An effective tactic that has not been mentioned yet is simply to attach
your coordinates and map to a blanket email and send it simultaneously
to all of your competitors. The key thing here is "all". Send it to
EVERYONE who might serve as a reviewer for your structure. This may
sound like madness to your paranoid "BIO-whatever" colleagues, but try
to imagine yourself in your "evil" competitor's shoes. You have
crystals, you've got data sets, you might have even gotten as far as
solving the structure and writing a draft manuscript. And then
"plop"! Everything you would need to ruthlessly scoop someone who was
kind enough to share their results with you falls in your lap. And
everyone in the field knows it! How will your manuscript be received
now? Whom will you recommend as reviewers? How will your next grant be
received if you now "rush out" a structure that looks a LOT like
something everyone knows is not your work? Looking unethical is far
more damaging to your career and future funding that actually being
unethical.
In a way, the above tactic is a form of "publication". It is just
self-publication without any peer review to a relatively small
audience. Still, a "scoop" is a "scoop"? The only problem you will
have with your peer-reviewed publication is if your journal of choice
has some kind of "embargo" rule because they want to be the first to
make the "big splash". Personally, I think all the paranoia and
distrust in science today is rooted in this desire for notoriety.
Sensationalism and science are a dangerous mix. I know, I know.
Journals need advertisers to pay for the pages, etc. etc.
Sensationalism is unfortunately connected to the money. But, if you
want to make a big splash, then don't complain about being asked to leap
from a great height.
Anonymous peer review exists because of the need to get an honest
answer. Non-anonymous peer review is also a good idea. It is called
"asking a friend to look at your manuscript". Anyone who has tried the
latter can attest to how difficult it can be to get comments back in a
timely fashion, if at all! Sometimes even offering to make them a
co-author doesn't help. Nevertheless, I highly recommend that everyone
do a round of non-anonymous peer review before submitting the manuscript
for anonymous peer review. There is nothing more irritating to an
"official" reviewer than someone who clearly submitted a rough draft,
and couldn't even be bothered to check for complete sentences, spelling
errors, having a point etc. Remember, the anonymous reviewers (and the
editor) are the ONLY people who will ever have to read every word of
your manuscript. Their comments will usually be less harsh if the MS
has already been through non-anonymous peer review.
Then again, if a reviewer is asking for your coordinates, then perhaps
there is something wrong with your figures? In a way, this is like
asking an author for a comma-separated list of their raw data points so
that you can re-plot them in Excel. The paper really ought to stand on
its own, clearly showing the evidence needed to support the conclusions
drawn. Or at least that is what I was taught in scientist school.
-James Holton
MAD Scientist
On 4/18/2012 3:34 PM, Marc Kvansakul wrote:
Dear CCP4BBlers,
I was wondering how common it is that reviewers request to have a copy
of the PDB coordinate file for the review purpose. I have just been
asked to supply this by an editor after several weeks of review, after
one of the reviewers requested a copy.
Not having ever been asked to do this before I feel just a tad
uncomfortable about handing this over…
Your opinions would be greatly appreciated.
Best wishes
Marc
Dr. Marc Kvansakul
Laboratory Head, NHMRC CDA Fellow
Dept. of Biochemistry| La Trobe University | Bundoora
Rm 218, Phys Sci Bld 4, Kingsbury Drive, Melbourne, 3086, Australia
T: 03 9479 2263 | F: 03 9479 2467 | E: m.kvansa...@latrobe.edu.au |
