I can't go into the details of why, but I've just been looking at a CV that has several publications in a journal I don't read and do not know much about. So I took a look at the recent volumes of this journal with a view towards getting a sense of its scope and quality. What should one make of the fact that the journal regularly publishes work written by its editor?
I'm not talking about the typical editorial note or "introduction" that one finds at the beginning of many journals. Editor-authored notes about the journal's business, or announcements, or brief descriptions of the journal's contents are common and unobjectionable. I'm talking about a journal which regularly publishes papers by the editor. For the journal in question, it seems that more than half of the issues in any given (and recent) year have articles by the editor. I was taken aback by this. I'd supposed that being the editor of a journal meant not publishing papers in that journal, except in special and rare circumstances. My view of the quality of the journal has also been negatively affected. Views?
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31 comments:
It's bad. Less bad, but bad still are grad students who publish an inordinate amount in their dissertation supervisor's journals.
Sorry, former grad students.
That does sound odd, to say the least. Even at some of the more incestuous journals I worked at as a grad student copy editor, that didn't happen.
Can you give us the title of the journal? Just curious.
Holy crap! How does a fella get in on this gig? I should found a journal that caters to my two or three rarefied and unconnected interests - CV inflation, here I come!
Seriously, people do this? What a load. I thought this was too small a discipline to get away with shennanigans like that.
Does the editor referee his own papers as well?
Surely this shouldn't be allowed to happen. It would be up to the Editorial Board to intervene on such matters.
I've seen this in a somewhat out of the way, but I wouldn't say bad, Springer journal: I wouldn't say it's often, but when the name popped up as I was thumbing through TOCs, it game me similar pause. But then I thought that perhaps that was before the editor in question's tenure as editor began. . . .
Anon 5:31. I edit a Springer journal and am expressly forbidden from publishing substantive papers in it.
Spiros, I can guess who you're talking about. Don't you think that given his stature he could publish pretty much anywhere he wants? He has only done it a few times since he has been editor and my guess is that it has probably boosted the overall citation figures for his journal.
I also edit a Springer journal and there is no such prohibition for me. Or, I bet, for the editor that Spiros is criticizing.
Are we not supposed to say who it is? It's pretty obvious.
Looks to me like the articles are same-issue replies, or in one case the proceedings of... well, I feel silly, but if we aren't supposed to give any real identifying information then I suppose I shouldn't say. But the proceedings of something, in which said editor participated, and picked by a guest editor.
So it doesn't seem like a serious problem to me. I mean, to stay squeaky clean it's better not to publish in your own journal at all, sure, but this case doesn't strike me as any serious wrong.
So why the secrecy about who this is? If this is in the public record anyhow, why not save us the trouble and just say who it is?
7:05,
I spent an hour or so looking through some of the minor-league journals on line, and found 3 that fit Spiros' description. Surely there are more. Maybe it's not such a rare practice after all.
I think it is worrying. We want to be in journals because publishing in many venues is a sign of academic quality. This may be called into question when the gatekeepers are deciding their own fate (with the suspicion that the editor may be able to fairly run a review of your piece, but not his/her own...and not least as s/he chooses the referees (if any) and whether any reports justify publication with several potential conflicts of interest).
For what it's worth, I have no idea which journals Spiros and others have in mind.
Word verification: "brize"
Why else would you become a journal editor? The money?
word verification: "quallyza"
I have the same reaction when I pick up an edited collection and find a paper by the editor. Sure sometimes it's appropriate-- like when the group of top-tier folks is small. But I still rankle against it when I come across it.
Edited collections seem like a completely different matter (unless I don't really understand how publishing works), because the person who puts together the collection still has to get the book through the publisher's review process. I see no reason why they shouldn't include their own work in that case--it is in some sense being submitted to external review.
While we're on the subject of questionable journal practices, I've heard from a few friends that they've submitted work to a journal that promises blind review only to find that the journal's editor has decided to serve as a sighted referee. (This isn't just some initial screening, the editor takes around 6 months to return some comments.) Thoughts?
It bugs me that I can't get my work looked at by referees if I submit to this journal. It also bugs me that the journal represents itself as using a process of blind review when it is part time blind review at best.
So...are the articles any good?
Can someone just tell me who we're talking about? I take it that neither the editorship nor the authorship is anonymous (or pseudonymous).
I vote to keep it all anonymous because Sprios says he's looking at someone's CV. Lots of scenarios in which outing a journal as arguably questionable could hurt someone (like me) trying to get tenure....
I can understand why Spiros would choose not to name the editor and journal - he may be afraid of making enemies or getting sued, for example. But what on earth is the justification of those anonymous posters who know but refuse to say. Can they explain? Seem ridiculous and pathetic to me.
Speaking for myself, I didn't say the name because this is Spiros' house, and he seemed to want to leave the name unsaid.
I thought that was obvious. I also think it's pretty obvious who it is, so the non-naming feels odd.
It's not at all obvious to me what the journal is. It is a pretty obscure journal, I take it (Spiros describes it as one he doesn't know much about and doesn't read, so I take it it is not top 10). I don't see how naming the journal can hurt anyone other than the editor. No one is suggesting that other papers published in the journal don't deserve to be there.
Hi folks. I'd rather we not get into naming the journals that are involved in this practice. As someone above noted, there are parties involved who are quite innocent of anything questionable. It seems we're agreed that this is an odd practice. Let's just move on, OK? Thanks,
~Spiros
How can innocent third parties be hurt, Spiros? I'm just not seeing it. I don't really see how X getting his papers into journal Y in a way that might be seen to bypass proper refereeing should cast doubt on Z's getting her papers into Y in a way that *doesn't* bypass refereeing.
Anon 9:10,
Anon 2:42 here. Someone might think that a journal that does this is for that reason a lesser or unscholarly venue. Maybe right, maybe wrong. But if there's a tenure case in this, it would be bad to have a thread on a well-known blog calling the journal out for it.
Disclosure: I don't know any journal that does this.
Someone might think that a journal that does this is a worse journal, and that therefore people who get their papers through peer review at that journal are themselves debased. Someone might think anything at all. It isn't a rational thought, and I don't think we ought to be avoiding anything that might trigger an irrational thought in someone (else we will have to avoid everything).
Isn't there a case for outing the journal in order to protect the innocent? If lots of folks know which journal this is, and also think that because of this practice papers published in the journal are devalued, then for the sake of those who don't know which journal it is, this ought to be made public.
10:40 and 1:09,
I agree with the principle of what you say. But there are other considerations that I cannot go into here. Moreover, there are other forums that are more appropriate for this kind of discussion. Feel free to take it up elsewhere. The journals that do this are easy enough to find (I only recently discovered that this is more common than I'd thought).
I run this blog for (mild) amusement, and I don't have the time to moderate it. So I'd like to steer clear of discussions which might veer into topics that would require moderation. This seems like one such discussion. Let's let it go.
Sometimes an editor has to ref an article himself because the reviewers don't follow through on their commitment. Hopefully it is rare, but it happens. This doesn't necessarily negate blind review when the submission itself is handled by an assistant, as happens for most journals.
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