Who the Hell do these academic journals think they are violating my sacred First Amendment free speech rights?
We regret to inform you that we have decided not to send your manuscript to our reviewers for their comments and evaluation. In our assessment, your paper does not quite reach the bar in terms of making an original conceptual or theoretical contribution to meaningful work debates.
I'm sure Fox News pundits will race to my defense. Andrew Sullivan? Glenn Greenwald? Dr. Seuss? Mx. Potato Head?
16 comments:
This is a horrid letter. I am sorry.
Glenn Greenwald, by the way, is superb.
I am being sarcastic. Having an article rejected by a journal is what editorial review is all about. Glenn Greenwald, by the way, is a whiner.
Glenn Greenwald is among the finest journalists in the world, and I hope there is lots of whining left in Greenwald. I admire Greenwald, and I do not care a fig for such foolish nastiness.
I would never insult you, and would object to anyone else insulting you.
Glenn Greenwald, by the way, is a ------.
[ What nonsense. ]
Glenn is terrible in regard to any criticism. And much of work is about indulging his resentments & vendettas.
"Glenn Greenwald is among the finest journalists in the world, and I hope there is lots of whining left in Greenwald. I admire Greenwald, and I do not care a fig for such foolish nastiness."
Amazing. So I see you and Epoch Times (Falun Gong) can find common ground on Greenwald at least.
For those who do not know, what Sandwichman got is called a "desk reject." They are very common for academic journals, and while they look insulting and mean they are actually a favor for most authors who get them.
I am saying this based on 20 years of journal editing, still going on, and having dealt with thousands of papers. So journals have space constraints, and reasonably respected journals tend to publish not more than 10-20% of the papers submitted to them, with that more like 3-5% for the really top journals. So most papers get rejected. If a paper is sent out for review, unfortunately in economics there is a bad norm contrasting with the hard sciences where referees on average sit on papers for six months or more before making a report, yeah, shame on them, but that is the hard reality. And usually there is further messing around with sometimes a paper getting rejected more than a year out from submission.
So, it boils down to if an editor thinks that a paper is not likely to be approved of by the associate editors or likely referees, even if their reasons or views may be unfair or unreasonable, then the editor will be doing the author a favor by desk rejecting it, which usually happens pretty quickly, generally withim a month and usually sooner. How long did this one take, S-man? Anyway, they can turn around and send it back out somewhere else quickly, which is especially useful for tenure track assistant professors who face a serious time deadline for getting publications so as to get tenure.
One might say, well, big shot editor, why don't you just stand up for truth, justice, and the American way (or whatevvr) and just override those people on your board and those misguided referees? Not an unreasonabel point, but also the hard reality is that very few editors do that, not wanting to tick off their board members, and not wanting to go against referees who are not clearly doing something ridiculous, especially when they think the ref knows more about the topic than they do. It is strong and full-of-themselves editors who do that, and, for better or worse, they are getting rarer all the time, with journal editing becoming increasingly bureaucratic. I shall confess that I am one of those unusual, and I have some deep scars on my back from arguing with eminent board members over papers.
On Greenwald, he did the world a favor regarding the Snowden papers, but I agree with S-man that recently he has been less and less admirable in what he is doing.
BTW, I probably desk reject about half the papers submitted to my current journal, the Review of Behavioral Economics (ROBE), and was doing it at an even higher rate at my previous journal, which was more prestigious and got a lot more submissions. My observation is that the only people who whine about getting these are either brand new fresh out of grad school people who do not know what is going on and that you have done them a favor and famous eminent types who are egomaniacal and think they can browbeat you with their supreme pomposity (how dare you desk reject ME?!?!?).
LOL!
Brilliant. Thanks for posting, that was really funny.
i love this blog!
"How long did this one take, S-man?"
It was just under a month turnaround! I expected there was about a 10% or less chance of it getting accepted but it was a tight deadline on a special issue topic I was interested in and I figured the discipline of churning out a paper in two weeks was worth the effort. The only quibble I would have is the bit about "making an original conceptual or theoretical contribution." I assume this is boilerplate and am not offended. If anything, though, my contribution would have been too original (read "eccentric") and thus no place for it in their conceptual universe. But I am very pleased with the rejection because it gives me the opportunity to retool the piece and submit it somewhere else.
By the way, I had a paper accepted for publication within about a month and a half earlier this year so I am feeling extraordinarily lucky about turn around times!
As it says above the box, spam and gaslight comments will be deleted.
I have been reading Glenn Greenwald for years, and never once has Greenwald referred to the fanatical cult referred to here. I think insulting Greenwald was needless and saddening.
I would never have insulted you and would defend you if you were insulted. There was no need. No need at all.
Give it a rest, anne.
S-man,
Yes, that is standard boilerplate.
Congrats on your acceptance.
I am deeply sorry to have criticized Sandwichman. Sandwichman kindly explained. I then read the malicious article that was suggested, and I immediately understood.
Sandwichman was completely right. I was completely wrong.
I am sorry.
Getting back to the original point, there is no obligation on any outlet to publish anything. And given the easy availability of blogger and similar tools, the alternative of self-publication is more realistic than at any time in the past.
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