Scientific communication: Its role in the conduct of research and creation of knowledge

Reviews certain aspects of the communication crisis in science. Empirical findings relative to the nature of a scientific discipline's role in evaluating, processing, and compacting scientific information for researchers, scholars, and students are presented. An overview of data is provided, collected by the american psychological association project on scientific information exchange in psychology, together with more recent information relative to other disciplines. The roles of formal vs. Informal channels for communicating scientific information are compared.