Today, one of my favourite science (t)witterers, @enniscath, posed an intriguing question:
Is it normal to assign personalities to scientific journals? e.g. Curr Biol is an enthusiastic extrovert; Nucl Acid Res is dull but worthy
— Cath Ennis (@enniscath) February 19, 2013
I think it’s a marvellous idea :)
I instantly proposed a thought…
@enniscath heh, and Journ Roy Soc Interface is the weird ‘artsy’ kid with the mohawk and pocket protector :P
— aimee whitcroft (@teh_aimee) February 19, 2013
And as for PLosONE, well! Images abound.
The question is an intriguing one, of course, especially as journals/the publishing industry increasingly have to justify their existence (and means of existence) to the scientific community.
So, what personalities would you ascribe to various journals?
And with that…SHOULD they have personalities?If so, what sort of personality is appropriate for a scientific journal?
Are they influenced by the journal’s editorial people, or the scientists who publish therein?
Will a journal’s personality help determine whether it survives or not? Should it?
Discuss!
—-
UPDATE: Here’s Cath’s very own blog post on the subject
—-
Other random awesome today includes:
Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma related to gravitational challenge: systematic review of randomised controlled trials, with the fantastic line
Advocates of evidence based medicine have criticised the adoption of interventions evaluated by using only observational data. We think that everyone might benefit if the most radical protagonists of evidence based medicine organised and participated in a double blind, randomised, placebo controlled, crossover trial of the parachute.
It turns out being a Redshirt is less perilous than you think
—-
And finally - where have I been recently? Why am I not blogging as often? Well, numerous projects, of course, but I’ve also gone (motor)bike mad :P And been finishing off our Mongol Rally blog from last year (which is almost done!!).