Where Authors Choose to Publish.

Abstract

In the earliest days of Aesthetic Surgery Journal ( ASJ ), one of the Editor-in-Chief's most important and time-consuming tasks was to actively solicit manuscripts—at meetings and conferences, over the telephone, over a cocktail, during a round of golf, more or less anytime-anyplace. It wasn't easy, especially since a paper invited in this highly personal manner ended up in the same pile as every other submission; it still had to go through a peer-review process and might ultimately be rejected. But ASJ was a young journal and, prior to 2008, was not indexed in MEDLINE/PubMed; consequently, authors often preferred to publish elsewhere. As discussed in the excellent article “How Well Do They Convert: Trending ASAPS Presentations to Publication From 1995–2010,”1 from 1995-2009 ASJ most often was not the journal of choice for presentations made at annual meetings of the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ASAPS). However, by the end of 2010, two years after it was indexed by the National Library of Medicine in MEDLINE/PubMed, ASJ had become the predominant journal for publication of ASAPS-presented papers. There is no doubt about the importance of a journal being indexed. While academic authors most often seek to publish their work in order to contribute to the advancement of their field, publishing is also a means to promotion and tenure at their institutions, as well as a way to further enhance their personal reputation in the scientific community.2 Many academic-based authors, in fact, are strongly discouraged or even prohibited by their institutions from publishing in any journal not indexed in MEDLINE/PubMed. Though the appropriateness of such institutional directives has been debated, the rise of predatory journals and other publications of questionable integrity may suggest some valid protections inherent in these policies.3 A journal's impact factor, which is a measure of the …