RE: Errors in author's versions

["Rebecca Kennison" <rkennison@plos.org>]

While I wouldn't want to come down on one side or the other in this
debate, nor would I want to do the work myself to uncover whether there
are indeed serious scientific errors that have been corrected between an
author-supplied version of a paper and the final copyedited and proofed
version, a good sample set of data that has both versions can be found
in two of our journals, which offer what we call Early Online Releases
(or EORs), PLoS Genetics and PLoS Computational Biology. We continue to
make the original author-submitted manuscript available even after the
final version of the paper has been published (see
http://genetics.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1
371/journal.pgen.0020116 for an example), so doing some kind of
comparison between those files is certainly doable, if someone wanted to
do the work.

Best regards,
Rebecca Kennison
Director of Production
Public Library of Science

-----Original Message-----
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of David Goodman
Sent: Monday, July 24, 2006 2:51 PM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu; liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: RE: Errors in author's versions

Dear Anthony,

I have no intention of influencing the US government-- it is 
perhaps the furthest thing from my thoughts. Do not confuse me 
with those who do.

You have told me about editors' salaries, and indicated evidence, 
and so have others, and I then agree my previous undersanding was 
incorrect.

But the argument against author copies presented here by some 
biomedical societies was about serious scientific errors, and I 
will believe such an error when the citations to the print and OA 
versions are given, or similar physical data produced.

It is not only you and I both who have failed to find them. There 
are several hundred people reading this list who are in a 
position to know of any. There were some postings that there 
might conceivably be such errors in the future. I take that as an 
admission that they too have not found any now.

Anthony, I would not accept anyone's word in place of possible 
data, whether or not it confirms my prejudices. I should never 
have deserved the doctorate you keep mentioning if I worked 
otherwise.

David Goodman
dgoodman@princeton.edu