The Comptes Rendus is (are) a French Academy of Sciences publication, essentially a 'rapid communication' format. It comes in many flavours, and maths is one of them. Proofs are non-existent (at least in older articles I've read), or perhaps only sketched. I don't know what the reach of CR is outside the francophone world (note that CR is bilingual French/English)
One preliminary question is this:
Are there any equivalents to CR?
Some context: say I have a new result, which I know will be true, and just the grinding calculations need to be done. If I don't want to wait to unveil it to the world, what benefit do I get from publishing in rapid communication journals like CR? I could put the same thing on the arXiv, and while one might point out that a journal is refereed, but how can a proofless/proof-lite article be refereed?
Should I submit to a 'rapid communication' style journal while I finish the work, and then submit the full article elsewhere (+post on arXiv), or can I get away with a short arXiv note and then post and submit the full version when it is done?
Best Answer
I hope you will allow me to relate a cautionary tale. Once upon a time, my co-author and I managed to find a counter-example to a conjecture, and we wrote up a corresponding two page paper. We decided to submit our paper to Comptes Rendus (the paper contained all the details, btw, given the existence of the ArXiv, publishing research announcements just seems like resume padding). I was in charge of handling the submission, and so I naturally enough searched online for where to submit the paper. My reaction upon finding the website was "oh, that's funny, Comptes Rendus is a Canadian journal, I always thought it was a French journal". Not thinking much beyond that, I submitted the file. Time went by, and, although I noticed that the journal seemed to be taking a long time to referee a two page paper, I did not think so much about it. Six months later (to the day), the paper was accepted. I then noticed on the journal's website a note that said "On acceptance of a paper, to help defray the costs of publication, a charge of 100 dollars will be requested." Somewhat nonplussed, I emailed the editor in chief whether this was true, and he confirmed indeed that it was, with the helpful remark that, and I quote, "we assume that the researcher usually has a grant to cover such costs". It was only at this point that my co-author realized my blunder. I was then in the awkard position of having to withdraw my paper from the Canadian journal "Comptes Rendus Mathematiques" and submit it to the (French) journal "Comptes Rendus Mathematique". This resulted in not only having to write one embarassing email but two: after asking to withdraw the paper the editor wrote me back and offered to waive the 100 dollar charge, thinking that this was the reason for my withdrawl. In the end, it did get submitted to the correct journal, where it was accepted in two days.