What does this mean?
Whereas 20 per cent of submitted manuscripts are rejected by physics journals, this rate reaches 80 per cent in psychology.
Adair, J.G. & Vohra, N. (2003).The explosion of knowledge, references, and citations: Psychology?s unique response to a crisis. American Psychologist, 58(1), 15?23.
Perhaps it means that psychology journals have higher standards? Or that that psychologists submitting papers have lower standards? Both seem unlikely, especially since the authors and the reviewers are often the same people. Does an incoherent intellectual culture make the business of publishing research more problematic? Answers on a postcard please…
One reply on “Physics (journal) envy…”
I think we both know it means both. Physicists have higher standards – they won’t try to publish unless they have something publishable, ie something that can’t be torn apart by peers within the contsrtraints of a discipline with the rules of a normal science.
Psychologists are free of such burdens, and submit any old shit, although frankly I’m surprised that this makes the rejection rate so high – I’d be interested to see exactly what journals have been included. Presumably some of those at the fluffier end of the spectrum have been omitted…