{"doi":"10.31222/osf.io/4w3kb","title":"Post-publication critique at top-ranked journals across scientific disciplines: A cross-sectional assessment of policies and practice","abstract":"<p>Journals exert considerable control over letters, commentaries, and online comments that criticize prior research (post-publication critique). We assessed policies (Study One) and practice (Study Two) related to post-publication critique at 15 top-ranked journals in each of 22 scientific disciplines (N=330 journals). 207 (63%) journals accepted post-publication critique and often imposed limits on length (median 1000, interquartile range [IQR] 500-1200 words) and time-to-submit (median 12, IQR 4-26 weeks). The most restrictive limits were 175 words and 2 weeks; some policies imposed no limits. Of 2066 randomly sampled research articles published in 2018 by journals accepting post-publication critique, 39 (1.9%, 95% confidence interval [1.4, 2.6]) were linked to at least one post-publication critique (there were 58 post-publication critiques in total). Of the 58 post-publication critiques, 44 received an author reply, of which 41 asserted that original conclusions were unchanged. Clinical Medicine had the most active culture of post-publication critique: all journals accepted post-publication critique and published the most post-publication critique overall, but also imposed the strictest limits on length (median 400, IQR 400-550 words) and time-to-submit (median 4, IQR 4-6 weeks). Our findings suggest that top-ranked academic journals often pose serious barriers to the cultivation, documentation, and dissemination of post-publication critique.</p>","journal":null,"year":2022,"id":11076,"datarank":0.16479184330021646,"base_score":1.0986122886681096,"endowment":1.0986122886681096,"self_citation_contribution":0.16479184330021646,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.16479184330021646,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":2,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.0382,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2022-01-19","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":4915,"name":"Robert T. Thibault","orcid":"0000-0002-6561-3962","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":23965,"name":"Jessica Elizabeth Kosie","orcid":"0000-0002-2390-0963","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":36923,"name":"Loukia Tzavella","orcid":"0000-0002-1463-9396","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":35921,"name":"Theiss Bendixen","orcid":"0000-0001-5729-1281","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":148,"name":"John P. A. Ioannidis","orcid":"0000-0003-3118-6859","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":36924,"name":"Sarah A. Handcock","orcid":null,"position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":36925,"name":"Vivian E. Köneke","orcid":null,"position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":875,"name":"Tom Elis Hardwicke","orcid":"0000-0001-9485-4952","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":20,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-03-01T18:20:47.508186Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}