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European Science Editing
Number of Followers: 5

This is an Open Access Journal

Open Access journal
ISSN (Online) 2518-3354
Published by European Association of Science Editors

[1 journal]

Simplify manuscript submission and optimize authors’ resources by
eliminating formatting and cover letters
- Abstract: European Science Editing 46: e52063
  DOI : 10.3897/ese.2020.e52063
  Authors : Jaime Teixeira da Silva : Academics are under constant pressure to optimize their time. Formatting requirements imposed on academics by journals or editors during initial manuscript submission may waste precious time, energy, and financial resources, especially if a paper is desk-rejected, and even more so when there are multiple rejections. Formatting, which does not reflect a manuscript’s academic quality, should not be a requirement during initial submission, but only after a paper has passed peer review and been approved for publication. Several publishers offer a formatting-free option during initial submission, allowing academics to optimize their time and energy. HTML PDF
  PubDate: Fri, 10 Jul 2020 10:00:00 +030
Time to stop the exploitation of free academic labour
- Abstract: European Science Editing 46: e51839
  DOI : 10.3897/ese.2020.e51839
  Authors : Jon Tennant : Commercial publishing houses continue to make unbounded profits while exploiting the free labour of researchers through peer review. If publishers are to be compensated financially for the value that they add within a capitalist system, then so should all others who add value, including reviewers. I propose that peer review should be included as a professional service by research institutes in their contracts with commercial publishers. This would help to recognize the value of peer review, and begin to shape it into a functional form of quality control. HTML PDF
  PubDate: Mon, 6 Jul 2020 10:00:00 +0300
United Kingdom’s contribution to European research output in biomedical
sciences: 2008–2017
- Abstract: European Science Editing 46: e51112
  DOI : 10.3897/ese.2020.e51112
  Authors : Raoul Tan, Eric Sijbrands : Background: On 31 January 2020, the United Kingdom (UK) formally left the European Union (EU). Only a short transition period, until 31 December 2020, is available to negotiate collaborations for research in biomedical sciences and health care. Within the European scientific community, two opinions are common: 1) Brexit is an opportunity to obtain more funding at the expense of the departing British; and 2) UK colleagues should continue to collaborate in EU scientific efforts, including Horizon Europe and Erasmus+. To provide evidence for more informed negotiations, we sought to determine the contribution of the UK to EU’s research in biomedical sciences.Methods: We performed a macro level scientometric analysis to estimate the contribution of the UK and EU member states, including those associated with EU-funding (EU+) namely Albania, Armenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Faroe Islands, Georgia, Iceland, Israel, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Norway, Serbia, Switzerland, Tunisia, Turkey, and Ukraine, to preclinical, clinical and health sciences. We searched the Web of Science database to count the total number of scientific publications and the top 1% most cited publications in the world between 2008 and 2017, calculated the performance efficiency by dividing the top 1% by the total number, and calculated the odds ratios to create a ranking of performance efficiency. We then compared the contribution of the UK to all the EU+ -based publications and the top 1% to the contributions of the ten EU member states with the largest biomedical research output and also compared the respective contributions to EU+ publications that resulted from collaborations with other regions in the world.Results: We found 2,991,016 biomedical publications from EU+ during 2008–2017, of which 19,019 (0.64%) were in the world’s top 1% of the most cited publications. The UK produced 665,467 (22.3%) of these publications and had over two and a half times more top 1% most cited publications than the EU+ (odds ratio 2.79, 95% CI 2.71–2.88, p< 0.001). The UK’s share in the EU+ co-publications with regions outside Europe ranged between 23.0% for the Arab League and 50.6% for Australia and New Zealand and its share of the top 1% ranged between 48.6% for the USA and Canada and 70.7% for the African Union.Conclusions: The UK contributed far more highly cited publications than the rest of the EU+ states and strongly contributed to European collaborations with the rest of the world during 2008–2017. This suggests that if the UK ceases to participate in EU scientific collaborations as a result of Brexit, the quantity and quality of EU’s research in biomedical sciences will be adversely affected. HTML XML PDF
  PubDate: Wed, 20 May 2020 10:00:00 +030
Abuse of peer review process by sham authors
- Abstract: European Science Editing 46: e53890
  DOI : 10.3897/ese.2020.e53890
