<p>Any thoughts on the MPU? I have just read two papers (epidemiology) where the introduction and methods sections are basically verbatim, but each paper analyzed a different aspect of the data, which IMO could have been easily combined into one paper. I know it's frowned upon, but is this a good strategy for graduate students to boost their credentials for finding jobs in academia in the long term and for fellowship/post-doc competitions in the near term (more publications, the better, right?)?</p>
<p>if you wish your reputation to be a “poor quality minimal publishable unit” researcher-sure. But if you wish to have a lasting reputation in research, it is preferable to publish a definitive manuscript (large or small) on a significant issue.
Research communities are really much smaller than you think! Reputations tend to stick-so be careful on how you present yourself in research.</p>
<p>Smaller “archival” manuscripts are often what research groups publish when they have left over data from larger studies. If the group feels that the data probably should be offered up to the field, but the group no longer wishes to pursue that particular avenue, the partial study is published in lower tier journals.</p>
<p>
No, the more high-quality publications, the better.</p>
<p>Journal impact factor and h-index are important, not necessarily in terms of actual numerica value, but in terms of perception.</p>
<p>A crappy publication will not be remembered. Presumably a good PI wouldn’t let a crappy publication come out of his lab. If you want to publish a paper with a half assed setup then you will most likely face resistance from your PI, coauthors, editors and reviewers. The peer review system does a decent job of keeping the quality of articles up. The places where this falls apart tend to be in clinical journals and other journals with low prestige.</p>
<p>Thanks for your responses! I’m still trying to get my head wrapped around what motivates PIs to publish low quality work. I’ve heard about the whole “publish or perish” thing and, like molliebatmit said, quality does matter. But, let’s say you’re a PI at a lower ranked institution, is it more of a numbers game than quality over quantity?</p>
<p>On a related issue of ethical concern: PIs tagging each others names on papers but did not contribute enough worthy of authorship. How prevalent is this in basic sciences and biomedical sciences research?</p>
<p>quality is always important. No matter where the PI is, the PI must compete for funds from the same funding organizations as others in their field. </p>
<p>As to authorship: graduate students do not always realize the amount of scientific planning and effort that a collaborator may have expended in generating key reagents (antibodies, vectors, etc). Therefore, these mysterious authors may actually have contributed a large or even essential non-redundant element while a student may have assumed they contributed nothing!</p>
<p>citations, citations, citations. am i correct?</p>
<p>Interesting point! Never thought about that before.</p>
<p>As far as authorship goes…</p>
<p>
<a href=“http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive/phd031305s.gif[/img]”>http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive/phd031305s.gif
![http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive/phd031305s.gif[/img]](http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive/phd031305s.gif%5B/img%5D){kind=link}
</a></p>
<p>lol@the cartoon… seems that way sometimes.</p>
<p>Found an interesting article: [Journal</a> of Clinical Investigation – Publish or perish, but at what cost?](<a href=“http://www.jci.org/articles/view/36371]Journal”>JCI - Publish or perish, but at what cost?)</p>