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Almost every week I read scholarly book reviews in Chemical and Engineering News. Fairly often in journals I read reviews of scientific articles previously published. Both reviews have some common element but differ considerably in their…

What’s the Purpose of A Patent? A patent is a legal title granting any person who “invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof,” the right to…

Bringing Research to the Masses As it reaches its fifteenth birthday, it may still be too early to speak of the "history" of Open Access (OA). Yet, enough time has passed since the day Public Library of Science (PLOS) was launched in 2000.…

Why is Critical Thinking Important: A Disruptive Force Research anxiety seems to be taking an increasingly dominant role in the world of academic research. The pressure to publish or perish can warp your focus into thinking that the only…

The anonymity of the peer review process has always been regarded as a key tenet of the quality and integrity of academic publishing. The freedom to comment openly and without fear of retribution, it is argued, frees reviewers from the…

What was Bayh–Dole Act? When it comes to research patent, The Bayh–Dole Act continues to generate heated debate. Senators Birch Bayh and Bob Dole, a Democrat and a Republican, sponsored this piece of legislation as an amendment to the…

Flawed research, as opposed to deliberately fraudulent research, can be looked at from several angles: The original identification of the topic can be based on a poor literature review that places greater emphasis on a perceived gap in…

As a new researcher, eager to build a track record and climb the academic rank ladder, receiving a rejection notice from an academic journal can be devastating. You look back on all the hours you put into writing, editing, and formatting…

Even the longest stays in grad school go by in a flash and most of it seems to be filled with reading, research, and writing. I interviewed a group of recent PhDs and asked them, in retrospect, what would they spend more time doing if they…

A Very Plural Bias Speaking in terms of a singular cognitive bias is an inaccurate but widely accepted practice. The term is used to describe inherent errors in thinking and judgment that humans make in processing information on a daily…