Will asking a question get your science paper cited more?

Ben Goldacre:

In an ideal world, you might imagine that scientific papers were only cited by academics on the basis of their content. This might be true. But lots of other stuff can have an influence.

One classic paper from 1991, for example, found that academic papers covered by the New York Times received more subsequent citations. Now, you might reasonably suggest a simple explanation: the journalists of the Times were good at spotting the most important work. But the researchers looking into this were lucky. They noticed the opportunity for a natural experiment when the printers - but not the journalists - of the Times went on strike.

The editorial staff continued to produce a "paper of record", which was laid down in the archives, but never printed, never distributed and never read. The scientific articles covered in these unprinted newspapers didn't see a subsequent uplift in citations. That is, if we can take a moment, a very clever piece of opportunistic research.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at October 19, 2011 3:05 AM
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