Say I have the same theory and same dataset, what makes two papers? I mean other people do it, why can't I? some of the family scholars publish the same thing over their career, like, second-born sister's relationship with mom, third-born son's relationship with mom, first-born grandson's relationship with meemaw, and so on and so and s**t.
how much difference does it need to make two papers
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OP you sound disturbed bro.
But to answer your question: If you have the same data and the same argument then I don’t see why you would have two papers. But if you are incorporating interaction terms or using a different dependent variable then you might have a distinct paper.
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Ask Adam Green about how to publish same paper twice same year.
The Social Organization of Desire: The Sexual Fields Approach. Theory and Society
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9558.2008.00317.xErotic habitus: toward a sociology of desire. Sociological Theory.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11186-007-9059-4 -
As someone who has multiple pubs on a single dataset, I ask myself the following question, which is based on the "salami slicing" concern/criterion: Could I combine the two papers into a single paper and still maintain a cohesive focus? If the answer is no, then the papers are pursuing substantively different research questions.
In most circumstances, using the same theoretical model and dataset to test a different outcome variable would make me uncomfortable -- as would adding interaction terms/by-group analyses to test the same theoretical model with the same dataset. I think you're okay doing this now. But as concerns over text-recycling continue to grow in our discipline, I suspect this will eventually be viewed as unethical.
I'd be fearful that ten years from now any P&T decisions I face might be plagued by these concerns over my current publications. So I exercise exceptional caution now to avoid any worries down the line.
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I've split up papers into 2 papers when there were way too many results for one paper and it made sense to split into two or even three once. Like one is "what's the difference in behavior x by gender, race and a few other demographic variables" and the second is "Does behavior x differ in situation 1 vs. 2" and the third is "Does behavior x affect outcomes Y, Z, W and Q in situation 2?." There was a lot of overlap in the lit review and methods sections (same dataset for all 3) but combining all 3 things into one paper would have resulted in a 90 page paper.
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Also keep in mind that salami slicing devalues the contribution of each additional paper. Hence why people who do this will try to submit all at once so it's not caught.
My own view is that it's sometimes it's just better to not salami slice and just head for the top journals with one brilliant paper than several average ones, and just accept your interesting side analyses won't be a separate papers but will be an appendix to a very well placed paper.