact me in a negative way?

 

[Foot Fetish]

You're fine. For residency application purposes, a pub is a pub*

*Now, I'm sure people will disagree, get all butthurt like they always do, and start going off about how this attitude is ruining the precious sanctity of high-quality research, but the reality is that research is a farce for 95% of med students. A mere pump and dump game, plain and simple. Is it better to publish high-quality research in well known journals? Well, Duh. Does it actually matter? No. Especially with an impact factor of 3, you have nothing to worry about. Impact factor < 1 is when it starts to get dubious. Don't listen to the people who will invariably come in here and try to scare you by saying that PD's will see obscure journals as a red-flag. It's BS...They're just mad/jelly/'mirin because they went/ are going through the unnecessary trouble of taking what they perceive to be "the high and mighty road," so they want to justify their efforts by belittling the more efficient path taken by others.

Ask yourself: What's your bottom line? Do you want to be a research scientist or do you simply want to match in your desired specialty? Be practical. Don't make more work for yourself than you have to. Now, I'm not advocating publishing pure garbage...but let's be real: It's been shown that a significant chunk of med student """research""" is actually completely made up / faked / unverifiable (1). If people can get away with that kind of nonsense, your legitimate journal article is as good as gold....It's a shame, and I, like many others, wish it could be different, but that's just the world we live in now...Blame the system. The ever-increasing competitiveness of certain specialties / Program Directors' ever-growing hardon for research has created unsustainable "research" averages...much like the 2006-2008 housing bubble in the United States. It's the academic version of inflation.

Take, for example, the average # of research items for derm in 2016, 11.7...Do you really think people are publishing 12 high quality research items, on average? Hell no. Even after you account for the fact that a single project can net multiple research "items," it doesn't add up. There simply is no way to maintain that average quantity without sacrificing average quality. The numbers will keep creeping up until the bubble "pops" , just like the 2008 financial crisis. In the not so distant future, we will see averages of ~20 research items for the most competitive specialties, and the average quality will have concurrently devolved to such **** that a radical overhaul of the application process will have to be implemented. You heard it here first. But, until that day, keep pumping and dumping away, my friend.


/rant

1. Unverifiable publications in otolaryngology residency applications. - PubMed - NCBI

 

[AcademicNeurosurgery]

Now, I'm not advocating publishing pure garbage...

Your entire rant is advocating for publishing pure garbage...

Your point is certainly valid though and something I personally agree with, it is a systemic problem. It's important though that when we transition into residency/clinical practice and we have a seat at the table when assessing applicants, we work to change the system so quality of research is valued more than quantity. I strongly believe the common notion that "if it's not published, it didn't happen" is toxic to the scientific advancement of medicine.

 

[Syndicate]

Thank you for your reassuring response! I am applying into internal medicine and I'm not gunning for any of the top 20 programs, so hopefully the process is not terribly competitive. I was just scared when reading on these forums and hearing other students who all have multiple publications in well-known journals and was hoping that is not the norm.

 

[CherryRedDracul]

You're fine. For residency application purposes, a pub is a pub*

*Now, I'm sure people will disagree, get all butthurt like they always do, and start going off about how this attitude is ruining the precious sanctity of high-quality research, but the reality is that research is a farce for 95% of med students. A mere pump and dump game, plain and simple. Is it better to publish high-quality research in well known journals? Well, Duh. Does it actually matter? No. Especially with an impact factor of 3, you have nothing to worry about. Impact factor < 1 is when it starts to get dubious. Don't listen to the people who will invariably come in here and try to scare you by saying that PD's will see obscure journals as a red-flag. It's BS...They're just mad/jelly/'mirin because they went/ are going through the unnecessary trouble of taking what they perceive to be "the high and mighty road," so they want to justify their efforts by belittling the more efficient path taken by others.

Ask yourself: What's your bottom line? Do you want to be a research scientist or do you simply want to match in your desired specialty? Be practical. Don't make more work for yourself than you have to. Now, I'm not advocating publishing pure garbage...but let's be real: It's been shown that a significant chunk of med student """research""" is actually completely made up / faked / unverifiable (1). If people can get away with that kind of nonsense, your legitimate journal article is as good as gold....It's a shame, and I, like many others, wish it could be different, but that's just the world we live in now...Blame the system. The ever-increasing competitiveness of certain specialties / Program Directors' ever-growing hardon for research has created unsustainable "research" averages...much like the 2006-2008 housing bubble in the United States. It's the academic version of inflation.

