Trusted Assessorship in Science: A Relation in Need of Data

Scientific communication has its formal and its informal aspects. Each is vital to the enterprise, specifically in the production, diffusion, and digestion of new knowledge. The past decade has witnessed an abundance of theoretical and empirical work on communication practices among scientists. Garvey et al.,1 for example, have characterized the media of communication utilized at successive stages of the research cycle, from the draft of an idea to its ultimate publication in the serial literature up to five years later. Menzel2 has focused on both intended and unintended consequences of communication, while Hagstrom3 has explored the different reinforcements that oral and written presentations provide.