academic publishing Academic publishing is the subfield of publishing which distributes academic research and scholarship. Most academic work is published in academic journal articles, books or theses. The part of academic written output that is not formally pu ...

, the least publishable unit (LPU), also smallest publishable unit (SPU), minimum publishable unit (MPU), loot, or publon, is the smallest measurable quantum of publication, the minimum amount of information that can be used to generate a publication in a peer-reviewed venue, such as a journal or a conference. (Maximum publishable unit and optimum publishable unit are also used.) The term is often used as a joking, ironic, or derogatory reference to the strategy of artificially inflating quantity of publications. Publication of the results of

research Research is " creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness ...

is an essential part of

science Science is a systematic endeavor that Scientific method, builds and organizes knowledge in the form of Testability, testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earli ...

. The number of publications is often used to assess the work of a scientist and as a basis for distributing research funds. In order to achieve a high rank in such an assessment, there is a trend to split up research results into smaller parts that are published separately, thus inflating the number of publications. This process has been described as splitting the results into the smallest publishable units... "Salami publication", sometimes also referred to as "

salami slicing Salami slicing tactics, also known as salami slicing, salami tactics, the salami-slice strategy, or salami attacks, is the practice of using a series of many small actions to produce a much larger action or result that would be difficult or unlawf ...

" or "salami science", is a variant of the smallest-publishable-unit strategy. In salami publishing, data gathered by one research project is separately reported (wholly or in part) in multiple end publications. Salami publishing, apparently named by analogy with the thin slices made from a larger

salami Salami ( ) is a cured sausage consisting of fermented and air-dried meat, typically pork. Historically, salami was popular among Southern, Eastern, and Central European peasants because it can be stored at room temperature for up to 45 days ...

sausage, is generally considered questionable when not explicitly labeled, as it may lead to the same data being counted multiple times as apparently independent results in aggregate studies. When data gathered in one research project are partially reported as if a single study, a problem of statistical significance can arise. Scientists typically use a 5% threshold to determine whether a hypothesis is supported by the results of a research project. If multiple hypotheses are being tested on a single research project, 1 in 20 hypotheses will by chance be supported by the research. Partially reported research projects must use a more stringent threshold when testing for statistical significance but often do not do this. There is no consensus among academics about whether people should seek to make their publications least publishable units, and it has long been resisted by some journal editors. Particularly for people just getting started in academic publication, writing a few small articles provides a way of getting used to how the system of peer review and professional publication works, and it does indeed help to boost publication count.Whitney J. Owen
"In Defense of the Least Publishable Unit"
''The Chronicle of Higher Education''. But publishing too many LPUs is thought not to impress peers when it comes time to seek promotion beyond the assistant professor (or equivalent) level. Also, LPUs may not always be the most efficient way to pass on knowledge, because they break up ideas into small pieces, sometimes forcing people to look up many cross-references. Multiple salami slices also occupy more journal pages than a single synthetic article that contains the same information. On the other hand, a small piece of information is easily digestible, and the reader may not need more information than what is in the LPU.

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– Video: The hazards of salami slicing {{Academic publishing Academic publishing Academic terminology Publishing

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