Take, for example, the average # of research items for derm in 2016, 11.7...Do you really think people are publishing 12 high quality research items, on average? Hell no. Even after you account for the fact that a single project can net multiple research "items," it doesn't add up. There simply is no way to maintain that average quantity without sacrificing average quality. The numbers will keep creeping up until the bubble "pops" , just like the 2008 financial crisis. In the not so distant future, we will see averages of ~20 research items for the most competitive specialties, and the average quality will have concurrently devolved to such **** that a radical overhaul of the application process will have to be implemented. You heard it here first. But, until that day, keep pumping and dumping away, my friend.


/rant

1. Unverifiable publications in otolaryngology residency applications. - PubMed - NCBI

To add to Foot Fetish's post, in general, a significant amount of research out in the world is trash. Garbage in, garbage out. Even worse given the "publish or perish" era we're in.

 

[IslandStyle808]

Your entire rant is advocating for publishing pure garbage...

Your point is certainly valid though and something I personally agree with, it is a systemic problem. It's important though that when we transition into residency/clinical practice and we have a seat at the table when assessing applicants, we work to change the system so quality of research is valued more than quantity. I strongly believe the common notion that "if it's not published, it didn't happen" is toxic to the scientific advancement of medicine.

Too add to this. It even worse than that, it is toxic to all facets of academia. The fact that even negative results are taboo is what leads to redundant and useless research that would not even been tempted if someone else just published their negative results. Though it is not as prevalent in medicine as it is for basic science research.

 

[235009]

OP, as long as your publication can be found on pubmed if your application reviewer wants to verify (or read) it then you're ok. A publication in a pubmed indexed journal will never be a negative.

As for the larger discussion:

...but let's be real: It's been shown that a significant chunk of med student """research""" is actually completely made up / faked / unverifiable (1).

1. Unverifiable publications in otolaryngology residency applications. - PubMed - NCBI

The paper you cited shows that only 14% of journal publications could not be verified. That's far from a "significant chunk". Abstracts can be MUCH harder to verify with a google search. I bet half of my abstracts can't be verified because the meeting didn't publish abstracts in a journal supplement and don't archive them online. This is extremely common for all but the largest conferences. Book chapters can be equally difficult to verify. There links on pubmed to two similar papers for surgery and plastic surgery where they found a higher percentage of unverifiable publications and essentially accuse IMGs of committing fraud but an editorial to one of the papers makes a good point in that respect...

"The authors fail to acknowledge that a vast majority of international medical graduates (IMGs), while living and studying in their native country, are likely to publish their original work in local journals and submit their oral or poster presentations to local and regional meetings. A considerable number of foreign non-European journals are unlikely to be included in Medline, PubMed, ISI Web of Science, or searchable in Google. In addition, these are difficult to access even by a competent librarian, despite the current status of worldwide networking and communications. It is not appropriate to assume that this represents fraud."

While there may inevitably be some shenanigans I don't think you, or the authors of these papers, are acknowledging the limitations of simply googling for things like conference abstracts.

A suggestion in that same editorial was that they require every interviewee to bring in printed copies of all publications which I think is a pretty good idea though I think ERAS should require that you upload something verifiable for every publication you list, even if it's a picture of the conference abstract book showing your abstract listed. Then they can mark publications as "verified" or "unverified".

 

[OTOSwap]

Faculty publish in all different journals, that is the name of the game in academia. The fact you put in hard work, analyzed references, put together coherent manuscript, went through peer-review, edited the article, and finally earned a publication is a big deal. Do not let anyone sell you on it not being so.

 

[bananafish94]

Take, for example, the average # of research items for derm in 2016, 11.7...Do you really think people are publishing 12 high quality research items, on average? Hell no. Even after you account for the fact that a single project can net multiple research "items," it doesn't add up. There simply is no way to maintain that average quantity without sacrificing average quality. The numbers will keep creeping up until the bubble "pops" , just like the 2008 financial crisis. In the not so distant future, we will see averages of ~20 research items for the most competitive specialties, and the average quality will have concurrently devolved to such **** that a radical overhaul of the application process will have to be implemented. You heard it here first. But, until that day, keep pumping and dumping away, my friend.

I have to disagree with this. I don't think it's completely ridiculous to get 11 research "items" over the course of your medical school career when you consider that a research item is not necessarily a publication. Abstracts, posters, etc. count. My school has a required self-directed oral presentation fourth year. Moreover, medical students are working under PIs who aren't going to want to put out shoddy research that has their name on it. Just my two cents.

 

[235009]

I have to disagree with this. I don't think it's completely ridiculous to get 11 research "items" over the course of your medical school career when you consider that a research item is not necessarily a publication. Abstracts, posters, etc. count. My school has a required self-directed oral presentation fourth year. Moreover, medical students are working under PIs who aren't going to want to put out shoddy research that has their name on it. Just my two cents.

