2 Responses to Thrift on refereeing in crisis

1. Juliet Fall says:

   January 31, 2012 at 9:54 am

   Good comment, and referenced your earlier excellent one. Two thoughts: one is that I don’t see why more journals = more reviewing. More editing for some, certainly, but surely it doesn’t mean that people write more, only spread what they do write more thinly. Secondly, PiHG offers access to Sage journals for a month when you review a paper. That seems like a good idea, and I felt that symbolically and practically someone recognised my effort.

   Reply
   • stuartelden says:

     February 1, 2012 at 6:15 pm

     thanks Juliet. Yes, it is more papers submitted that leads to more referee requests. But the new journals create such a range of outlets, of various quality that it perhaps encourages premature submissions, or papers that might otherwise have languished in a drawer or on a hard-drive to be submitted. There is a sense, I think, that everything will find a home eventually! We often get a flood after a big society meeting of presentations turned into papers. There is also the pressure to publish, but four pieces in seven years – i.e. the UK model – is hardly onerous. What is more of a challenge is four good pieces, but that should presumably lead to fewer submissions, with the best ideas in fewer pieces rather than the old caricature of salami slicing. I know different systems have different regulations. On the second point, yes a big publisher like Sage can do things like this. It is more complicated for a smaller publisher and open-access journals obviously can’t compete on that front.

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