Plos One

[Emojis4Life]

Please excuse my ignorance in asking this. I was always under the impression that PLOS One was a fairly "good" journal. I've heard people say "Well, the paper was published in PLOS so it must be good" (or something along those lines). Recently, however I've heard the journal's been under criticism. Can someone comment on how "good" this journal is?

 

[oshaku]

There's a lot of opinion around PLoS.  The main sticking point is PLoS's philosophy.  Journals like Science and Nature publish articles that they think are very novel and have great impact.  They've rejected some pretty influential papers in the past because some time the editors really can't see the impact of the paper at the time.  PLoS's philosophy is the main question they ask is whether the paper is interesting.  As for whether the work has a big impact, PLoS chooses to let the scientific community decide by way of citing (or not citing) the work after it's published.

 

PLoS will publish articles that go on to win the ig-nobel prize, articles that don't fit in to the mandates of existing journals.  This is especially useful when you're pushing out in a new field.  Another thing is PLoS is open access, meaning anyone with internet can access PLoS articles while other journals typically require a subscription fee.  

 

There's always been a lot of criticism of PLoS journals due to the fact that they seem to the old guard of academia to accept whatever piece of shit comes floating their way.  I've heard that if a PI mostly publishes in PLoS journals, he or she is looked down upon.  One the other hand, I've heard lots of people like PLoS.  Especially some younger PIs who are disillusioned with the ivory tower of Nature, Science and Cell as well as the sometime corrupt publication process in general. For example, a big name scientist can use his "fame" to get his paper published in the big name journals whereas PLoS doesn't really care whether this is your first pub or your 100th.  

 

Personally, I think PLoS is as good as any of the mid-tier journals.  PLoS Comp Bio was on the top two journals I was considering submitting and if my paper had been rejected, PLoS Comp Bio was were we'd submit next.  PLoS as an online open access journal publishes a lot more than the periodicals can.  I'd say there's a lot to sift through in PLoS and there's bound to be crap in there.  The onus is more on you to judge each article individually.

[kesler101]

PLoS One does publish very good articles, and also many that are not so great. The problem is that the not so great ones that do not get cited will bring down the whole journal's impact factor, which many people still consider to be king. The problem is that PLoS publishes thousands of articles per year and the number has been increasing yearly, which has meant a downward trend in their impact factor just due to volume alone. When you have fewer, stronger papers, like in Nature or Science, it's easier to get more citations and keep their impact factor high.

 

But, the open access journals are getting more research out there, and cutting down the time it takes to submit and publish your research. If your article is good it should speak for itself and will be recognized as such by the scientific community.

[robclem21]

I just went through a hellish review process with PLos One. I submitted my paper in the fall and it went 6 months without the journal being able to even find reviewers to review the paper. After several unhelpful corresponding emails and follow-up with their editorial staff, I decided to pull my paper from their review and submit to another, higher impact journal. It was accepted in 3 weeks. From my perspective, that turnaround time is unacceptable. I will likely never submit another paper to PLos One.

 

Just my two cents.

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[Emojis4Life]

Thank you for the insight everyone. I suppose there are pros and cons to all journals, including the elite ones.