Milestone

Last week I got an email from Research Gate. "Jamie," it said, "you have a NEW CITATION!" I clicked. The full text of the article was available, and I skimmed through to see why they were citing me.

I found the sentence where they wrote about my paper. I frowned at it. It sounded very familiar. It sounded...too familiar. It sounded like ME, dernit.

I pulled up my original article and CTRL-F-ed for the giveaway verb. Sure enough, they had pasted in my very own words. There were a couple of minor tweaks to my sentence, but it was unmistakably my work.

Probably the only thing I'm going to do about it is write this post. It's in an OMICS journal, which means that your pet tarantula has higher ethical standards than the publisher. I once agreed to review for an OMICS journal, back before I knew better, and it was an eye-opening experience. I said, "It is imperative that the authors with undisclosed formula industry connections complete the required disclosure forms accurately." It was egregious: transparent pro-industry bias evident in the manuscript, multiple industry relationships apparent within minutes of googling. I recommended that they reject the paper. Surprise! They accepted the paper. There were no disclosure updates.

Scholarly papers often include the timeline for the submission process: when did the manuscript first cross the editor's desk, and how long was the revision process, and how long has it been in press? This journal used the framework established by more reputable outlets to undermine its own credibility: submitted 8/24/17, returned for review 8/31/17, accepted 9/14/17. Those dates do not suggest a rigorous peer review process. That's how the predatory journals roll: they persuade academics to pay for the privilege of being published quickly.

Academic writing is kind of a lonely gig. You sweat and labor over papers only to hear that the reviewers want you to rewrite them and the editor isn't sure she can accept them. You finally parturite* them out into the world, only to discover that hardly anyone reads them. 

*I am coining that verb to describe the uniquely struggle-filled oxygen-deprived soul-depleting puuuuuuush required to propel a baby out into the world-- the kind of push that leaves a person bruised in her tenderest places and utterly exhausted. Can I get an AMEN from my fellow academic writers?

But hey! Somebody read my paper. And liked my writing, evidently, at least enough to repurpose it. If the author were my student I would give him an F. Since he's not, I'll just shake my head and blog about him.