

An academic journal provides haven for rejected work - mariorz
http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14119761&fsrc=rss

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jacquesm
Super idea, now to get _all_ papers online in a free form.

The big name publications reject more than they can publish for several
reasons:

\- lack of space (there are only so many pages each month in their usually
dead-tree format publications)

\- overexposure of a subject (they usually try to keep some variety in what
they publish)

\- some papers are just plain wrong.

The article makes the case that two very important papers were rejected
(without giving reasons why) that rejected papers should find a home. I'm all
for that but I think that the safeguards to keep bad science out of the larger
body of knowledge should be preserved. The good stuff has a way to get through
eventually, witness the fact that those two papers eventually did get
published.

With a name of 'rejecta mathematica' my guess would be that this will publish
papers in the subfield of math that were not accepted elsewhere, so both
papers listed in the article would have been rejected by 'rejecta mathematica'
with an 'off topic' anyway, the 'card counting' example is a much better one
for their subject.

Here is an article about an interesting side effect of being available online
for free, it seems that just by having your paper online and freely accessible
the chances of it being picked up and cited are substantially better than
being published in some paper periodical:

[http://www.nature.com/nature/debates/e-access/Articles/lawre...](http://www.nature.com/nature/debates/e-access/Articles/lawrence.html)

(funny that it should be on 'nature's site)

