FROM LABORATORY TO SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE - THE LIFE AND DEATH OF BIOMEDICAL-RESEARCH RESULTS

This study documents the course of submission of a group of biomedical research papers to peer-reviewed journals and characterizes their qua lity through citation analysis for published papers and through a typo logy of originality for those papers that were never accepted. Of fift y-nine papers, 47 percent (n = 28) were accepted by the first journal to which they were submitted 25 percent (n = 15) by the second, and 7 percent (n = 6) by the third to sixth journal. For the first five year s of publication, the average citation rate per year was 1.5, and 43 p ercent had more than I citation per year Fifteen papers (25 percent) w ere never accepted. Typologic analysis of five of these papers suggest s some standards by which it may be possible to characterize scientifi c originality.