<story><title>New academic journal only publishes &apos;unsurprising&apos; research rejected by others</title><url>https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-thursday-edition-1.5146761/new-academic-journal-only-publishes-unsurprising-research-rejected-by-others-1.5146765</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>kraetzin</author><text>Half of my PhD thesis is considered &amp;quot;unpublishable&amp;quot; because, after doing the work, my supervisors felt it&amp;#x27;s actually &amp;quot;unsurprising&amp;quot; that it didn&amp;#x27;t work out. We took methods that had been exploited to improve on previous results for over a decade to their logical extreme, and found that this method no longer leads to improvements. After doing the work it seems obvious. A paper on the subject would almost be considered uninteresting, and a high ranking journal would ignore it (which is why it&amp;#x27;s considered &amp;quot;unpublishable&amp;quot;). However, nobody has published this information, and it would help others to not make the same mistake.&lt;p&gt;I wonder how many times similar &amp;quot;mistakes&amp;quot; have been made by PhD students across disciplines.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bumby</author><text>My experience: I proposed a thesis to an advisor who deemed it unlikely to work. He ran it by a colleague who came to the same conclusion. I went to a different major and pursued the same thesis and invited the previous faculty who initially turned it down to the defense because it was relevant to their field.&lt;p&gt;It was frustrating to hear them voice their opinions in the defense that they felt, “of course it world work.” After seeing the data, they took the exact opposite side claiming it was obvious to the point of being of limited publishing value.</text></comment>
<story><title>New academic journal only publishes &apos;unsurprising&apos; research rejected by others</title><url>https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-thursday-edition-1.5146761/new-academic-journal-only-publishes-unsurprising-research-rejected-by-others-1.5146765</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>kraetzin</author><text>Half of my PhD thesis is considered &amp;quot;unpublishable&amp;quot; because, after doing the work, my supervisors felt it&amp;#x27;s actually &amp;quot;unsurprising&amp;quot; that it didn&amp;#x27;t work out. We took methods that had been exploited to improve on previous results for over a decade to their logical extreme, and found that this method no longer leads to improvements. After doing the work it seems obvious. A paper on the subject would almost be considered uninteresting, and a high ranking journal would ignore it (which is why it&amp;#x27;s considered &amp;quot;unpublishable&amp;quot;). However, nobody has published this information, and it would help others to not make the same mistake.&lt;p&gt;I wonder how many times similar &amp;quot;mistakes&amp;quot; have been made by PhD students across disciplines.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>owenshen24</author><text>That sucks to hear. Null results are important, as you say, if only to dissuade others from doing the same.&lt;p&gt;See also the &amp;quot;file-drawer problem&amp;quot; (&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Publication_bias&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Publication_bias&lt;/a&gt;). Also, with regards to the incentives in the field and the lack of null results, there&amp;#x27;s always Ioannidis&amp;#x27;s classic work (&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;journals.plos.org&amp;#x2F;plosmedicine&amp;#x2F;article?id=10.1371&amp;#x2F;journal.pmed.0020124&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;journals.plos.org&amp;#x2F;plosmedicine&amp;#x2F;article?id=10.1371&amp;#x2F;jo...&lt;/a&gt;).</text></comment>