Consolation for the Scientist: Sometimes it is Hard to Publish Papers that are Later Highly-Cited

Abstract

A set of 316 commentaries by authors of highly-cited papers was reviewed, to identify any difficulty encountered by the authors in producing or publishing their articles. The commentaries were selected from those published each week in the Citation ClassicR feature of Current Contents. According to their commentaries, a small proportion (5.7%) of the authors of these papers had some difficulty when doing the research, or when trying to publish the results. Three more highly-cited papers which had also encountered difficulties in getting published were identified from Citation ClassicR commentaries: one of them was co-authored by a Nobel Prize winner. Three of the papers which encountered publication problems are the most cited from their respective journals. In part, the problematic papers reported innovative methods or theories, or presented new interpretations of previous data. Those in the peer review system should have access to these findings, to improve their review of innovative work. Evaluative criteria that are too narrow can sometimes lead to the initial rejection of very important papers.