The Case for Quantity in Science Publishing
By David B. Allison, Brian B. Boutwell
Well-intentioned efforts that encourage researchers to produce fewer, higher-quality papers miss the many benefits of abundance in academic research.
This Article From Issue
May-June 2025
Volume 113, Number 3
Page 144
In an influential 2016 editorial in the journal Nature, Daniel Sarewitz at Arizona State University warned that scientific research is being undermined by a glut of over-publishing. “Current trajectories threaten science with drowning in the noise of its own rising productivity,” he wrote, adding that avoiding such an outcome “will, in part, require much more selective publication.” This sentiment has since been repeated so often that it has practically become an accepted truism.
QUICK TAKE
- Widespread concerns that researchers are publishing too much, driving down the quality of their work, are misguided and potentially harmful to scientific progress.
- Quantity is crucial in scientific publishing: It creates more opportunities for breakthrough ideas, error-correction, efficiency, communication, collaboration, and mentoring.
- Methods for encouraging quantity can also safeguard quality, or even improve it. Reducing barriers that limit scientific output should benefit the research enterprise as a whole.
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