An editor's perspective on the quality and content of wear research manuscripts

Progress in wear science and engineering depends on effective communication, and archival tribology journals and conferences help to serve those communication needs. This paper offers an editorial perspective on the changing quality of research papers submitted to the Wear of Materials Conferences (WoM) and to Wear journal. Despite new developments in wear science and wear-resistant materials, some senior researchers opine that there has been little or no improvement in the quality of wear-related manuscripts despite an increase in the total number of submissions. While substandard language quality, lack of clarity, and inappropriate scope result in some rejections, a significant portion of submissions are rejected because they lack the basic elements of good research that are expected for papers in any scientific field. Shortcomings include failure to articulate a clear purpose and problem definition, failure to provide a clear rationale for the experimental or analytical approach, inconsistent terminology, speculative or unsupported conclusions, and a lack of attention to the repeatability of measurements. Commonly, authors fail to apply the scientific method or simply present ‘laboratory testing reports’ rather than thoughtful research built on hard-won understanding. New, online software reveals that some authors re-use portions of their own publications or insert content written by others (plagiarism). By contrast, successful new papers build knowledgably on the current state of the art in wear science and contribute findings of true archival value. In addition to listing six attributes of archival papers, observations about topical trends in manuscripts submitted to Wear and WoM are presented. •The number of submissions to wear journals has risen, but the quality of papers is uneven.•Issues include using the scientific method, data repeatability, and justifying test methodology.•New online tools highlight the problem of self-plagiarism and plagiarism of other authors.•The differences between an archival research paper and a detailed test report are explained.