Agreed. Not to mention that if you're part of a research group and contribute (sometimes minimally) to other projects you may get your name on them somewhere as a middle author. I think in addition to potentially asking that you upload some sort of verification (as I mentioned above), as research becomes more common and important ERAS needs to stop lumping so much in that category. Separate out publications particularly and start categorizing them as first author vs. other (or some other similar classification).

 

[Goro]

From the academic side, a 3.0 journal is fine. I consider it major league. When you start going < 3.0, then you're in AAA ball. < 2.0 AA < 1 D league.

A manuscript of mine in which I am first author recently got accepted for publication into a journal with IF of around 3.0. It was originally rejected from a well-known journal in the field with an impact factor of 4-5. I'm a little worried not because of the minor decrease in impact factor but by the fact that the journal it is being published in now looks really sketchy and I highly doubt anyone has heard of the journal, even though a 3.0 IF is not that shabby.
Will publishing in a no-name journal (although with a respectable 3.0 IF) be viewed in a negative light in any way?

In addition, your school librarians can tell you if a journal is predatory or not. I see come-ons from these things daily in my Inbox, from all sorts of fields. The Hindawi group are the biggest spammers in this field.

On a lark, I have google mapped the address of some of the HQs of some of the "editorial offices" of these "journals". They're almost always residential addresses!

Google "Yale Predatory journal list" and use the two links they archived to try searching for your publisher and journal (one link is journals the other is publishers). I would copy and paste it for you, but UWorld is open, so we know that isn't allowed. You can paste the links here if you want me to make sure it's what I was referring to, but I'm sure you'll find it! If they're not on that list, you can also check with your med school's librarian or research office to make sure you're not submitting to a predatory or sketchy journal.

If you clear those lists and the journal is PubMed indexed, I think it's probably not as sketchy as you think, but that doesn't mean it's not obscure.

Sage counsel again! My rule of thumb is also that if it's in Pubmed, it's OK.

OP, as long as your publication can be found on pubmed if your application reviewer wants to verify (or read) it then you're ok. A publication in a pubmed indexed journal will never be a negative.
As for the larger discussion:

The paper you cited shows that only 14% of journal publications could not be verified. That's far from a "significant chunk". Abstracts can be MUCH harder to verify with a google search. I bet half of my abstracts can't be verified because the meeting didn't publish abstracts in a journal supplement and don't archive them online. This is extremely common for all but the largest conferences. Book chapters can be equally difficult to verify. There links on pubmed to two similar papers for surgery and plastic surgery where they found a higher percentage of unverifiable publications and essentially accuse IMGs of committing fraud but an editorial to one of the papers makes a good point in that respect...

"The authors fail to acknowledge that a vast majority of international medical graduates (IMGs), while living and studying in their native country, are likely to publish their original work in local journals and submit their oral or poster presentations to local and regional meetings. A considerable number of foreign non-European journals are unlikely to be included in Medline, PubMed, ISI Web of Science, or searchable in Google. In addition, these are difficult to access even by a competent librarian, despite the current status of worldwide networking and communications. It is not appropriate to assume that this represents fraud."

While there may inevitably be some shenanigans I don't think you, or the authors of these papers, are acknowledging the limitations of simply googling for things like conference abstracts.

A suggestion in that same editorial was that they require every interviewee to bring in printed copies of all publications which I think is a pretty good idea though I think ERAS should require that you upload something verifiable for every publication you list, even if it's a picture of the conference abstract book showing your abstract listed. Then they can mark publications as "verified" or "unverified".

 

[235009]

From the academic side, a 3.0 journal is fine. I consider it major league. When you start going < 3.0, then you're in AAA ball. < 2.0 AA < 1 D league.

In addition, your school librarians can tell you if a journal is predatory or not. I see come-ons from these things daily in my Inbox, from all sorts of fields. The Hindawi group are the biggest spammers in this field.

On a lark, I have google mapped the address of some of the HQs of some of the "editorial offices" of these "journals". They're almost always residential addresses!

Sage counsel again! My rule of thumb is also that if it's in Pubmed, it's OK.

I like your baseball analogy. Not sure if 3 is the appropriate cutoff for "major league" or what the appropriate cutoff would be though. Why did you choose that number?

On a side note the convention is to put the quoted text above your reply. Why don't you do this?

On another side note: @ your probationary status, I swear I haven't reported one of your posts in at least the last month or two

 

[Goro]

3 totally arbitrary...but maybe due to 4 and higher being harder for me get papers into. Nature, Cell, Science, NEJM are all pennant./World Series winners by my system

Easier for me to quote above test.