  Authors : Senthil Kumar, Shahryar Sorooshian : This is a short letter on how the peer review process of many journals is being abused by some sham authors. While it would be difficult for the journals to identify and eliminate manuscripts that are not submitted with a sincere intention to publish, the universities and learning institutions should develop code of ethics to prevent their staff from abusing the journal review process. Imposing submission fee would also act as a deterrent against unscrupulous submissions. HTML XML PDF
  PubDate: Sat, 9 May 2020 09:09:00 +0300
Dealing with difficult authors
- Abstract: European Science Editing 46: e52201
  DOI : 10.3897/ese.2020.e52201
  Authors : Pippa Smart : There is considerable literature about the responsibilities of authors and editors in regard to ethics, integrity but there is little information on how to manage editor-author relationships when serious disagreements occur and the one party starts to behave in an unacceptable manner. This article is based on a recent experience and presents some thoughts and suggestions for editors on managing relationships between editors and the authors when authors start to behave badly. HTML XML PDF
  PubDate: Wed, 29 Apr 2020 17:20:00 +030
Russia and post-Soviet countries compared: coverage of papers by Scopus
and Web of Science, languages, and productivity of researchers
- Abstract: European Science Editing 46: e53192
  DOI : 10.3897/ese.2020.e53192
  Authors : Natalia Alimova, Yuri Brumshteyn : Objective: To analyse the productivity of post-Soviet countries, adjusted by population, in terms of research papers published and the proportions of those papers indexed by Scopus and the Web of Science.Methods: Relevant data on the journals indexed in Scopus and the Web of Science were analysed. Where required, data were also extracted from Russian Science Citation Index databases and websites of journals.Results: On average, the post-Soviet countries had 31 researchers per 10,000 people. The average numbers of publications per researcher in journals indexed by Scopus was 1.04 and the corresponding figure for the Web of Science was 0.87. In terms of the number of journals indexed in Scopus and the Web of Science, the leading countries were Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.Conclusion: Although the post-Soviet countries differed considerably in terms of bibliometric indices, the overall values were low. Main features of the journals were as follows: articles published in national languages – in Russian in many cases – and in English, articles mostly by authors within the region, and only a minority of foreigners as members of editorial boards. Thus most of the journals cannot be considered international. All the journals examined have websites in a national language and/or in English and invariably carry information on ethical practices, although such information is not given in a uniform format and varies from country to country. HTML XML PDF
  PubDate: Wed, 29 Apr 2020 17:20:00 +030
Proposed universal framework for more user-friendly author instructions
- Abstract: European Science Editing 46: e53477
  DOI : 10.3897/ese.2020.e53477
  Authors : Sylwia Ufnalska, Alison Terry : When preparing a scientific manuscript for submission to a journal, it is often time-consuming to find the journal's specific preferences, which can influence acceptance. We propose that journals include a simple table at the start of their instructions for authors, clearly displaying the essential information, e.g. word count, number of keywords, format of tables and figures. Such a table could be also easily updated as journal preferences change. Thanks to this, the submitted articles would be more likely to meet the basic requirements. We hope this initiative will save time for everyone involved in scientific publishing. HTML XML PDF
  PubDate: Wed, 29 Apr 2020 17:20:00 +030
ESE and EASE call for high standards of research and editing
- Abstract: European Science Editing 46: e53230
  DOI : 10.3897/ese.2020.e53230
  Authors : Ksenija Bazdaric, Pippa Smart : The world has changed in the past few months in a way most of us could not imagine. The words “novel corona virus’’ (SARS-CoV-2), “COVID-19’’, “prevention”, “flattening the curve’’ and “hand washing’’ have become constant references within the daily news reports of mortality rates, the lack of equipment and possible therapies. The novel corona virus (SARS-CoV-2), which was first identified in the Chinese province of Hubei, has led to a pandemic and the whole scientific community, both in the public and privately-financed sector, is searching for an effective therapy as well as for a vaccine. All scientists (clinicians, epidemiologists, virologists, and public health experts) are under great pressure to give advice on matters where there is still no evidence.We are used to reading fake news and non-filtered information in the media, but are we ready for similar occurrences in science journals' HTML XML PDF
  PubDate: Wed, 29 Apr 2020 17:20:00 +030
