As long as the email address is permanently valid, I believe it should be acceptable. I already used my hotmail address as a corresponding author.

Yes, this is acceptable. I have observed my professors doing so. And even I practice the same. Especially in case young researchers, where institutional email addresses are sure to change, gmail id can help one use the same email id for the corresponding authorship purpose, throughout.

In Spain several institutions have published research reports about it. According to these reports, it is always recommended to use the professional mail of the authors

@ Maria Sobrido

Would you please explain the rationale of such recommendations? Thanks in advance.

Different institutions, both national (Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology) and autonomic (Regional Department of Health) recommends that authors always publish with corporate email and NOT personal mail for several reasons; firstly by identifying the institution (just as you write work address and NOT personal address), and secondly because they are more "reliable".

Also in this regard, some scientific journals, include this requirement in the standards of publications for authors

It also causes difficulties at times. Suppose you change jobs, and someone somewhere goes through your paper... and feels like contacting you. What then?????

I wouldn't recommend this. In addition to looking strongly unprofessional, gmail (and other free mail providers) is often used by spammers as an easy tool. Gmail accounts are (practically speaking) bound to an entity you have no control over [unless you live in the US]. Professional email addresses are easier to recover than a gmail address. Of course, using a gmail address doesn't make your publication bad in any way, but if you decide to use it, make sure you thought about it thoroughly - this may involve some degree of worst-case thinking/paranoia, but it is better to be safe than sorry.

Personally I switched from forwarding everything to a Gmail account to using a mail client that fetches all the mail from my work and gmail addresses, although that was mainly out of concern for the privacy of the people mailing me (mostly students). Also, I've found that at least thunderbird (and most others with it) are getting closer to being feature-equivalent to gmail.

There is nothing 'unprofessional' about using gmail address. As far as spam is concerned, Use one particular gmail address only for research work only. I have 2 email addresses. Be careful, don't post your research mail address on every blog or website. I never post my research mail address(other than researchgate of course) on websites or blogs, and I never get any spam (4 years now).

It is true we have no control over gmail accounts. But then we have no control over many of the things! What if half of the world is bombed with nuclear weapons? What if a 300 mile wide meteor strikes Earth? etc. etc.There will be no opportunity to feel sorry about such uncertainties.

' Permanency' or rather 'apparent permanency' is more important. If research work is of any significance all, anyone should be able to contact the researcher even 10- 20 years after publication. Gmail appears more permanent. It is the only things that does not hop with the job.

"Also in this regard, some scientific journals, include this requirement in the standards of publications for authors" by Maria Sobrido. There is no limit to establishment of such standardization. Its a competition to be unique and trend setter. Journals adopt these measures not for science but for marketing. Its an attempt to project that 'we are diffferent'. Do not be surprised if tomorrow, they come up with classification based on age range(or research experience) of researcher. Such gimmicks do not serve science at all.

I currently use both emails to avoid any problems. I agree is critical to keep a valid contact even if you leave your current institution while I have also seen some prejudice against "non-institutional accounts". Just put them both in.

In the developing world where institutional email addresses are hosted on servers which are not very stable, it is often wise to have back up email addresses such as via yahoo mail or gmail or hotmail. I use them all, sometimes primarily for different purposes..

I agree that there is nothing unprofessional about using a gmail address, but it is also true that some people *think* that this is unprofessional. For someone who is known in their field, it probably isn't an issue at all. For someone not well know, it may raise questions (justified or not) about the status of the individual, e.g. are they no longer working in the field?

If you are an academic, you should use your professional email. If you know that you won't stay in your institution (e.g. post-doc or student), it is obviously far better using your personal email, whatever it is.

I don't think that professional email or gmail makes or any other mail makes a difference unless an institution feels to screen mails of its academics/researcher to know how famous they are or takes pride putting it on its website that its researchers are contacted by whom and from where as now a days the ResearchGate is providing information on our page under the head of statistics to inform its members. To the best of my knowledge there is no research institute or academic institution, perhaps except R&D organisations of defence services, which are indulging in keeping such records.

