Biomedical science has never been more exciting or productive. Research tools have become increasingly powerful, and progress continues to accelerate. Yet, these are stressful times for many biomedical scientists, because competition for grant support, jobs, and publishing in the most prestigious journals is also accelerating. The stress associated with publishing experimental results--a process that can take as long as obtaining the results in the first place--can drain much of the joy from practicing science. - Duncan Hull
I'm not paying $10 to read a letter to a GlamorMag. - Bill Hooker
"Both editors and referees could help. Referees need to be more thoughtful when recommending additional experiments and to make sure that these experiments are truly needed to justify publication. Editors should insist that reviewers rigorously justify each new experiment that they request. They should also ask reviewers to estimate how much time and effort the experiment might require. With this information in hand, editors can more easily override referees'excessive demands. This requires confident, knowledgeable, and experienced editors, and it risks alienating referees, who are often hard to come by. Nonetheless, editors should be encouraged and empowered to perform this crucial task." - Duncan Hull
"A more radical solution, which is already used by some journals, is to have editors and their relevant editorial board members triage papers so that only those that meet the criteria of interest, novelty, and importance appropriate for the journal are sent out for formal review. This will save reviewers' time. In addition, papers that clear this initial hurdle can then be reviewed solely for scientific accuracy, appropriateness of controls, clear writing, and justification of the conclusions." - Duncan Hull
