Peer reviewing

[henri josé deulofeu]

Dear All,
One point that is missed in this discussion is the fact that English  
is a dominant language in scientific publications. A lot of valuable  
papers remain confidential because they are not  written in English.  
And even if the author tries to write in English, the problem is that  
the English accepted by journals is not the kind of scientific lingua  
franca people generally think it is. The stylistic requirements of the  
editorial boards go far beyond mere readability. As a consequence, it  
is very difficult for non natives or non specialists of academic  
English to meet them (as you can see from the ongoing text ). And  
further, to forecast their ideas to large audiences. One way to  
overcome this shortcoming could be to put the money saved by extending  
the use of web journals into translation programs of "bests of" papers  
originally not written in English and/or linguistic assistance to non  
native writers during the peer review process.
Best
José DEULOFEU
Université de Provence (France)
http://jose.deulofeu.free.fr
Le 3 avr. 10 à 01:27, A. Katz a écrit :

>
> Matthew,
>
> These are some valid points. It is the fact that journal space is  
> limited that helps to shape prestige. However, online publishers can  
> make money, and there are high prestige sites and low prestige sites  
> online, too.
>
> Unfortunately, for those of us without institutional affiliation,  
> some of the high prestige sites for reading journals online are not  
> accessible.
>
>   --Aya
>
> http://hubpages.com/profile/Aya+Katz
>
>
>
> On Fri, 2 Apr 2010, dryer at buffalo.edu wrote:
>
>>
>> One point that I think is worth mentioning that has not been made  
>> explicitly in this discussion (although I may have overlooked it)  
>> is that the process of peer review is taken far more seriously for  
>> journals than it is for edited volumes.  There is usually a far  
>> higher chance of rejection and often the reviews are more helpful.   
>> And this is the reason why journal publications tend in some sense  
>> to be worth more than chapters in edited volumes and why they are  
>> justifiably treated as worth more in tenure and promotion decisions.
>>
>> While I believe that the future lies in online journals, my worry  
>> is that the peer review process will never be taken as seriously as  
>> it is for printed journals.  There is something of a Catch-22  
>> here.  While on the one hand the availability of electronic  
>> publishing renders the cost of publishers as "middle-men"  
>> unnecessary, the very fact that there are companies making money  
>> that they will not make if they do not provide a good product means  
>> that it is almost inevitable that the peer review process for  
>> printed journals will always be taken more seriously than for  
>> online journals.
>>
>> Matthew
>>
>>
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Henri-José Deulofeu
UNIVERSITÉ AIX-MARSEILLE I
DEPT. LINGUISTIQUE FRANCAISE
29 AV. Robert Schuman
13621 Aix-en-Provence CEDEX
+33442953569