Probation? Being from NY, I don't suffer fools lightly. You've been cool, too. How's residency treating you?

I like your baseball analogy. Not sure if 3 is the appropriate cutoff for "major league" or what the appropriate cutoff would be though. Why did you choose that number?

On a side note the convention is to put the quoted text above your reply. Why don't you do this?

On another side note: @ your probationary status, I swear I haven't reported one of your posts in at least the last month or two

 

[235009]

3 totally arbitrary...but maybe due to 4 and higher being harder for me get papers into. Nature, Cell, Science, NEJM are all pennant./World Series winners by my system

Easier for me to quote above test.

Probation? Being from NY, I don't suffer fools lightly. You've been cool, too. How's residency treating you?

Well now you're talking about journals with crazy high impact factors...
Nature = 38
Cell = 28
Science = 34
NEJM = 59
Maybe the cutoff would be different for clinical vs basic science research since in the former citations are a lot easier to come by because there is more stuff being published. Honestly in clinical research an impact factor of 3, while very respectable, isn't exactly "major league".

I'm also a NYer ...maybe that's why we butt heads
Residency is behind me and I'm doing fellowship now which is going great. I enjoy being a subspecialist a lot more than doing primary care. The latter really exposes how insanely broken the medical system is and how we've warped patient expectations to an absurd degree, especially relative to the lack of support and compensation attached to the practice of primary care.

 

[Goro]

True that!
Well now you're talking about journals with crazy high impact factors...
Nature = 38
Cell = 28
Science = 34
NEJM = 59

Yup, my prism has only been in basic sciences. I should try to get some case reports written in collaboration with my clinical colleagues,
Maybe the cutoff would be different for clinical vs basic science research since in the former citations are a lot easier to come by because there is more stuff being published. Honestly in clinical research an impact factor of 3, while very respectable, isn't exactly "major league".

Fellowship already? Where did the time go?????? Anyway, good luck!
I'm also a NYer ...maybe that's why we butt heads
Residency is behind me and I'm doing fellowship now which is going great. I enjoy being a subspecialist a lot more than doing primary care. The latter really exposes how insanely broken the medical system is and how we've warped patient expectations to an absurd degree, especially relative to the lack of support and compensation attached to the practice of primary care.[/QUOTE]

 

[mcloaf]

You're fine. For residency application purposes, a pub is a pub*

*Now, I'm sure people will disagree, get all butthurt like they always do, and start going off about how this attitude is ruining the precious sanctity of high-quality research, but the reality is that research is a farce for 95% of med students. A mere pump and dump game, plain and simple. Is it better to publish high-quality research in well known journals? Well, Duh. Does it actually matter? No. Especially with an impact factor of 3, you have nothing to worry about. Impact factor < 1 is when it starts to get dubious. Don't listen to the people who will invariably come in here and try to scare you by saying that PD's will see obscure journals as a red-flag. It's BS...They're just mad/jelly/'mirin because they went/ are going through the unnecessary trouble of taking what they perceive to be "the high and mighty road," so they want to justify their efforts by belittling the more efficient path taken by others.

Ask yourself: What's your bottom line? Do you want to be a research scientist or do you simply want to match in your desired specialty? Be practical. Don't make more work for yourself than you have to. Now, I'm not advocating publishing pure garbage...but let's be real: It's been shown that a significant chunk of med student """research""" is actually completely made up / faked / unverifiable (1). If people can get away with that kind of nonsense, your legitimate journal article is as good as gold....It's a shame, and I, like many others, wish it could be different, but that's just the world we live in now...Blame the system. The ever-increasing competitiveness of certain specialties / Program Directors' ever-growing hardon for research has created unsustainable "research" averages...much like the 2006-2008 housing bubble in the United States. It's the academic version of inflation.

Take, for example, the average # of research items for derm in 2016, 11.7...Do you really think people are publishing 12 high quality research items, on average? Hell no. Even after you account for the fact that a single project can net multiple research "items," it doesn't add up. There simply is no way to maintain that average quantity without sacrificing average quality. The numbers will keep creeping up until the bubble "pops" , just like the 2008 financial crisis. In the not so distant future, we will see averages of ~20 research items for the most competitive specialties, and the average quality will have concurrently devolved to such **** that a radical overhaul of the application process will have to be implemented. You heard it here first. But, until that day, keep pumping and dumping away, my friend.


/rant

1. Unverifiable publications in otolaryngology residency applications. - PubMed - NCBI

Smh

 

[Amba]

Smh

I really wish he would share even more wisdom from his vast research experience that has resulted in zero publications or presentations.