Karel makes some very useful points and I particularly like his ideas
about exposing students to reviewing. One strategy would be to ask them
to review any papers submitted by their colleagues and then compare
their review with the feedback from real reviewers.
I'm equally sceptical about the idea of journal publishing for the
majority of PhD students. In some of the more reductive sciences
researchers routinely and frequently publish routine findings from lab
work that add to the pile of useful knowledge about a subject. In those
fields publishing performance is measured by the weight of papers
published as much as anything else.
That is the agenda that is driving some university systems and it does
not serve us well. We do not have that accretive model of research that
depends on well-established methods like the clinical trial. Instead we
should only publish in a journal when we have something to say that
feels both substantial and of interest to our peers. Conferences fill a
useful function in providing a venue for more tentative work, especially
where some feedback or debate will be useful in clarifying our thinking.
I am very pleased to say that I have published two papers in refereed
journals in the past four years.
regards
Chris
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