中文概要

本文是Dr. Daniel McGowan在读过《自然》杂志近期的一篇社论后撰写的。笔者通过在自然出版集团工作期间的所见所闻，在社论的基础上进一步阐述了一篇文章的取舍不是单独某个审稿人可以决定的，而是整个编委共同决策的结果。笔者最后分析了为什么在具有较高影响因子的期刊中东西方科研人员文章发表数量的比例非常不均衡，并对中国的科研人员给出了建议：将研究成果合理地论文化以及专门的学术交流型网站(比如科学网和丁香园网站)对于完善科研活动以及促进文章顺利发表是十分重要的。

对于国际知名期刊的资深编辑如何挑选文章，以下观点源于《自然》杂志的这篇社论：
理解误区1：编辑会刻意挑选可能有较高引用率的文章发表。
实际情况：《自然》杂志收录的大部分文章引用次数也只有几十，只有部分文章的引用次数会高一些。
理解误区2：一份负面的审稿报告单足可以否决一篇文章，无论文章有再多可取之处。
实际情况：社论通过对《自然》杂志内部严格的评估体系的描述，证明了即便是报告单结果平平的文章也会成功发表。

该社论还指出，作者的职业背景和国籍不会对文章的发表与否产生任何影响；审稿人不会对亚洲作者有歧视情况，尽管这一现象目前的确存在于某些杂志。

原文

A recent Nature editorial is revealing in its description of how research papers are selected for publication in that prestigious journal. For researchers struggling to advance their careers and obtain ongoing grant funding, the key to success is to publish, publish and publish some more. And the higher the impact factors of the journals they can publish in, the greater their chances of success. Therefore, this editorial is a welcome insight into how editors at a high profile, high impact factor journal choose research papers for publication.

The editorial begins by attempting to overcome the false idea that the editors deliberately choose papers that will likely receive a very high number of citations. Although some Nature papers receive hundreds of citations per year, the vast majority receive only tens of citations, showing that papers in Nature cover a wide range of citation rates, a rate that is difficult if not impossible to predict in advance. The editorial also comments on the false idea that a single negative report can be sufficient for rejection, despite a paper’s strengths. However, this false idea is also overcome as the editorial describes the system of strict internal assessment at Nature and notes that even papers receiving average reports were published on the basis of this system. Indeed, I recall from my time at Nature Publishing Group attending News and Views meetings in which Nature editors in the various offices worldwide teleconferenced to discuss the merits of individual papers for special mention in the News and Views section. If the same degree of analysis and discussion is applied to decisions on manuscripts (and I am sure it is), there can be no doubt that the final, rational decision regarding publication is made by the team of editors (who have a balanced and deep understanding of the field as a whole), with the reviewer reports forming just part of the evidence they use to make their decision.

Importantly for authors in China, the editorial states that the identity and location of any author plays no role in the decision process; that is, each manuscript is assessed on the basis of its merits alone, with author track record being irrelevant. This is certainly reassuring and, combined with the stated extent of their reviewer pool (they claim to have used nearly 5400 reviewers last year), should ensure that there is no bias against Asian authors. While such a bias may still exist at some journals, it is reassuring to see a journal with the calibre of Nature openly make an effort to overcome this false idea about their journal.

So why do Western scientists, and frequently the same ones again and again, seem to have a disproportionately high number of publications in high-impact-factor journals? Partly this difference is a result of how the research is conducted and the quality of the results (study design), and partly it relates to how the research is presented in the manuscript for submission (presentation). Chinese scientists are becoming more aware of these problems and gaining a deeper understanding of not only ‘the scientific process’ that should be followed to achieve robust and valid results, but also how to write a scientific paper and what components need to go into a scientific paper. Social networking sites for scientists such as ScienceNet and DXY are doing much to create an awareness of these problems and offer solutions to them; they are rapidly becoming a ‘place to go’ for scientists with questions about the process of research and its publication. Other online materials such as the articles, presentations and other resources on the Liwen Bianji website also help to fill this void. I have said before in this blog that the volume of Chinese research is vast, but that there remains a gap (although one that is closing) in quality between Chinese and much Western research; on the basis of the Nature editorial highlighted here, as this gap continues to close there should remain no obstacles for Chinese authors to publish in journals with even the highest of impact factors.