From Fish To Philosopher

This episode indicates that journal articles may vary from a high level of acknowledged quality to another class of manuscripts of lesser quality because they contain questionable data to a third class of papers lacking any standard whatsoever of acceptable quality.

This episode pertains to the removal of NIH peer reviewers who fail to disclose foreign ties or who breach confidentiality, gender inequality in scientific careers, open-access Plan S, and predatory biomedical journals.

This episode is about gender differences in positive framing of research findings in articles, addressing a reproducibility crisis due to the inability to replicate research findings, and measuring the commitment of journals to research transparency.

This episode discusses the possibility that the name of the Journal of Allied Health could have a new name since the Association that the journal belongs to modified its name, how metaphors enrich communication, and terminological inexactitudes in health vocabulary.

This episode sheds light on the process of selecting reviewers for a given manuscript from the standpoint of the time involved before assessments arrive and reviewer ethics stemming from when an individual reviewer fails to report that the review was conducted by someone else.

This episode involves the cascade of messages flowing among the editor of the Journal of Allied Health, reviewers, authors, and the publisher as a submitted article begins a journey from time of being submitted to a final decision regarding whether to accept for publication.

This episode provides a description of Plan S, a radical open-access initiative that could have a dramatic impact on science publishing, and reasons why it is necessary for some published articles to be retracted.

This episode is about reviewers who are late in submitting their assessments of articles, the dilemma associated with conflicting reviews regarding whether an article should be accepted for publication, and gender bias issues that affect women authors negatively.

This episode describes publication experiments that involve accepting papers for publication prior to authors knowing what their results will be in an approach known as “registered reports” and decisions involved in determining who lead authors should be.

This episode provides an example of proposed legislation to influence peer review of research grant applications for federal money, non-Congressional politics and peer review, and how some articles can be published earlier in the Journal of Allied Health's electronic version.

This episode discusses the retraction of papers, readability of published articles, reporting of negative findings, participation of female authors in the production of manuscripts and the degree to which they collaborate internationally on research papers.

This episode distinguishes among altmetrics, which measures an article's real-time reach and influence; biased metrics, which relate to favoring authors from elite institutions; and contentious metrics, which aim to measure impact differently from Impact Factors.

This episode acknowledges that some academic libraries are finding it increasingly difficult to meet the costs of current journal subscriptions while also recognizing that many papers that are published defy efforts to replicate their findings because of implausible, unreliable data.

This episode relates how a growth in the number of scientists and publications has resulted in millions of articles being published every year while large bodies of published research are unreliable and reporting biases exist across multiple fields of research and a variety of forms.

This episode refers to a survey conducted as a way of identifying topics of interest to Journal of Allied Health readers and factors that affect the length of time articles are in the journal's system before a final decision is made regarding publication acceptance or rejection.

This episode lists some defects associated with the use of Impact Factors, the number of journals that solicit the submission of articles, and the predatory nature of some open access periodicals that employ questionable marketing and peer review practices.

This episode examines the role that paradigms play in possibly constricting the range of problems to be investigated, along with recognizing the importance of having articles submitted to the Journal of Allied Health that examine future allied health workforce needs.

This episode indicates how observational studies preclude the possibility of drawing conclusions between cause and effect, the ever-growing volume of articles published each year in journals, and the relevance of publication bias.

This episode provides data about acceptance rates and the number of days articles submitted to the journal are in the system, along with information about the professions represented in manuscripts and major topics addressed.

This episode discusses the adequacy of the peer review process and refers to examples identified during the Seventh International Congress on Peer Review and Biomedical Publication and also how peer review has been called into question regarding papers funded by the NIH.

This episode furnishes examples of how developments in technology have affected higher education and whether authenticity is compromised as a byproduct of the vast outpouring of published material that has emerged in recent years.

This episode notes how educational practices that went unchanged for centuries more recently have experienced alterations in the form of the introduction of massive open online courses (MOOCs) and the increased presence of adjunct faculty involved in teaching courses.

This episode discusses the role of great apes in health research and how in some ways human well-being is similar to what these animals experience and how the findings have implications across scientific and social-scientific disciplines.

This episode indicates that retractions of articles can occur as a result of error, misconduct, duplicate publication, and plagiarism, along with a description of how some authors guilty of any of these practices have been able to escape detection for lengthy periods of time.

This episode comments on the importance of reliability and validity in the production of published articles in journals and how uncommon it is for many periodicals to publish null findings or exact replications.

This episode discusses the topic of “open access” and the financial challenges that affect publishers, researchers, academic institution libraries, funding agencies, and governments, along with how blogs also serve as a way of disseminating scientific knowledge.

This episode provides an additional look at the many advantages that exist in making journals available in electronic format in ways benefiting faculty members, students, and everyone involved in the academic community.

This episode indicates how some advocates favor bypassing the formal peer-review process by taking pre-publication papers and exposing them to a community of users to vote their appraisal as a means of enabling readers to decide which manuscripts deserve to be published.

This episode points out that because the Journal of Allied Health encompasses manuscripts about a wide range of health professions, it adds to the importance of using peer reviewers as a means of ensuring that the content of articles is both accurate and relevant.

This editorial discusses the importance of choosing the correct words in titles of articles submitted to the Journal of Allied Health, along with the importance of defining in exact language the terms used in manuscripts.

This editorial discusses the many conveniences resulting from the creation of journals in electronic format compared to a time when all copies resided on library shelves and how potential conflicts of interest are not always disclosed by authors.

This editorial comments on the fact that unlike single specialty professional periodicals, the Journal of Allied Health is characterized by a wide spectrum of disciplines and mention is made of the role played by the reductionist scientific method in health care delivery.

This editorial refers to the gap between research and practice, which may be so large that discrepancies between evidence-based, efficacious interventions and what actually occurs in practice can be so big as to constitute a chasm.

This editorial has a focus on quality and contains information for prospective authors who contemplate submitting manuscripts to the Journal of Allied Health regarding how to enhance methodological rigor of papers being prepared.

This editorial describes the role played by having an issue of the Journal of Allied Health devoted to a specific topic and the growing importance of inter-professional education and practice.

This editorial compares the ebb and flow of a river to the cascade of words appearing in the Journal of Allied Health from issue to issue that reflect changes in terminology, topics serving as a basis for articles, and the gradual inclusion of manuscripts from other nations.

This editorial offers information about the editorial process for the Journal of Allied Health and has advice for prospective authors on how to prepare more informative manuscripts that can avoid the pitfall of ultimately being rejected for publication.

This editorial discusses how economic development after World War II in Italy leading to the disappearance of insects circling around children shepherds at night may be compared to the impact of technology on the decline of newspapers and the effect it might have on journals.

This editorial refers to the use of impact factors, when the Journal of Allied Health added an electronic version, and why Socrates believed that oral words or “living speech” were vastly superior to the “dead discourse” of written speech.

This editorial describes a chapter in Ulysses by James Joyce in which changes in prose style of the book are related metaphorically to the nine-month gestation of a human fetus. Other examples reflect how the Journal of Allied Health evolved over the decades.