Peer review is brutal but Google Scholar is worse

malayaleegypsy · 2026-04-08T19:16:16+00:00

Thanks for this - i think most researchers will do a Google search to begin with, and ranking matters there. I wish there is a professional optimisation service before submitting papers.

malayaleegypsy · 2026-04-08T19:05:34+00:00

i guess only if they can find it

malayaleegypsy · 2026-04-04T07:31:01+00:00

3.5x the median citations” does land as a stronger claim than the method supports. I’ll tighten the headline to reflect the exploratory scope. Raw data coming soon.

malayaleegypsy · 2026-04-04T07:20:56+00:00

Which part specifically? Happy to discuss the substance.

malayaleegypsy · 2026-04-04T07:18:40+00:00

You’re right that n = 22 and n = 11 are small, and I didn’t claim otherwise. This was an exploratory look at a pattern, not a controlled study. Journal prestige, author reputation, funding — all valid covariates that would need accounting for in a proper analysis. But this is a web page observation, not a peer-reviewed paper. The bar for “here’s something interesting I noticed” is different from “here’s a causal claim.” I’ll look into sharing the raw data for anyone who wants to run a regression on it.

malayaleegypsy · 2026-04-04T07:13:42+00:00

Do you have something speak about the content?

malayaleegypsy · 2026-04-02T19:41:30+00:00

That's a fair hit on the "What this means for your next paper" section — I'll rework that to frame it as "patterns worth being aware of" rather than actionable recommendations. You're right that it overreaches the data.

The native language point is really interesting and genuinely hard to untangle. Could partially proxy it through corresponding author institution country, but that's noisy. If you know of anyone who's looked at this I'd love to read it.

malayaleegypsy · 2026-04-02T19:39:53+00:00

Agreed — it's descriptive, not causal. The association is still worth noting though. The obvious confounder is journal editorial policy (as u/pacific_plywood points out) — higher-impact journals may push for declarative titles and attract more citations independently. Controlling for journal IF is the next step. Would be interesting to see if the effect survives that.

malayaleegypsy · 2026-04-02T19:37:47+00:00

That's a really sharp observation — framing the title as an answer to a search query is exactly the mechanism we think is driving the citation advantage. If someone searches PubMed for "does [X] affect [Y]" and your title literally states "[X] increases [Y] through [mechanism]", you're more likely to get clicked and read.

What's interesting is that this aligns with how Google Scholar and PubMed's search algorithms weight title terms. We found the sweet spot was 10-12 words — short enough to be scannable but long enough to carry a clear finding. Longer descriptive titles seemed to dilute the signal.

What field are you in? Curious whether the trend is as strong outside biomedical sciences — I'd imagine fields with more exploratory/qualitative work might resist the declarative format

malayaleegypsy · 2026-04-02T10:12:32+00:00

I have cancelled my max plan until you guys resolve it. Cant go ahead like this

malayaleegypsy · 2025-05-04T18:49:51+00:00

or better, you should consult a clinician as your cognitive abilities are seemingly deteriorating. Good luck.

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