journal publication (Antipassives)

[Johanna Nichols]

Self-publishing bypasses peer review, and peer review is a much more
important function of journal publication than boosting careers is.  Peer
review is so essential to distinguishing science from pseudoscience that I
don't think it should be bypassed, at least not very often.

Johanna Nichols


dlevere at ILSTU.EDU wrote:
> I agree with most of what Martin says. However, I don't think that if
> senior scholars self-publish this puts junior scholars at a
> disadvantage. In fact, I would think the opposite. It frees up journal
> space for them. I think that selective journals are crucial for the
> careers of junior scholars. And if senior scholars need the 'credit'
> in some sort of evaluative process, e.g. the UK's RAE or some such,
> then publication in a selective journal is always preferred. But for
> well-established scholars who want to make interesting work available
> but aren't worried about impressing review committees, I think
> self-publishing is a useful option.
>
> I certainly do not understand what the hesitation would be to use and
> cite such materials. (In fact, you can publish any monograph on
> Amazon.com and charge for downloads if you'd prefer. I don't recall
> seeing a linguistic monograph published in this way, but other
> disciplines, most notably philosophy, seem to do this from time to
> time.)
>
> Dan
>
>
> Quoting Martin Haspelmath <haspelmath at EVA.MPG.DE>:
>
>> Since increasingly, even papers from "print journals" are printed out
>> rather than retrieved from a library in paper form, the difference is
>> now mainly between journals with page number restrictions and journals
>> without page number restrictions. The latter are obviously preferable
>> (in typology, we have one so far:
>> http://linguistic-discovery.dartmouth.edu/).
>>
>> It seems to me that the future of linguistics lies in abandoning
>> monograph publication, and shifting to journal-only publication.
>> Increasingly, as linguists compete for resources with other
>> disciplines, journal publication is seen as counting more. (In fact, it
>> may make sense to go as far as relabeling entire book series as
>> journals, to help evaluators and funding agencies see linguistics as
>> what it is, a respectable science.)
>>
>> Martin
>>
>> P.S. I wouldn't recommend the "self-publishing" strategy suggested by
>> Dan Everett as an option. As he notes, this is not available to junior
>> scholars, so if it became acceptable, it would put them at a
>> disadvantage. I think we should not cite unpublished work that isn't
>> evidently intended for regular publication.
>>
>> dlevere at ILSTU.EDU wrote:
>>> Dear Wolfgang,
>>>
>>> It seems to me that work that doesn't quite fit an established
>>> print journal or monograph series ought either to be submitted to
>>> an electronic journal or simply posted on one's webpage with a
>>> notice to the relevant list, at least for senior scholars such as
>>> yourself.
>>>
>>> Most of the people who would read and benefit from your research
>>> report are readers of this list and Funknet, and some on
>>> LinguistList who don't read these two lists. In fact, by making
>>> your work available to your colleagues by this announcement and
>>> your webpage, you have probably already ensured that your paper
>>> will be read by more people than most print outlets.
>>>
>>> I look forward to reading the work from your website.
>>>
>>> Others might have different opinions about publication, of course.
>>> But that is my view.
>>>
>>> Dan
>>>
>>> Quoting Wolfgang Schulze <W.Schulze at LRZ.UNI-MUENCHEN.DE>:
>>>
>>>> Dear friends and colleagues
>>>> please allow me making a perhaps somewhat unusual post. But maybe you
>>>> can help me or give me some advise. I have produced an admittedly
>>>> lengthy paper on the *grammaticalization of antipassives* in terms of
>>>> split aspects systems, dealing mainly with Sumerian, Kartvelian, and
>>>> Proto-Indo-European, but including data from other languages, too. You
>>>> can download the first draft (attention: not yet proof-read by an
>>>> native speaker of English!) from
>>>> http://www.lrz-muenchen.de/~wschulze/antipass.pdf . My problem is that
>>>> I really don't know what to do with this paper. It is too long for
>>>> submission to a journal (79 pages), and too short for producing a
>>>> (slender) monography. Any suggestions (if ever you can imagine that
>>>> the
>>>> contents are of relevance for our community)? In addition, I would be
>>>> happy to receive critics and other comments all of which would
>>>> undoubtedly help to improve the quality of the analyses.
>>>> Many thanks in advance and best wishes,
>>>> Wolfgang
>>>> --
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>>
>>>> *Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schulze *
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Martin Haspelmath (haspelmath at eva.mpg.de)
>> Max-Planck-Institut fuer evolutionaere Anthropologie, Deutscher Platz 6
>> D-04103 Leipzig      Tel. (MPI) +49-341-3550 307, (priv.) +49-341-980
>> 1616
>
>
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