THE EXODUS OF SCIENTIFIC PAPERS, PUBLICATION AND CAUTION ON FALSE ARTICLES

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We are in an era of easy access to the internet, and anything is easily publishable as a kind of online articles for mass readers and patronizes, with the terms “Article” and “Journal”, ambiguously adopted in the publishing world; creating a lot of confusion to young inexperience scholars and researchers, as well as the community of applied scientists who serve the industry in their decisions and actions to outsource qualified materials to support their projects, whenever there is the need.

The foundational argument of this article is to establish a fact that goes beyond what constitutes a credible scientific journal and associated publication agency, but rather indicate an emphasis on the challenges facing modern publishing houses through competitive innovations, placing most of them into the trap of modernity of business orientations, like the profitability constraint, lack of grants to support non-profit tasks of rigorous peer review assignments, and many more as a circumstance gradually forcing numerous publishing houses, known in the past to uphold quality standards in such intellectual services, unconsciously compromising quality into a pedigree of predatory journals as trends across the associated publishing houses.

However, this article ignores existing crooks in the publishing industry, whose ultimate goal is to uphold predatory journals, and rather places emphasis on the publication houses, whose quality of service is in the declining state due to numerous constraint factors like competition in the publishing market, financial constraint to attract quality hands of reviewers, the task-pressure on the few qualified and leading experts in their field of study to easily provide services of rigorous review for quality publications.

This article further does submit that the term ‘Scientific Journal’ and ‘Scientific Article’ should not be underrated in its axiomatic role towards the knowledge creation process, unlike how the profligate of publishing in modern times seems to undermine the process, as a result, creating a huge bank of fake knowledge for public consumption, than it would have been anticipated in an environment of easy and cheap forms of publishing on today’s internet world.

It must be carefully noted, for a manuscript produced by an author to be classified as a scientific article, there are standards and body of rules as procedures, which the manuscript is expected to measure up to. The major procedure in summary will be outlined below;

–  The background of the problem the author seeks to solve, is required to be presented in clarity and precise context as a body of text.

–  A cleverly review of the existing body of theories and solutions from previous scholars towards the nature of the problem the author seeks to resolve.

–  The author methodological approach in solving the proposed problem

–  The author presents the finding as a solution and a complimentary building block of previous solutions, existing in that field of study

It must be further acknowledged that the procedures and strict rules governing the credibility of scientific manuscript publication did not emerge in vacuum, but a continued process of refinement of the ancient methods of knowledge discovery and creation, from the era of Egypt (2061-2010 BC) to the modern era of the 11th Century AD, which presented a reformation in the knowledge creation system until the 17th- 19th Century AD, whereby the scientific method of knowledge creation took a new paradigm of ‘Empirical justification’ as the central pillar in theoretical design.

However, what we seem to be losing out on in the body of rules guiding the scientific process of the 21st Century AD knowledge creation and renaissance, is the quality of intellectual debates that accompany submitted manuscripts as a scientific working paper to grant access to quality and authoritative critique on such submitted papers, which in the spirit of these critiques as a process becomes a solid component of the knowledge creation system, to compliment the original paper as a caveat, thereby laying a solid foundation of a knowledge creation for public consumption within the framework of ‘Scientific Article’ acceptance and publication.

The Article, thereby concludes, if there is any concern of deterioration of the educational system of contemporary times towards quality of human resources development for sovereign nations, especially in developing countries, then, much attention should be paid to the quality of knowledge creation, which addresses the unique challenges facing the developing and underdeveloping countries in all aspects of academic discipline of industrial relevance. And this therefore requires an unapologetic revisit to the higher learning Centers, and assume, a high level of seriousness and professionalism as a body of science community and scholars.

Emmanuel Tweneboah Senzu, Ph.D., is professor of Economics and Finance, with speciality in monetary economics, policy development, Econometrics, investment and risk analysis. Member of World Economic Association. President of Frederic Bastiat Institute Africa, Fellow of the College of Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Makeni-SL, Faculty Fellow of University of Management and Technology, Sierra Leone. Research Fellow of Monarch University, College of Economics & Finance, Switzerland. Research Fellow of West Africa Monetary Institute, Ghana.