Brief reports?

[futureapppsy2]

Perhaps a very dumb/elementary question, but how are peer-reviewed brief reports viewed as opposed to full journal articles? I'm in the position to write an expanded subanalysis of sorts that, while an important contribution to [topic], is probably not enough to muster a full-scale journal article. I was wondering how a brief report is generally viewed and received, both in terms of CVs and, more so, how much "credibility" it is given by researchers.

Thanks!

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[Ollie123]

I don't really view them that differently - I'd rather publish a brief report in a top tier journal, than a full length article in a bad one. They probably aren't worth <quite> as much, but its not like its bad to publish them. Its a small, but substantive, contribution to the field. We'll put it this way, it may not be as great as a full length article but it is worth much, much, much more than a poster.

Frankly, I think journals like abnormal tend to publish unnecessarily long, bloated articles anyways. The "Brief reports" in abnormal can be as long as the full reports in many other journals, and the bloating is frequently in the intro (which is probably the last place it needs to be).

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

The brief reports can actually get more readership because many journal subscribers won't want to trudge through a long article if it isn't something that jumps out at them. I've read plenty of brief reports in areas far outside of my interests because it was a "low investment" of time. It is definitely more valuable than a poster and if you can get 1 pg in a top tier journal, that is far better than 5 in a lower tier journal.

 

[KillerDiller]

Frankly, I think journals like abnormal tend to publish unnecessarily long, bloated articles anyways.

Completely agree. I don't think it's reasonable to expect researchers to produce studies as lengthy as dissertations for each article they publish. A lot of the more eloquently designed studies are sweet and to the point.

For the OP, my experience is that journals vary in whether they even publicize the fact that an article is a "brief report". I have submitted two articles under this format to two different journals. One of those journals, when the article was published, ran the heading "Brief Report" right before the title of the article. The other journal doesn't make a distinction at all once the article appears in print. On the other hand, the latter journal was more of a public health journal than a psych journal, so that may account for the difference.

 

[olychick65]

The brief reports can actually get more readership because many journal subscribers won't want to trudge through a long article if it isn't something that jumps out at them. I've read plenty of brief reports in areas far outside of my interests because it was a "low investment" of time. It is definitely more valuable than a poster and if you can get 1 pg in a top tier journal, that is far better than 5 in a lower tier journal.

+1.

I'll only read the abstract and results most of the time of full-length report unless I'm really interested in it (or I have to read it for a class), but if it's a brief report, it's less time consuming and more likely to be written in an engaging, to-the-point fashion, so I'll read the whole thing- and remember what it was about.

 

[AlaskanJustin]

So when putting a publication on a journal, you do not put in what context the article is in, i.e., technical paper, original paper, or brief report, because IF they are all published in the SAME journal, then they all fall under the journals impact factor, regardless...

It is sometimes harder to publish a Brief report in a top journal (i.e., nature) because to publish a brief report it has to be a highly novel, sometimes seminal, piece of work that will contribute greatly to a given field (this is at least true when you get into journals of impact factors higher than 10).

Fact remains, when you list it on the vita, you put author names, title, journal title, pg number, etc just like a normal citation, and you do not put if its a brief report or not.

J

 

[doctoroxygen]

There was an article in the most recent Psych Science (I believe) that found that brief reports have better "cites-per-page" impact than full-length articles.

 

[Ollie123]

That would certainly explain why many APA journals have absolutely miserable impact factors. I'm always been unclear why APA journals have the reputation that they do, and are generally viewed as highly as they are. Psych Bulletin and Psych Review are somewhat of an exception given they only publish review articles. However, even Abnormal and JCCP have equal or lower impact than many specialty journals (i.e. Addiction), let alone the division journals. That's not to say they aren't great places to publish (I'd love to get my thesis published in one!) or that IF is everything, but I'm just really confused why they seem to be elevated a step above other journals when the impact factors really aren't that great.

 

[AlaskanJustin]

That would certainly explain why many APA journals have absolutely miserable impact factors. I'm always been unclear why APA journals have the reputation that they do, and are generally viewed as highly as they are. Psych Bulletin and Psych Review are somewhat of an exception given they only publish review articles. However, even Abnormal and JCCP have equal or lower impact than many specialty journals (i.e. Addiction), let alone the division journals. That's not to say they aren't great places to publish (I'd love to get my thesis published in one!) or that IF is everything, but I'm just really confused why they seem to be elevated a step above other journals when the impact factors really aren't that great.

Maybe thats just a matter of opinion saying they are highly respected??? Because respect you would logically think would correlate with higher readership and more citations (because the quality of work would be better and have more relevance). Regardless, the pyramid generally goes like this (from lowest to highest impact)

subspeciality specific journal (i.e., journal of neuroimmunology)
field specific research only journal (i.e., journal of immunology)
field specific clinical+research journal (i.e., journal of clinical investigation)
field specific review (ie nature reviews immunology)
broad range clinical (ie nature medicine)
broad range research (ie science)
broad range review and pop science (scientific american)

The reason the subspecialty journal is respected is because the people giving it the respect ARE IN that field maybe? While it might just not get much readership from other fields like a Nature journal would.

 

[Ollie123]

Certainly true, but I'm more referring to variation within category.

For instance, within the "subspecialty" category, you have the APA Division journals like Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, and Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology. Both generally considered great places to publish as a psychologist. Both also have substantially lower impact factors than a huge array of non-APA addiction journals. Nicotine and Tobacco Research, Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental, Addiction, Drug and Alcohol Dependence, etc. All are higher impact than PAB and ECP, but for some reason the APA journals are still viewed as the "premier" outlets. I'm just wondering if the impact factors are misleading in these cases, if it is just a matter of familiarity since everyone knows APA, or what other factors might be playing into this view. I have very limited experience with publishing at this point, but the mismatch between impact factor and "reputation" has always struck me as odd.