Retractions of research papers by authors from the Arab region (1998-2018)
- Abstract: European Science Editing 46: e51002
  DOI : 10.3897/ese.2020.e51002
  Authors : Saif Aldeen AlRyalat, Muayad Azzam, Abdallah Massad, Dana Alqatawneh : Objective: To provide an overview of retractions of research papers contributed by authors from the Arab region.Method: Papers in which the first author was affiliated to an Arabian country were selected from the Retraction Watch database covering the period 1 January 1998 to 31 December 2018. The retrieved records were divided into nine categories based on the reasons for retraction.Results: The search yielded 322 retractions, and the most frequent reason for retraction was plagiarism (34.5%). The median time from publication to retraction was 14 (25%-75% percentile 5-30) months. The number of papers retracted each year as well as the number of papers published in a given year but subsequently retracted increased steadily over the 21 years. The proportion of retracted papers to the total number of published papers (0.17%) was higher than the global proportion and was the highest for Algeria (1%) and the lowest for Lebanon (0.03%). Of the countries within the Arab region, 12 out of 14 countries showed either plagiarism or duplication as the most common reason for retraction; however, the countries differed in terms of the number of retractions and the time from publishing to retraction.Conclusion: Plagiarism was the most common cause of retraction in the Arab countries. The increase in the number of papers retracted each year was probably because searches now extend farther in the past, whereas the increase in the number of papers published in a given year but subsequently retracted can be attributed to the overall increase in the number of papers published. HTML XML PDF
  PubDate: Tue, 18 Feb 2020 16:00:00 +020
Editors should allow only significant digits
- Abstract: European Science Editing 46: e50999
  DOI : 10.3897/ese.2020.e50999
  Authors : Arjan Polderman : “Out of 80 experiments, 45 (56.3%) had a favourable outcome.” If you read this sentence in a manuscript, would you want to edit the figures'I certainly would. There are too many digits in ‘56.3%’. The decimal 3 is meaningless; 56% is precise enough. If the number of favourable outcomes is 44, the percentage score is 55%; with 46 successes it is 58%. There is no uncertainty here.But what should we do when we are dealing with 237 out of 623' Both 237 and 238 result in a score of 38%. Wouldn’t it be wise to distinguish these outcomes by writing 38.0% and 38.2% respectively' Well, if such precision is important, we can simply present the absolute values. Absolute values are always accurate; percentages and fractions are only approximations.What might be the purpose of accurate percentages' I appreciate that percentage scores and fractions are better for comparisons than absolute values. With percentages I can see at a glance that 237/623 is more than 165/465 (38% and 35% respectively). Percentages are quick – and inaccurate, even with additional decimals. HTML XML PDF
  PubDate: Tue, 18 Feb 2020 16:00:00 +020
European Science Editing is in full open access now
- Abstract: European Science Editing 46: e50566
  DOI : 10.3897/ese.2020.e50566
  Authors : Ksenija Bazdaric : I am excited to announce that with this volume European Science Editing (ESE) has shifted from the print to a fully digital open access version. The journal underwent several changes last year. First of all, our publisher, the European Association of Science Editors (EASE) was generously offered – and accepted – a new ARPHA submission system (powered by PenSoft). Together with the EASE president Pippa Smart and EASE Council, we decided to transform ESE into a fully open access online journal. After several months of planning and re-thinking our strategy, a small working group (some members of the EASE Council and of ESE’s associate editors) prepared a proposal, the main idea of which was to divide the journal in two overlapping publications: European Science Editing and EASE Digest. The former will continue to publish original articles, reviews (formerly “essays”), viewpoints, and correspondence using the fully open access ARPHA submission system (flow publishing) but will drop the other sections, namely News notes, The editor’s bookshelf, This site I like, and EASE Forum Digest). These sections, which our readers consider particularly valuable, will now be published in EASE Digest with a few selected articles from ESE. The Digest will be available to EASE members only. As the proposal was accepted by the EASE Council in September 2019, the journal’s transformation is already under way. I wish to thank Silvia Maina (This site I like), Fiona Murphy (Book reviews), Elise Langdon-Neuner (EASE-Forum Digest), Anna Maria Rossi (The Editor’s bookshelf), and James Hartley and Denys Wheatley (members of the International Advisory Board) for the great work they have done and for their cooperation. HTML XML PDF
  PubDate: Tue, 18 Feb 2020 16:00:00 +020