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Comment by mattkrause | Hacker News Reader

Pretty much. The review process seems to be about the same across most journals. In fact, there's probably a niche for some journals that have an actual editorial process where an editor actually...edits the prose.

Nature/Science/Cell are popular because everyone recognizes their "brand" and associates them with interesting, high-impact science. Thus, it's easy for anyone "Hey, we should fund/hire her because she's got a bunch of Nature papers!" It's not miles from the old "Nobody got fired for buying IBM" bit.

In contrast, it's unlikely that one person--let alone more-on the committee has carefully read your J. Soc. Whatever paper and says "This is well done! Get him instead!"

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It's not just a subjective well-known brand.

Nature/Science/Cell have a prestigious brand, so many scientists try to get their best work published there. The journals get first pick of new research to choose from, and as a result getting published there really is a good indicator that your work is impactful and high quality. It's a network effect that can be broken only if enough funding & promotion committees, or top scientists in a field take a stand together.

Something I have wondered though:

What if we separate the "measure of quality and impact" from getting published in the journals? Something like "shadow journals", that doesn't publish and edit any articles itself. Its reviewers would pick the top 30 new papers published in their field each month, and just publish links to them. If this would get established, it could be used by funding and promotion committees, and the brand of the original journals would matter less.

> Pretty much. The review process seems to be about the same across most journals. In fact, there's probably a niche for some journals that have an actual editorial process where an editor actually...edits the prose.

Some journals do this. I've had PhD student friends inform me that when they've published to some (well-regarded) journals, after being accepted, they spent months going back and forth with the editor polishing the article.

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