Alternately, it would have worked really well as a "Registered Report." Cortex now offers a format where the paper is submitted in two stages. One first submit

Alternately, it would have worked really well as a "Registered Report." Cortex now offers a format where the paper is submitted in two stages. One first submits the introduction/background, methods, and proposed analysis, before collecting data. If the reviews are favorable, the paper is accepted, regardless of how the results turn out. There is a second round of reviews for the final manuscript to assess the quality of the data and ensure that the pre-determined analysis plan was followed. More here: http://cdn.elsevier.com/promis_misc/PROMIS%20pub_idt_CORTEX%20Guidelines_RR_29_04_2013.pdf http://cdn.elsevier.com/promis_misc/PROMIS%20pub_idt_CORTEX%... I've had a hard time selling collaborators on it ("TWO ROUNDS OF REVIEW?! Isn't one slow and painful enough?!"), but I really like this idea. It rewards interesting hypotheses and good experimental design, but avoids the ask-a-stupid-question-get-a-stupid-answer issue with null results.