Papers still being seen

Tue 11 Oct 2011 01:31 PM

Commenting on the previous post, Matt prodded me to say something about how I handle on-line drafts. If I have put one up, I don't take it down when I submit a paper to a journal. Perhaps a referee can find me with a well-aimed Google search, but the profession is not so big anyway. A referee can probably find me in any case.

Several years ago, I decided to insulate my submissions from my on-line drafts somewhat by using dummy, placeholder titles for the drafts. That way a search on the title phrase wouldn't immediately turn up my paper. I later learned that this fostered duplicate records in automatic databases, like Google Scholar. So I don't have a general policy anymore.

I stick by the general conclusion of the old post, however, which is that the advantages of posting on-line make it worth doing even if there is some danger to the integrity of blind review. I am not certain on whether the advantage of avoiding redundancy in Google Scholar's database (from using the same title for the draft and submitted paper) outweighs the extra risk to the integrity of blind review.