Elsevier. Tet Lett. Fun fact: I just made everyone in organic chemistry cringe.

The following has happened to all of you:

1. Find reference for topic on SciFinder or some other search engine.
2. Express glee. Click on link to reference.
3. Link brings up ScienceDirect.
4. Glee is immediately replaced by doubt.
5. Doubt is replaced by anger at quality of reference.
6. Hateful words are spewed toward journal and journal’s mother.

Why is it that nearly every time something stupid happens in the science publishing world, Elsevier appears to be to blame? Most recently, Merck (of course, Merck- are they not the epicenter of management stupidity in pharma?) was blasted for funding its own phony journal, the Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine, to publish fake articles which demonstrate the superiority of Merck drugs over others– an egregious act of scientific dishonesty and a complete breach of anyone’s ethical standards.

Guess who published the fake journal? Elsevier. Coulda seen that one coming.

Elsevier sucks. This is not news to organic chemists who have to read Tetrahedron and Tetrahedron Letters, two Elsevier publications whose content frequently defies reproducibility. Across the scientific board, however, Elsevier appears to be the world’s premier argument in favor of complete open source peer-reviewed literature. Here are some more reasons why Elsevier should be buried in the fecal matter of its own content:

• Last year, an Indian professor named P. Chiranjeevi published 70 mostly fake articles in one year, a number which exceeds the Matyjaszewski Limit[1] and is a clear indicator of fraud. Many of his articles were published (and later retracted) from Elsevier journals.
• Individual and Library subscriptions to Elsevier journals are insanely expensive, making Synthetic Metals the world’s most expensive toilet paper. Library print subscription for Tet Lett for 1 year was around $14,000; for ACS’ Organic Letters, it was around $4,500. For the uninitiated, Org. Lett. is consistently good, Tet. Lett. consistently publishes what I like to call ISHTAR: Irreproducible SHit That Aggravates Readers.[2]
• ScienceDirect, the electronic gateway to Elsevier online articles, sucks donkey ass. It has a horrible interface, poor cookie-handling capabilities, and many of its journals have little to no SI. On top of that, viewing the PDF for any online article requires not only a fucking horrendous sum of money, but it also opens the PDF in a new window every time. For the obsessively tab-organized among us (ie. me), is not only annoying, it’s downright reprehensible. I dare say it’s even worse than publishing fake journals for Merck.
• Tetrahedron Letters’ continued existence. Seriously.

Tetrahedron Letters used to be a reputable publication. EJ Corey published his best work from the 70s in it. The original Sonogashira paper was published in Tet. Lett. Good papers from Elsevier journals are diamonds in the rough- it’s not really worth the time or effort to keep up with them. There is no good reason for their bloated, overpriced, overrated, fake journal-publishing existence except for our own amusement- but our libraries pay far too much money for such a meaningless gesture.

ETA: Mitch wrote about the fake journal too. His post has charts and data and shit and lacks rambling and cursing. Boring, I know.

[1] The Matyjaszewski Limit is a term I came up with about ten minutes ago. It basically states that the number of decent, high-impact chemistry publications one person can come up with in one year cannot exceed that published by Kris Matyjaszewski’s group. If it does, there is a high probability of self-plagiarism or just overloading with publications. (This is in no way meant to downplay Matyjaszewski’s publications, which are uniformly high in quality and numerous. The man will get a Nobel prize in his lifetime, I sorta-but-not-really guarantee it.)

[2] I don’t call it that- I just made it up. But I think I’ll continue to use it.

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