The Scientific Paper Mill

Career advice for scientists Previous articles

There's always next year.

Most scientists work in relative obscurity, publishing a few articles here and there -- just enough to keep their careers alive. Further up the ladder, many highly regarded researchers have secured strong legacies with 150 to 300 publications. (Few social scientists reach these levels. Any study that measures human behavior tends to take a while.)

And then there are the outliers, the scientists who have stamped their names all over the literature. Some researchers even manage to make Mr. Russell look like a victim of writer's block. The German chemist and Nobel Prize-winner Wilhelm Ostwald (1853-1932), for instance, claimed more than 5,000 publications. Weekends presumably didn't mean much at the Ostwald household.

Gargantuan CV's always raise many questions, and the Montana State University microbiologist William Costerton, with "580 publications and counting," has heard his share: Did he even read the papers that bear his name? Do his graduate students do all of the writing? How many of those articles were in the North Dakota journal of microbiology? ("A jealous mind will always wonder," Mr. Costerton replies.)

But for scientists plotting their careers, the questions get more serious: What does it take to turn a laboratory into a paper mill, and is it always worth the effort? Highly prolific writing definitely has its rewards but also some potential pitfalls. Even if you can't match the pace of Mr. Russell or Mr. Costerton, you can learn from their examples.

The March to 1,000

Mr. Russell didn't begin his career aiming for 1,000 publications. But once the count started climbing, he couldn't stop. "I really like to push frontiers, to figure out how something works and get it published," he says. A competitive spirit doesn't hurt. "If I see a good idea, and someone else is close," he says, "I try to get it out first."

No matter how driven you are, you'll never get into the high triple-digits without wide-ranging interests and a large cadre of collaborators. Mr. Russell, for instance, is tackling problems that range from the sun's magnetic emissions to Jupiter's rotation. He may soon head the Dawn Mission, a proposed NASA project that could help explain the origins of the solar system. If it's successful, Mr. Russell would probably find a way to squeeze a couple of papers out of the data.

Somewhere along the way, he developed a game plan for writing. When it's time to put data into words, he closes his door and breaks out his notebook. He writes every paper by longhand -- no typewriter, no word processor. Then he passes it on to his support staff. A secretary transcribes the text, a draftsman makes the diagrams, and computer programmers work on the graphs. This separation of labor leaves Mr. Russell free to chase the next big idea. "I don't spend a lot of time standing in front of the Xerox machine," he says.

Prolific as he is, Mr. Russell doesn't get a free pass from reviewers. In fact, he says, his name alone carries very little weight. "We still get letters saying, 'This isn't worth the paper it's written on for the following 57 reasons,'" he says. Usually, however, he and his co-authors can smooth out the rough spots and win over the doubters.

The Minimum Publishable Unit

Conducting good science isn't the only way to bulk up a CV. Some researchers live by the code of the minimal publishable unit -- three good ideas means three different papers. The really "creative" researchers can generate new papers just by changing a few parameters on their graphs.

And, of course, anyone can improve the chances for publication by submitting solely to bottom-of-the-barrel journals. They just shouldn't expect much acclaim. "I could name a handful of psychologists who crank out hundreds of papers in third-rate journals," says Greg Feist, an associate professor of psychology at the College of William and Mary. "They have no credibility to speak of."

Quantity Over Quality?

There's a reason some scientists try to inflate their CV's: In most cases, length matters. In fact, top scientists may gain more from quantity than from quality. In a study published in the Creativity Research Journal in 1997, Mr. Feist tracked the publication history, citation rate, and general prestige (based on titles and awards) of 99 full professors in the University of California system. Surprisingly, the sheer volume of papers -- not the number of citations per paper -- was the best predictor of prestige. "Some people don't want to believe it," Feist says. "My caveat is that this was an elite sample. The trend probably wouldn't hold for other scientists."

In general, it takes a few high-impact articles -- not loads of publications -- to really kickstart a career, says Dean Keith Simonton, a professor of psychology at the University of California at Davis. But there's one sure way to improve your odds of getting a big hit: Put out as many papers as possible. "The more you write, the higher your odds of producing an influential article," he says. Even top scientists have to crank out plenty of misses for every big hit. "The most-prolific scientists tend to produce the most ignored publications."

Getting Started

For young scientists, it's never too early to plot a publishing strategy. Try to delve into topics that yield quick results and leave the big questions for later. When it's time to start submitting your first articles, it doesn't pay to be picky about journals. "Until you get four or five publications, you should take what you can get," Mr. Costerton says.

Eventually, however, you have to start thinking Science and Nature, instead of Yeast and the Australian Journal of Plant Physiology. "If you have 20 publications and none of them are in top-tier journals, the portfolio starts to look wrong," Mr. Costerton says.

Above all else, keep the papers coming. Don't be afraid of rejection, and don't let good research fester on your desk. "I've been on a lot of grant committees, and I've always felt it was better to give money to people who were going to publish," Mr. Costerton says.

If that doesn't get the creative juices flowing, nothing will.

Chris Woolston is a freelance science and medical writer living in Billings, Mont. He has a master's degree in biology from Montana State University and a graduate certificate in science communication from the University of California at Santa Cruz.

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