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Comment by sachingulaya | Hacker News Reader

Can anyone comment on how important this is to the results of the paper?

To the scientific results of the paper? Not much. Usually you use two different methods of analysis to confirm the structure of a compound. The compound was identified by NMR, so the elemental analysis (EA) is used to back-up the identification (it's actually very sensitive and very solid evidence).

It's not that big of a deal, because often intermediates are not isolated, so if this compound was carried forward to another compound and THAT was fully characterized, the science is solid.

However, there are two problems. Do you believe the data for the final compounds knowing that the data from an intermediate was fudged?

In the sense of damage to the credibility of the authors, it is very important.

Somewhere between vital and fundamental.

If that's the case, why is it in the Supporting Information section? In my most recent paper, I used the SI for results that would be of interest to some people, but do not fundamentally affect the interpretation of the data. In the bad old days before journals were online, having a Supporting Information section wasn't even an option---either it's in the paper, or it's not. If it is crucial to the interpretation of the paper, it ought to be in a major figure/table, and the reviewers ought to have asked for it to be. Otherwise, it's position in the SI indicates to me that it's potentially useful, but not critical.

Data is often repeated in the SI section. You put all of your data in the SI and only put select data in the paper.

I understand what you're saying but more fundamental than the supporting data is the trust in the person witting it.

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