Hey guys, can someone clarify science/academic process for me?
I found an article in the journal Circulation that was published in 2013, but there was media (The Age etc.) reporting on it a year earlier. Turns out the media was reporting on the presentation that was given at a conference by the authors in 2012 on their research before getting published in 2013.
-> If you're a scientist who presents their research at a conference before journal publication, has your work been peer-reviewed yet? I thought you had to submit your work to a journal first. Then their people will "peer review" it and if it meets their expectations you can get published in their journal. If that's the case then why do they allow researchers to present their work at conferences etc. before peer review?
It would depend on the stage of the paper - that is, it's possible that the paper is a) under review at the time, b) has been sent back from review with comments to be addressed or c) has been accepted but not published yet. But if you're presenting your work at a conference, typically it hasn't been 'peer reviewed' in that sense. Some dodgy journals aren't even peer review anyway. And the journal's people don't do the review themselves - the editors send the article out to relevant people that also work in your field, anonymously (people they think have expertise related to your work, and frequently your own 'competitors', read colleagues). But to get to that stage, the editor has to deem it worthy of even sending out to review, first.
You're allowed to present whatever you want at a conference. People are usually presenting stuff that isn't published yet at conferences tbh, especially in poster presentations and younger researcher short talks. Most people haven't gathered enough data yet for a complete story that is required for a paper, or their paper is stuck in the submission process outlined above. Just because their work hasn't been reviewed for a journal, doesn't mean it's not valid. People can draw their own conclusions from what is presented at the conference without accepting everything the researchers say - and importantly, when you're presenting, you're at the conference, so if people want to question you then you're both right there and capable of interacting in person. The point of conferences is for people to present cutting edge research at the very forefront of their field as they are gathering results. If we waited for everyone to publish their results, we'd be stifling the 'cutting edge' part. Also, to present at a conference you can't just waltz in - you have to submit an abstract, and a conference board decides whether you will present and what sort of presentation you'll be given.
Lastly, most of the time when you send a paper out for review, people just tell you to do /more stuff/ to clarify the argument you're trying to make (ie extra experiments). It would be rarer for someone to just shoot another person in their field down entirely and be like 'this is completely wrong', although obviously can happen. Review usually leads to people being forced to fill holes in their research or consider things they may not have considered, rather than being there as like a way to stop bullshit science from being publicised. Although that is obviously a valid part of it too.
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