From: Richard Prankerd (richard.prankerd$##$vcp.monash.edu.au)
Date: Mon May 06 2002 - 18:13:35 EDT
Ivo:
You touch on a sore point. Over the years I have written several letters to
journal editors to correct faults in published papers - faults that have
escaped the authors, the reviewers and the editor. If I had time, I could have
written quite a few more similar letters. One of the things which also annoys
me is that authors have missed important references in the field, even from
recent volumes in the same journal.
It appears to me that there is too much pressure to publish quickly, not enough
competent people to review manuscripts, and perhaps editors who are held to
unrealistic deadlines by their publishers. Thus, careful review of all the
evidence presented is not done in many cases.
I would suggest that if you are irritated by papers which do not correctly
interpret the data presented, then write a letter to the editor of the journal
which published the paper, and requesting that your letter be published. Set
out your arguments accurately and dispassionately. If the editor is doing
his/her job, then your letter should be forwarded first to the original authors
for any possible comment or rebuttal. After a short interval, the editor should
then simultaneously publish your letter and the rebuttal, if there is any. So
far, none of the letters that I have written have received any rebuttal. You
should only write such letters for which there is concrete evidence in the
original paper that supports your position.
Regards
Richard
Ivo Ivanov wrote:
> Dear Orglist Members,
>
> Recently, I have read several articles, even in good journals (e.g. Tetr.
> Lett.), that were totally wrong and/or contained many chemical faults. For
> instance, I have read two papers in 'Il Farmaco' and 'Eur. J. Med. Chem.',
> respectively, which tried to convince me that hymecromone (Mendiaxon) could
> build metal copmplexes with the ions of La, Ce, Zn, Fe, etc. But actually,
> the authors isolated merely the starting material, i.e. hymecromone itself
> mixed with some metal hydroxide. Proofs for that are given in the spectral
> sections of the same papers but the authors didn't notice them. Of course,
> publications like this become useless or misleading.
>
> Hence my question:
>
> Are there good chemical journals where papers are accepted which criticize
> such kind of papers -- containing obvious nonsense and/or absence of
> chemical common sense.
>
> I would greatly appreciate any suggestion.
>
> Best regards,
> Ivo Ivanov
>
-- Richard J. Prankerd, PhD Senior Lecturer Victorian College of Pharmacy, Monash University 381 Royal Pde., Parkville VIC 3052Phone: INT+613-9903-9003 Phax: INT+613-9903-9583
Drugs need to be designed with delivery components in mind - Takeru Higuchi
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