The risk of novelty

Re the news article “Young academics’ research ‘elegant but not interesting’” (23 February), in which an emeritus professor bemoans the increasing “conservatism” of young scholars’ papers.

A colleague of mine in another department says that if you are not rewriting the older academic stuff and patting one another on the back for “a job well done” by rehashing the old stuff, you will never get published in his field.

He was rejected recently with new research on a topic that disputed an old theory, being told that it was “too new” an idea to have merit, even though the proof was there in the data.

So, I think it depends perhaps on the field, too.

VintageHippie78
Via timeshighereducation.com

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