#ProTip for Authors: There’s More to Writing Your Manuscript Than Just the Text
Authors need to understand more about producing web documents, particularly accessibility, if they want to forgo traditional publishing.
The Rise of Peer Review: Melinda Baldwin on the History of Refereeing at Scientific Journals and Funding Bodies
In this interview Robert Harington asks Melinda Baldwin to talk about her recent article in Isis, entitled “Scientific Autonomy, Public Accountability, and the Rise of “Peer Review” in the Cold War United States”, and to provide some more personal views on peer review topics of the moment.
Guest Post: When Authors Get Caught in the Predatory (Illegitimate Publishing) Net
Are we losing good articles to predatory journals, with little recourse for unsuspecting authors? Or are authors becoming increasingly complicit and symbiotic in their relationships with illegitimate publishing entities with disregard for the greater good? Maybe it’s both. Today’s guest post explores what can happen when an author accidentally falls into the predatory journal rabbit hole.
Succession Planning
Robert Harington attempts to help you think through how to develop a strategy for succession planning, recognizing that in today’s world, people just don’t stay at their jobs as long as they used to.
Should You “Revise and Resubmit”?
With everyone in a rush to get work published quickly, authors are sometimes torn on what to do when major revisions are requested. The post examines the pros and cons of seeing the process through, or cutting bait mid way.
Wellcome Money — Involvement with F1000 Opens Door on Sketchy Peer Review, COIs, and Spending Decisions
With a new partnership with F1000, Wellcome embraces sketchy peer review standards, deep conflicts of interest, and financial support of a private, commercial enterprise. Worse, the entire thing seems redundant, avoidable, and unnecessary.
What If Academic and Scholarly Publishers Paid Research Authors?
It’s a question that has lurked around the edges of our campfire for a while — what if publishers paid authors of research papers? Quickly, it becomes clear why this is very unlikely to happen — for financial, ethical, and practical reasons.
Revisiting: The Editor — A Vital Role We Barely Talk About Anymore
Revisiting Kent Anderson’s 2014 post on the importance of editors–how much of what we see as a failure of “peer review” is really a failure of editorial oversight?
Extreme Bias: How Rejection Clouds The Eyes of Researchers
The publication experience of authors may come down to a single factor: was the manuscript accepted?
Revisiting: The Price of Posting — PubMed Central Spends Most of Its Budget Handling Author Manuscripts
Revisiting Kent Anderson’s post based on his FOIA request documents show that PubMed Central spends most of its money tagging author manuscripts, and that its stricter rules for NIH authors may double its costs.
The Editor — A Vital Role We Barely Talk About Anymore
An alien landing in the scholarly and scientific publishing world today, reading all the opinions about how to make things more efficient and effective, might be forgiven for thinking there are only authors, readers, librarians, and reviewers. After all, those […]
Instruction Junction — The Ballooning Lists of Editorial Policies, and the Burdens They Create
Long “Instructions to Authors” filled with ancillary policies and undifferentiated requirements don’t help authors, staff, or editors. As the graveyard for unmade decisions, they’ve only gotten longer and more opaque. Maybe it’s time to clean yours up!
The 1% of Scientific Outputs — A Story of Strawmen, Sensationalism, and Scopus
A paper claiming to have identified “the 1%” in productive published researchers may suffer from problems with disambiguation, timing, and scope.
The Legal Hot Zone — The Hidden Role of Publishers in Academic and Scientific Legal Disputes
Legal issues are an inevitable part of publishing cutting-edge information in a world as political as academic research. However, the role of publishers in these matters, and their important contributions, are often concealed within necessary discretion.
Can Mega-journals Maintain Boundaries When They and Their Customers Align on "Publish or Perish"?
The “publish or perish” culture has created a major mega-journal. But are its boundaries and standards built properly to avoid becoming an enabler of that culture?