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There are some journals that accept short articles of 2 to 4 pages.

I have submitted (and had accepted) such a letter (Cannot specifically name the letter) which is 2 pages in length but it is a SCI-E journal.

How would such an article be viewed by the academic community? Is there a big difference between the two?

Similarly, how does academics view journals that only publish such short articles?

Thanks.

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  • Could you be clearer on what you mean by 'standing' of a letter? Do you mean is it considered a worthwhile thing to do? (Note that Physical Review Letters and Applied Physics Letters are well regarded.)
    – Jon Custer
    Commented Jul 9, 2018 at 20:20
  • By 'standing' I mean how does the professors, academics see such publications while considering offering post-docs or job offers.
    – SJa
    Commented Jul 9, 2018 at 22:56
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    I’m sorry, but we can’t comment on the effects of individual journals.
    – aeismail
    Commented Jul 10, 2018 at 11:50
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    The arguments and conclusions of a paper should stand on their own, no matter the length. After all, Fermat caused quite a stir with one line written in the margin of a book. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermat%27s_Last_Theorem
    – Buffy
    Commented Jul 10, 2018 at 14:39
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    I’ve removed the hold.
    – aeismail
    Commented Jul 11, 2018 at 1:39

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There's an interesting study of ecology papers by Fox et al., finding that at least in that field, longer papers tend to be cited more. The explanation they advance, however, is that longer papers contain "more and a greater diversity of data and ideas," not that scientists feel more warmly about long papers than short ones. Also, the effect size they found was small, with less than a 2% increase in citations per 10% increase in page number. This suggests that padding out a short paper with extra analyses is not an efficient way to raise its profile.

(Short papers, of course, can be very influential: the first paper to accurately describe the structure of DNA was almost exactly one page.)

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