From: guptapk (guptapk$##$icfre.org)
Date: Wed May 08 2002 - 01:24:15 EDT
Ivo:
I feel that many editors/publishers do not welcome the idea of publishing letters
as it also reflects their lacuna of not able to get the paper properly edited. I
think most important is the spirit by which they are coming out with their
journals in this commercial setups.
Dr. P. K. Gupta
Richard Prankerd wrote:
> 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 3052
>
> Phone: 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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>
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