However, it is important and think it is clear to all contributors what the purpose the email address of the corresponding author is. If one has some query regarding to some theoretical point or the methodology is explained in brief due to restriction on length of paper or on the basis of assumption that it might already be known to the reader, in such cases one may contact the corresponding author for explanation with the condition as Wafa has very rightly pointed out that "As long as the email address is permanently valid,"

Another situation may arise when an expert finds the findings of a research contrary to other researches in the same area, in that case he may contact the corresponding author to clarify material used and pertinent related information about the material as produced by which firm dates of manufacturing and use and similar information about apparatus used or computing program used so that whether results and findings are real or fake and of course going through the same processes using same material, apparatus etc.

After analyzing the comments I won't feel sorry using gmail for correspondence

I agreed with Prof S. Tan. I have them as back up too

Check if you university offers an option to keep the mail address even after leaving it (e.g. through joining some alumni organization). In that case I would rather use the university mail.

Yes we can use i think.

There is nothing unprofessional about using a gmail address as a corresponding author's adress.In this world only change is universal truth,thats why if a Scientist changs his/her Institute the mail adress of the respective author is also change simultaneously,but the gmail or any other personal mail remains the same.Professional behaviour also allows to speak/write clearly and in language others can easily understand.

I have not a similar thought of officialising gmail adress. If we say so then the precept alude to is that. such an adress is over more eternal. but is that correcet? these adresse seem to change as circumstances of the persons change for they can not be institutionalised as may be the case of the sort with conventional adresses. I am realy reserved to say yes.

Some of us independents do not have an institutional address. Google Scholar refuses to recognize me as bona fide since I only have a Yahoo email address, but I have never had any problems with a home postal address or Yahoo address when publishing in academic journals.

One advantage of the gmail address is it's reliability. I have gone through two private e-mail providers who closed their services, and moved institution so that would add a third. If I had used any of those in an formal publication it would leave readers unable to contact me via e-mail. In the end I have reverted to a Yahoo address which I pay a subscription for to avoid advertising. My guess is that the prejudice against gmail is historical - and Hotmail too - in that when e-mail started, and I can remember that far back, gmail and hotmail were regarded as the "other", e-mail for people who didn't have a proper e-mail system provided by their research institution or university. They were also plagued by spam problems and often blocked for that reason. I think that is a thing of the past now. My advice is to get an address that is meaningful. A technique I have seen is to use dots e.g. [email protected] and avoid too much extraneous punctuation and numbers. Most people would just not notice it was gmail. Another piece of advice I would give is to paraphrase Shakespeare, in life we may play many parts. It is possible to have different e-mail addresses that might say different things about you and aggregate them into one e-mail box. One for professional, for a research project and personal and so on.

Many big internet names have vanished into the ether, so who is to say Yahoo or even Google will still be here in 10 years time. And when email providers do give up the ghost, what happens to all the emails stored on them? It would be a disaster if I lost all my previous emails.

@Anthony, backup your gmail account with the following tool

https://code.google.com/p/gmail-backup-com/ ,

no sleepless nights anymore.

@Christian, you may consider negotiating with the institution you are about to leave on continuing your email address, which in most cases should not be a problem, and then redirecting mails to your gmail account.

@Anthony yes I agree, back up your e-mails. Just to reassure, the services didn't just disappear. I was warned they would close and downloaded old e-mails and I also saved all my e-mails from my old institution. I have never since looked at them but I know where they are. The issue I think though is the longevity of your e-mail service. gmail has proven by it's long existence that it has this quality and looks like being around for a bit.

Maxim, the problem arises as journals do not accept non-professional email Address, as the do not want to publish independent research work. We have a problem in India especially in academic journals. And as far as the institution allowing the usage of the email address after one has left the organisation, it is practically unheard of here.

Agreed to use gmail address as contact information. My email address in current institution has just changed. I have to re-inform Research Gate on the change

Maxim, most of the journals use a standard justification of subjectivity to reject independent scholar research. Also it would be easier to publish if the supervisor's name is added to the list of authors. And then the templates for manuscript preparation look like another research process by itself. I have just downloaded a template which ran into nine pages of instructions, and yet doesn't tell me which font to use! Academic publishing has become highly subjective despite attempts of standardisation

I wonder if there could be a possible method of reporting on journal policy.

