Re: (off-topic) self-plagiarism

[Fred Herzfeld <herzfeld@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear List

I find it interesting that we discuss what a reviewer or editor should do how how to behave. Not one 
word of why this happens.  It happens (my personal opinion) that there are a number of reasons:

1.	For members of the academic community there is the well known PP. Many schools require at least 
one, but hopefully more, publications per year to promote an academic to assistant professor or 
higher. That is how Publish or Perish came along.

2.	For members of industrial research organizations (Bell Labs, the former David Sarnoff Research 
Center, and many others) the number of publications reflects on your salary and internal and 
external promotions.

3.	From 1 and 2 above we can conclude that the number of publications we can list on our CV 
contributes in some proportion to the increases in our salaries (among other factors), and in the 
eligibility for promotion to some higher research or management level.

4.	From 1,2,and 3 I am led to the conclusion that the problem lies not in ourselves buy in our 
employers.

Fred
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Fred Herzfeld, MIT '54
78 Glynn Marsh Drive #59
Brunswick, Ga.31525
USA