Is it rude/ambitious to send your paper to people?

[Pythagorean]

Obviously the greedy goal is to increase your research impact, but is it considered rude or over-ambitious to send a paper you published (or rather, a link to it, to avoid copyright issues) to people who might potentially be interested in your research (and might possibly cite it in the future)?

 

[ZapperZ]

Obviously the greedy goal is to increase your research impact, but is it considered rude or over-ambitious to send a paper you published (or rather, a link to it, to avoid copyright issues) to people who might potentially be interested in your research (and might possibly cite it in the future)?

If it is unsolicited, and it is someone you do not know well, then the answer is YES.

It also doesn't reflect well on you, because you are desperate for citation. That is never a good sign.

Zz.

 

[atyy]

No, as long as you don't do it all the time. It should be a personal email, and not a mass mailing. You should send the paper and not the link, since the recipient is unlikely to want to pay to read your paper.

 

[Pythagorean]

If it is unsolicited, and it is someone you do not know well, then the answer is YES.

It also doesn't reflect well on you, because you are desperate for citation. That is never a good sign.

Zz.

What if it's someone you've specifically cited and your research supports some of their conclusions?

 

[ZapperZ]

What if it's someone you've specifically cited and your research supports some of their conclusions?

Then contact this person with the intention that you are interested in that person's work, and do it as a means for an intellectual discussion, rather than "hey, here's my paper!"

I've contact several people, and I've been contacted a lot by people either having questions, or interested in my opinion of certain things. I lose all interest if the email only contains "Hi, we think you might be interested in reading our paper." I consider that as spam. If they can't be bothered to explain why, and if all they want from me is for me to cite their paper, then my finger reaches for the delete button very quickly.

Zz.

 

[Pythagorean]

That's a reasonable expectation. I certainly planned on introducing myself and the paper with discussion. And as atty recommended, it's really a very personal approach, I am imagining, not a mass e-mailing.

Prior to even starting the paper, I'd already contacted one of the people I have in mind previously for the purpose of discussion and he seemed very supportive of the research I was doing (he an emeritus, me a grad student).

One of the main issues is that I'm a mathematical modeller, and these are experimental biologists... so I worry that my papers are outside their search scope even though it's not outside their research scope.

 

[atyy]

One of the main issues is that I'm a mathematical modeller, and these are experimental biologists... so I worry that my papers are outside their search scope even though it's not outside their research scope.

But of course, you won't tell them that. They'll have to be reading this thread to find out, right?

 

[Choppy]

I think it all depends on the delivery.

If you are at least potentially interested in some kind of collaboration or extended discussion, then I would think it's fine. Given that you've already had a conversation with one of them, I don't see an issue with forwarding a copy of the paper just to let him or her know that this was where your work has gone.