Letter/Correspondence/Comment at the heart of scientific communication

Dear Editor, Mondal et al.1 describe an experience of the unconventional fate of missives in their letter to the editor sent to various journals, and it is an interesting—yet intriguing—article, but if they reveal the name of the 'Reply published, Letter Rejected' Journal, we may be better informed. If they (the Journal Board) have some point of view to support their argument when contrasting the author, let us become wiser by listening to both sides of the story. Afterwards, for 'Pay Money, Publish the Letter', why should an author pay twice for an article, I want to be better informed. Besides that, how 'Many letters from a single author' should journals accept to publish, I am curious about and am interested to have a dialogue with the multidisciplinary journal. One of the reasons for rejecting the 'delayed publication' here may be that journal editors want the readers to keep up pace with the issue and to maintain a fast cycle of publication and readership, and they are interested for us to remain updated on their platform, but that should not deter us from going through its past contents. After all, who cares for the 2-year cycle of impact factor2 in this hyperconnected world where most of the content is consumed online on a continuous basis! Moreover, I too have some related concerns and concerning stories to share. The largest corporate hospital chains here run their own in-house journal. Therein, recently, I saw an article where the author belonging to the group claimed something in methodology but did otherwise when I went through its study results of the published original article. Therefore, I sent a letter highlighting the discrepancy between these two assertions, but the editor rejected it without citing any tangible reason and directed me to communicate with the author. Poser is that if I communicate with the author in his private space, how does it matter to a reader who goes through the article on its open-access platform or do I have the right to publicly post the communication made in this matter with the author, I am confused. So, what seems to me is that for these cases there should be an external reviewer who may impartially analyse the situation and may assess like a disinterested party. When an author is supposed to disclose his conflict of interest during submission, why should the same yardstick not apply to reviewers and the editor, I wonder. If an external referee—presumably detached from its routine affairs—makes the same decision, I may relate it to something on a positive note. To borrow an idiom from the law journals, I state that 'Justice must not only be done, but must also be seen to be done'.3 Then, there is an issue of reply to 'Author's reply'. Most of the time when someone points out a methodological error in an article, I presume that the author learns something new from the interaction and next time should not repeat the mistake, but at other times they reply notwithstanding the point raised in the letter. Under this situation, the letter writer is compelled to write to respond to the 'Author's reply', but what I observe is that journals are not interested in publishing this (later) aspect even when the issue at hand is academic. Nonetheless, modern-day high-speed communication lines create an atmosphere of universal connectivity and help us to easily raise our hands, which was not possible otherwise. Only we need to harness it more effectively. The National Medical Commission gives weightage to original articles, meta-analyses, case series and systematic reviews (only) while appraising a teaching cadre.4 Hence, to my utter bewilderment, they do not understand such nuances and fail to grasp the basic fact that science does not progress in a one-way direction. To cite the famous example of Scottish physician-scientist Alexander Fleming (the discoverer of penicillin antibiotic), at certain moments, it advances by pure luck, accident, hand of god or by all counts—unintended and unfamiliar action.5 Hence, why should certain types of efforts not be accounted for during such evaluations, I find myself at sea. If someone underscores and then improves upon what his colleagues are doing, does that not further the case of scientific progress! In this digital era with electronic gadgets, all the publications are online, yet it is a rare observation to get a response to a social media post on the platform of a journal or publisher. Exploiting the technology, many journals, publishers, ministries or commissions opt for one-way communication where either they disable the comment feature or do not reply to a user willing to engage. While virtual space usually generates a cacophony of incoherent noise, ignoring it altogether may not be the best strategy. Although conducting serious science may not be encoded in 140 or 280 characters, digital space gives us an arena of instant communication that was never available to us before. Financial support and sponsorship Nil. Conflicts of interest There are no conflicts of interest.