TY - JOUR A1 - Weller, Michael G. T1 - The Protocol Gap N2 - Although peer review is considered one of the main pillars of modern science, experimental methods and protocols seem to be not a rigorous subject of this process in many papers. Commercial equipment, test kits, labeling kits, previously published concepts, and standard protocols are often considered to be not worth a detailed description or validation. Even more disturbing is the extremely biased citation behavior in this context, which sometimes leads to surrogate citations to avoid low-impact journals, preprints, or to indicate traditional practices. This article describes some of these surprising habits and suggests some measures to avoid the most unpleasant effects, which in the long term may undermine the credibility of science as a whole. KW - Validation KW - Peer review KW - Experiment KW - Documentation KW - Scientific publication KW - Reproducibility crisis KW - Replication crisis KW - Trust KW - Citation KW - References KW - Surrogate citations KW - Impact PY - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-521440 SN - 2409-9279 VL - 4 IS - 1 SP - 1 EP - 5 PB - MDPI CY - Basel AN - OPUS4-52144 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -