It takes a while to get papers published in scientific journals. Typically, 6-12 months pass between the final data collection and the submission of a manuscript for publication. The journal editor takes about a month to send the paper out to reviewer, who can take 2-4 months to complete their review. Add another month for the author to address the reviewer's comments and resubmit the paper. If the paper is accepted, it takes about 6 months for the journal to publish the paper. This means that there is a lag of about 2 years between the end of an experiment and the appearance of the work in print. During those 2 years, other scientists keep working, and a lot of other papers appear on similar topics. It is quite likely that while trying to get a paper published, someone else will publish a paper that contains results or ideas that would have made the paper in question better.

For this week's assignment:

Use the bibliography that the class prepared (click here to see the bibliography), and find two papers with a common theme. Explore the question of how one or both of the papers would have been better if the authors had been aware of each other's work as they were publishing their paper. Prepare a brief (2-3 pages, typed) description of your explorations. Be prepared to discuss your work in class.

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