Yes using gmail for correspondence is totally acceptable. I do it and my colleagues do it. The university's email is full of spam, has a low storage capacity and they update it from time to time and delete are stored emails. That's why I think Gmail is a better option. Gmail is easy to use, has a large storage capacity and is safe.

Yes, but who will be paying for the archiving of the current emails (on gmail, Yahoo, etc) in 20y time? And is it really safe indefinitely from a determined and malicious hacker who hates Google?

Anthony, no security system is 100% secure not on Internet and not otherwise. Of course that we should use encryption (inclusive of our private messages).

Thanks Michael Brückner, but I don't think the site you linked answers my queries. It apparently shows how your gmail account can be copied, but I don't understand where to. If it is some other part of Google, that is no use if Google goes down the pan in 10 years. And my account is on Yahoo, so even if there is some way now of duplicating this somewhere, who will want to continue servicing it?

This article seems interesting for the privacy issue and email communication. End-to-end encryption for GMail ensures that messages would be known to you and your browser (and your email correspondents) but not to Google itself.

https://freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/felten/end-to-end-encrypted-gmail-not-so-easy/

@Anthony, yes that's the Library of Alexandria problem. If all books are lost where to look up. I (am not affiliated - They) offer you surfing your data - from place to place. From your desk to the library to the Internet (www. there and here or here and there). Your data are safe at no place on earth; imagine the Maya calendar disaster last year, which luckily didn't hit OUR data.

Yes, it is acceptable but It is not a good thing in rare cases. I use gmail address too.

Everybody could register a gmail address similar to your email address.

One year ago, i heard a student who had problem with his supervisor, copied a paper exactly and submitted it to 'an invalid payment-based open access rapid-publication journal' with a yahoo email address (similar to the name of his supervisor) for corresponding author and then I saw the news that one of the professors (the supervisor) condemned to plagiarism!

In some of the universities especially in developing countries, IT infrastructures do not support mail servers and people have to use gmail/yahoo.

It is acceptable but institutional email is rather better.

I have been using my gmail account to submit, research papers, sending my reviewer comments and for almost all academic work for past many years, and have not had any problems so far. A few websites including Google Scholar and Research Gate ask for an institutional email address, which is understandable, as they would like to check the authenticity of the person.

I believe it relates to affiliation problem. nowadays most of the researchers are affiliated to an institution or more. having a freelance researcher doing a novice research or a discovery, invention etc is rare. many of the researches need heavy grants that are provided by governments to research institutes or universities. other than the problem of security that was in Farhad Shokraneh's answer, a real person(not virtual) must accept the responsibility of the ideas in a paper. In gmail accounts there isn't any obligation to mention the personal or professional profile of a person. one of the key factors in evaluation of a paper is the affiliation of the author. when you don't know an author you can trace her(him) through her(his) affiliation.

yes it is acceptable to use Gmail address for correspondence.

The reason I think is - it is almost permanent, If you switch organisation your email address remains same.

I always use my GMAIL and YAHOO addresses as corresponding e-mail in my papers. As example, I send you two of my papers, which have been in top 25 hottest articles.

The other paper.

I agree with Hamidreza, affiliation is a major reason for publication, and in India there are journal publishing institutions which give value to affiliation. Even in newspapers we find that people who are mentioning the gmail or yahoo addresses are also using institution affiliation in the bylines. While we may give a gmail address for correspondence, the institutional affiliation still has a major relevance for publication. Also there are journals where independent research is not preferred. If a person does not have an affiliation, he cannot even register to submit his research for consideration.

I see no objections in using gmail or another "private" address on publications. I have an "official" address in the institute where I work, but when submitting papers to arxiv.org I use a private email.

yes use whatever email you want. Gmail is a superior email service because it offers much storage room and it is easy to send large attachments.

I think the email address should be a less significant issue. Judging a scholar's profile according to his electronic address is one of the most superficial things I've ever heard and seen. It is really disappointing to learn that such things actually happen. Indeed, affiliation matters, but an address shouldn’t be a criterion of assessment.

