RE: Stegosaurus sexually dimorphic dermal plates

["Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <tholtz@umd.edu>]

> From: owner-DINOSAUR@usc.edu [mailto:owner-DINOSAUR@usc.edu] On Behalf Of 
> Paul P
>
> This seems to be, at least in part, an issue of quantity vs. quality.
> The old way was for the author, and to some degree the editor, to distill a 
> project into a nice, tight little paper (in-house
monographs
> notwithstanding). Now apparently it's the reader's job to take all the parts 
> (S1 text, figures, tables, etc.), decide what's
important, and
> then piece that together into something readable.
> 
> Is it just me, or do others too have difficulty reading a paper that 
> constantly references figures that aren't present?
> 

While it's understandable that the "extended abstract" journals (Nature, 
Science, PNAS) need to put a lot of stuff in supplementals,
an online journal like PLoS doesn't need to do that as much. There aren't "page 
charges" as such, so I agree: any figure or table or
text referenced more than once should probably be in the paper itself. 
(Appendices excluded).

Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
Email: tholtz@umd.edu   Phone: 301-405-4084
Office: Centreville 1216                        
Senior Lecturer, Vertebrate Paleontology
Dept. of Geology, University of Maryland
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/
Fax: 301-314-9661               

Faculty Director, Science & Global Change Program, College Park Scholars
http://www.geol.umd.edu/sgc
Fax: 301-314-9843

Mailing Address:        Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
                        Department of Geology
                        Building 237, Room 1117
                        University of Maryland
                        College Park, MD 20742 USA

>