Jüri Allik, Professor of Experimental Psychology at the University of Tartu, belongs to the top one per cent of the world’s most cited scientists in his field. His recipes for becoming a top researcher were among the top 10 most popular posts on our blog in 2013.
This is the first post in Professor Allik’s revealing three-part series on scientific publishing.
To publish, or not to publish?
Few people could imagine the normal working day of a scientist. A scientist is imagined as wearing a white boiler suit and thoughtfully examining a test tube, with all kind of gadgets in the background. Actually, even an experimenter spends most of his or her time at the computer, answering emails or filling out often pointless write-ups and forms.
The older one gets, the less time that will go into research, and more time each day is spent making the results of the research public — also known as publishing. One of the ways to publish something is by going to a conference and presenting results there, be it an oral or visual presentation.
But one can seldom be a key performer at a big conference with thousands or more in the audience. Usually, just a couple of good acquaintances come to listen to your report, in addition to some diligent Japanese or Chinese, to whom you could have said everything in an evening with a glass of wine. It’s also bad that sometimes it’s possible to pretend to have message when, in fact, there isn’t one.
The most efficient way to report results is still through an article in a good, well-read journal. It’s possible that those in the humanities might be an exception, as they may consider anything less than a book not even to be a text; however, I have my well-grounded doubts about this as well. Continue reading