Absolutely Anda. But we find, and very often, that journals have scientifically unexplainable reasons for publications. Sometimes it's affiliation, it could be the number of authors - have more authors so that it could get authorship for many, yet other times it is the institution name that gets the green for publication, and some times one just adds the supervisor name to get the green signal. Often in this part of the world, affiliation is a big ace to get publication, an independent researcher has difficulties in getting his research into the journal discussion space. I like RG for this reason, it provides space.

Actually we are considering two different issues here. As far as the Pertanika journal of Tropical Agricultural Science is concerned, the correspondence addresses are where we can contact the author and coauthors of a particular paper. It does not matter whether institutional email addresses or gmail or yahoo or hotmail etc addresses are given. The affiliation address should be the address where the work reported in the paper was actually done. The corresponding author may have changed his or her affiliation after the work was done but for the purpose of the paper it is the place where the work was done which should be retained as the affiliation address. His or her new place of affiliation should be stated in the footnote as 'current address".

Email address is just for communication... quality work is main thing for your paper. It is not important what you are using for communication.

I think here the researcher who posted question has meant whether to use personal mail account or use the institutional e mail account:

Depends if you are a permanent in an institute prefer institutional e mail account: in other cases maintain your personal mail account

This is a very good question and I presume the person that asked the question has been to developed countries to understand what is actually going on there. Most institution in the developing world would want you to put the institutional email on any publication and at times, publications without the institution affiliation especially the institution email affiliation will not be considered for promotion.

I strongly believe this should not be so, strong compulsion should not be put on this issue and this should be put on the discretion of each scientist that is publishing his/her findings.

Almost all journals include authors' affiliation (e.g., Dept of Crops & Soil Science, Oregon State University...). e-mail addresses are simply a means for rapid contact; frequently limited to the corresponding author.

cheers,

BAC

But when I saw the authors use QQ email box or other commercial email box, it gives me an unprofessional feel. But strangely I have good impression on gmail or yahoo email boxes. I also have these two email boxes too.

Gmail has let me gracefully retire from my previous institution. Sadly (before Gmail) many of my good papers have embedded in them my institutional E-mail address that I was using four E-mail changes ago, making it difficult for people to contact me or trace my subsequent papers. We need permanent E-mail addresses to be issued at birth!

Actually, I also use gmail - since 2006. It was a good idea. Many colleagues of mine have problems with (a) changed institutions and (b) changed insitution domains, but no such problems for me. Many people told me about their feelings that my gmail account was unprofessional, but frankly, I don't care. My work speaks for itself, not the gmail address I use. And sometimes I have other kinds of feelings when I write to someone and receive information that my letter was rejected, for example because the user is unknown. As Ian wrote, a problem is when one changes one's institution - a new e-mail address, problems with contact and such things. Our friend gmail can be helpful then!

When one uses an institutional email mail address, its not only a problem when one changes institutions or retire, but even if one remains in the same institute, faculty names may change or even the institutional domain name may change for some administrative reasons . All these things have occurred whereas the gmail and the yahoo email addresses have thus far remained constant.

I see nothing wrong with this, it is an address for communication.

There are other far more significant problems in publishing, for example authors jumping on papers when this is not merited, or those taking credit for the work of others.

Nothing wrong here. I also use gmail.

I think, it's more "esthetically" important not to use strange usernames in e-mails.

Anyway, no one actually forbids to put both institutional and gmail e-mail addresses.

When I contact a scholar for the first time, I will use institutional e-mail. After that, gmail is ok.

There is nothing wrong in using a gmail or Yahoo mail account for professional correspondence or for articles. I have been successfully using Gmail address for the last six years without any problem.

The best thing about Gmail is that it allows you to forward mails from different accounts to a single Gmail account and then lets you answer the emails using different ID

In my views, use of email id from 'gmail' or other service providers is a good option. If we submit a manuscript to the journal along with our professional email id and leave that job after some time, it is difficult for the readers to contact the author for engaging themselves in more useful discussions related to the manuscript/paper as the professional email id of the author will be changed with change in job. In case personal email id is provided along with manuscript, generally, it'll be sustained for many years.

