Enough is enough

Complaints about the overabundance of supplementary information in primary research articles have increased in decibel and frequency in the past several years and are now at cacophonous levels. Reviewers and editors warn that they do not have time to scrutinize it. Authors contend that the effort and money needed to produce it exceeds that reasonably spent on a single publication. How often readers actually look at supplemental information is unclear, and most journal websites offer the supplement as an optional download.