Hypothesis!

by Eva Amsen

The new Hypothesis is online! Party!

There are four things I want to share about this issue:

1. It’s thin. Not because we didn’t get enough submissions, but because some articles were rejected. In particular, one article that didn’t get through our review process was later spotted in the journal Medical Hypotheses (“Medical Hypotheses will publish radical ideas, so long as they are coherent and clearly expressed”, says their website). I won’t say which piece it is, but I’ll mention that it was submitted simultaneously to Hypothesis and to Medical Hypotheses, and that MH printed it without any review or editions, as is their policy. However, the Hypothesis reviewers (grad students for this particular paper) found lack of references cited, incomplete arguments, and a grammatical error that caused one sentence to say the exact opposite of what the paper meant. Just saying: peer review has its merits, radical ideas or not.

2. Since it was such a thin issue, I whipped up a quick review of the North Carolina Science Blogging Conference. It’s been a while, but it happened after the last issue, so it was still relevant.

3. We now have a page which summarizes all articles in the issue. It’s called Article Accelerator, and I can take credit for the name (but not for the rest of the page). I keep explaining the name to people, ruining the pun, but I’ll hold back.

4. The schizoprenia review in this issue is directly related to an article that was in the Globe and Mail yesterday.

This post is about as long as the whole issue. You (yes, you!) can submit articles and be reviewed and considered for the next issue (out in October)! We get submissions from all over the world. Everything that comes in is reviewed by at least two people in that specific field, either graduate students, postdocs, or faculty. Check the website for submission requirements.

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2 comments

Shelley May 5, 2007 - 12:51 AM

I really like Hypothesis, although I did prefer the print version (I like to hold and touch things). But I’m not allowed to talk about my research because I need to publish it and I’m having real trouble getting stuff written for my thesis (and publication) as it is, and I don’t have anything else to contribute. Writing essays in class was so much easier, defined topics and hard deadlines are my friends. I really want to work on my writing and reading this year though, part of being a good PhD student is keeping up with what’s going on, and schtuff like Hypothesis is the future of science I reckon.

So I guess I need to download and print as copy yes?

Utenzi May 5, 2007 - 10:15 AM

By coincidence I happened to sit next to Eva during the Medical Illustration seminar. Since the seminar dealt more on the legal aspects than the artistic, it was a little dry but quite informative. The Blogging Conference as a whole was definitely worth while attending. The organizers did a great job.

Much of my current work deals with DNA microarrays so I really enjoyed Paul Boutros’ article. I look forward to Part 3.

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