Why don’t research papers allow commenting?

As a bit of light-hearted Friday morning humor, I circulated the most recent comic from “grad student comic strip,” Piled Higher and Deeper Comics – or PHD for short.  Titled “OMG! ROTFL!!” (that’s Oh My God! Rolling On The Floor Laughing!!!) the single panel comic jokingly muses about what it would be like “if research papers had a comment section.”

At the best of times PHD is geared largely towards the academic community, with much of its humor likely to appeal only to those people who work in the sector and are accustomed to it’s social and political idiosyncrasies.  This particular comic was particularly niche, as it also made references to the culture of debate, self-publicity and commenting found on blogs.  Being highly idiosyncratic in my own right, I found it hilarious.

Well, why don’t they?

Shortly thereafter though I began to wonder: “Why don’t research papers have a comment section?” Followed shortly thereafter by, “What is the real objective and value in research papers?  What purpose do they serve?”

This is not to say I think they serve no value – quite the contrary, research papers provide an important road map upon which innovation can occur, and the advancement of human understanding can take place. At the same time though, they do harken back to an older time, before personal online publishing virtually eliminated the boundaries to engage in the discussion.

So in my typical tendency to question all traditional institutions, structures and assumptions, I began to wonder whether the whole notion of the role and place of research papers needs to be reevaluated and reconsidered and thus make it more open to discussion and wider participation.

Advancing human understanding

Historically research papers have been written and presented to document and share the outcomes of ongoing research with the academic community, develop a dialogue surrounding their implications, and start to vet the accuracy and strength of the underlying arguments.  Far from being one directional flows of information, debate and dialogue regarding research papers occurs via subsequent papers that either build on the findings of previous ones, refute their outcomes, or perhaps provide a slightly different analysis of the results.

At the same time though, the nature of the process, particularly with respect to peer review, editing and re-editing makes the dialogue exceptionally slow, drawn out, and importantly accessible to relatively few people. Don’t get me wrong, taking the time to formulate a well-considered and thoroughly analysed paper is critically important – but so too is establishing opportunities for open dialogue and discussion, whereby people can construct their own understandings of the research.

Not everyone is able to, or capable of, writing a paper that is published in a reputable journal – but this doesn’t mean they won’t have thoughts on the matter that are worth sharing.  Likewise it doesn’t make their thoughts or perspectives on the matter any less significant.

Open publishing

In saying this, some research publications may be open for commenting (if you know of any please provide some links).  My contemplation of all this is more in the vein of “just because something has always been done this way doesn’t mean it still needs to be.”

I note too that there is an increasing tendency in certain spheres to use blogging platforms as vehicles for publishing journal-quality material.  Konrad Glogowski’s “Blog of proximal development” and David Jone’s “Weblog of (a) David Jones” immediately come to mind here, as do George Siemen’s Connectivism blog, Stephen Downes’ “Half an Hour” blog and Mark Pesce’s “The Human Network“.  The point is these are more the acceptions to the rule, with the majority of research largely directed towards discussion by those “in the know.”

There’s more that I’d add to this discussion, but as usual I’m short on time.  I’m interested in what others think of this whole train of thought. Do you think research papers should allow commenting? Why or why not?