A gmail address is likely to last longer than an institutional email address for many people. It is also worth maintaining a LinkedIn entry if you change institutions periodically and wish to be found online on a more permanent professional website.

I feel it is especially good for young scholars since they are more like to change their institutions.

I think that's better to use an official e-mail address (your institution mail address) instead of public mail services like gmail.

Using institution Email address is a must! It is Official and recognized by major scientific databases. Most databases work on IP bases to let us access to full text, etc. Gmail address may be fake(!) or use nickname, but you can always trust institution Email's address and respond to it without hesitation..

I think it is better than institutional email if the institution is not permanent.

For me, I always use my gmail address as a primary email and my institutional as secondary email.

Agreed to Mohammad Elnesr's opinion

In fact, the both opinions have their advantages and disadvantages, using gmail makes you free from your affiliation but there is a possibility of fake personalities, while using institutional email is trustful but may be ended when you are no more engaged with this institution.

So, the best solution for solving this problem is writing two emails under your name, one institutional and one is gmail. If you like my idea please up vote me.

In addition to my answer above,

I remembered that there is a publisher who prohibits adding emails to your affiliation!!! they removes all emails and put only normal address and phone number! this is "Science Publications" !!!

You can see your self! in all of their journals, only mailing address and phone.

I wonder if this can solve the problem :-)

http://thescipub.com/

In my opinion, the istitutional mail address would be better. In any case, there are circumstances which require more flexibility. For instance, a PhD student is not sure to have the same e-mail address after 2/3 years (in Italy, a PhD. is 3 years long). Consider that a PhD. Student is usually the corresponding author for articles. Suppose that this PhD. student leaves his department, and the corresponding e-mail address is destroyed.

Thus, I am basically agree with Peshawa Muhammad Ali.

To be safe I would create one gmail account for research only purposes and use my institution account as a secondary email.

Nowadays it's not that hard to find the researcher's background and institution with a simple google search.

I don not see anything bad as regards using gmail or yahoo mail for correspondence.

I did something close to that George suggest and made a permanent email that I have used in my papers since 2001. It works very well. [email protected]

Some journals allow you to give them two or even more of your e-mail addresses: in this case, it is ok to give them your university's e-mail address and then gmail, hotmail or any other address of that type. Then you will get double e-mails from them, too, but this is more safe, anyway.

I think all that matters is the quality of your publication not the email you use. There is a proverbs in Spanish that says: "El hábito no hace al monje", something like: " The habit does not make the monk" or "The suit does not make the man".

You are right, George, but then again, it's not the same to use a contact email "[email protected]" and "[email protected]".

Perfectly agree with Marcin Kozak. It should be necessary to find a compromise between the freedom (with Google?) of Gmail and the institutional address.

In any case, there is another aspect which we must consider, in my opinion. In my case, the istitutional mailbox is often out-of-space or does not work properly due to network services in our University. This fact is not elegant, for me. Thus, it is mandatory to use a Gmail address for communicating with students, professors, and other, which works almost the time.

@Antonio Fernández

The same sentence is basically the same in Italian: "L'abito non fa il monaco".

I must confess it is mandatory to use our official email (our university account) address for a new publication or correspondence. Maybe it add to university ranking or reputation, somewhat (besides the reasons i mentioned in my previous rebuttal!). Anyway, I always insists (force) my students to do so, but sometimes they do otherwise (!) and when i realize it is too late to correct them.

Institutional id are temporary, so its better using gmail or yahoo id.

I agree with George, [email protected] is really unusual for Researcher. And I am totally agree with Saumendu, Institutional ID are temporary. This is my case, I left my country and I do not have any job now, but I still publishing articles. So Google and Yahoo are my official e-mail.

How about ResearchGate, I wonder? Do they accept gmail addresses, when you register the first time?

I have never had an institutional email address but have had no problems with RG. However, on Google Scholar I am apparently a nonperson, and I do not think a member of the public can check on me there since I do not have a recognised email address..

I agree with Antonio and Marcin Kozak, the email address must correspond with the name of the researcher. Example "[email protected]".

I completely agree with Rainel.. [email protected] is unusual for researcher but the mail address with the name and surmname of the researcher in the gmail account is professional and permanent.