In the last decades most part of journals put artificial obstacles to publish articles in them. Could you say some of these artificial obstacles that you have known? Thank you.
Publish research findings in good journals (in English) with impact factor is really the challenge of every good researcher. Good journals insist certain standard and formats for accepting an article. Non-English speaking people who doesn't have good English learning background often feel it difficult to get into a global platform for discussion in English (Journal in English) of their original important findings.
It is quite natural that even when one has good finding, when journal editors insist improvement in language, frustration occurs in researchers, especially in researchers from non-English speaking countries. Often the language barrier is felt as an obstacle for the non-English speaking people to publish their research findings in reputed journals in English medium.
But now there are different software tools to improve the language edition. Moreover, good institutions provide support for their researchers in improving their English writing skills.
There is no need to feel the instruction to authors imposed by journal editors as an obstacle. Good researchers should take it as challenge to become 'effectively expressive' in the international medium of expression, which is English Language.
Now, a day there are a number of open access journals, which demand money for publishing articles in them. Good journals also demand money for opting the open access mode of publication. But in every subject, there are a number of reputed journals where we can publish with out any payment, of course not in the 'open access mode'.
Doing research in the global standard and publishing the same in reputed journals with impact factor must be taken as a challenge. A researcher can become successful by hard efforts, careful procedures and continuous positive followups to every criticism.
Research acumen of researchers only improve by this process of trying to overcome the obstacles of publishing in good Journals.
Dear Dr. Mariano, Sir
Thank you so much for asking this important question. Frankly, I partialy agree with you and I did not find any undesired steps towards publishing proceduers, but most of trusted and indexed journals are selecting high ranking papers with eccellent scientific content of course based on reviewers comments plus experience plays an important role in this regards.
Highest regards,
Emad
May be, the journal receive more submissions that it can cater for.
For instance, I know of journal that publishes on 7.8% of submission into the journal in a year.
Adeleke IT
131039H
270618M
@Prof. Mariono - All good journals strive to maintain the academic and ethical standards for publication. It would be helpful, if you could list out the artificial obstacles that you have come across. It will help us get focused answers on each of those obstacles - Regards
An obstacle is that the work of edition is carried out by the author. For example, in mathematics, it is very frequent that the editor of a journal asks certain conditions to present articles which requires speciality of edition. In other case it is impossible to have chance of publishing in these journals.
In other times, the edition work was of the editor or editor assistant and was free. Now the work is of the author and also is required to pay expenses to have chance of publishing.
Publish research findings in good journals (in English) with impact factor is really the challenge of every good researcher. Good journals insist certain standard and formats for accepting an article. Non-English speaking people who doesn't have good English learning background often feel it difficult to get into a global platform for discussion in English (Journal in English) of their original important findings.
It is quite natural that even when one has good finding, when journal editors insist improvement in language, frustration occurs in researchers, especially in researchers from non-English speaking countries. Often the language barrier is felt as an obstacle for the non-English speaking people to publish their research findings in reputed journals in English medium.
But now there are different software tools to improve the language edition. Moreover, good institutions provide support for their researchers in improving their English writing skills.
There is no need to feel the instruction to authors imposed by journal editors as an obstacle. Good researchers should take it as challenge to become 'effectively expressive' in the international medium of expression, which is English Language.
Now, a day there are a number of open access journals, which demand money for publishing articles in them. Good journals also demand money for opting the open access mode of publication. But in every subject, there are a number of reputed journals where we can publish with out any payment, of course not in the 'open access mode'.
Doing research in the global standard and publishing the same in reputed journals with impact factor must be taken as a challenge. A researcher can become successful by hard efforts, careful procedures and continuous positive followups to every criticism.
Research acumen of researchers only improve by this process of trying to overcome the obstacles of publishing in good Journals.
Dear Joseph,
I understand you as a part of the World which talks English, but majority of researchers do not talk in English in the World. Be realist. Pretend to imposse the conditions the English part to all the World its own conditions is what does not work. The effort is suppossed to come from outside and not from inside of English conception of science. I regret this interested viewpoint always.
Due to the restrictions of reviewers and decision makers..!
Moreover journals has to fit their requirements..!!
I do not trust in the following equation:
Publication in high IF journal = high quality article= writing of innovative high quality research.
Almost ALL high IF journal take high amount of money from the author.
Journal publishing is PURELY a BUSINESS, at least in most of the cases. Like all other business, many tricks are used in that business also. High rate citation of articles and many other related matters may be some parts of it.
Everything can not be written openly. But in the modern times, nothing is considered unfair for getting profit.
Dear Pattanayak
Not all IF journals are charging for publications. There are very many good journals which look into quality and not charge a single penny for publication. Researchers can avoid journals which demand money
Some obstacles besides the language is the amount of article processing fees. Many open access journals are charging exorbitantly for publishing. That makes it extremely difficult for authors from developing countries. The other obstacle is the turnaround time. imagine I send at least 5 articles last year that have not yet been published. My boss is under pressure to declare the number of publications produced by the department last year
I fail to understand why do we have so many different styles of referencing.
I hope a unified referencing style can be developed.
If one journal rejects due to any particular reason, it takes a long time to write according to another reference style as required by another journal.
Dear Dr. Ray,
Most of such joutnal keep the copyright of the published article with them. For open access publishing, they take money.
Only a very few (not many) journal are outside this. They are funded mostly from some other sources.
It is business, sir!
Journals, like any other publishers, limit the scope of the topics of publication. If you have any type of novel or groundbreaking research, you are basically out of luck. The blessing of the standard topics is to build research on existing areas with known readership. The curse of the standard topics is to drain innovation out of the system before it even gets a chance to enter. I have had some positive and some negative experiences with journal and book publishers. With journals, I find the most disturbing item is when you submit an article and receive a rejection but no one has adequately explained even where to begin to take corrective action. Admittedly, this was early in my career. With publishers, they help to establish your credibility but the cost is high. You have to give over copyright in most cases but if you do not concede, then you have to cover what could be a significant cost to self publish. Without a credible distribution network, you could find yourself lugging books to conferences as in the old days. With the introduction of the eBook, there are alternatives to maintaining your own copyright and self publishing by creating manuscripts using specific software like Framemaker that can save docs to different end user file types (e.g., Kindle, HTML). After having established my credibility with two large publishers and several journals, I have been planning to develop my own website to sell manuscripts direct, first as chapters and then as compilations as they become viable. The high cost of my education that is still unpaid and general needs as an independent does not give me the luxury of Open Access. If I was an employee of a University, government agency, or major corporation with a viable income, I would be happy to participate in some giveaways. But that is not my reality. Academics with tangential positions in research should be paid for their subject matter knowledge. I would also argue that those in secure positions should not get a meager slice of earnings from their work product. But that is an uphill battle given the constraints on the industry as a whole. Nevertheless, I have already posted a tentative beginning to the new start-up. Of course, I will have to establish and license the organization named OQ Research tentatively, purchase software and get better using it, create a web domain, create a payment portal, etc. Meanwhile, I humbly look for temporary or editing gigs to keep things moving forward. Of course, this is not an easy route. But self publishing in the way I have stated may have to become personal and direct to customer if those who are authors, researchers, and editors can expect their work to be seen, receive fair treatment and just compensation.
Dear Dr. Fiedler,
I was a sufferer of same type of problem. It is not good to publish article in closed access journal and it is not possible to pay for open access publication.
To assist ALL researchers performing biomedical research in any field, we started one COMPLETELY FREE AND OPEN ACCESS journal. None of us take a single penny for the tough works performed for its publication. Our society members bear the other costs. It was started from 2011.
You can visit the journal at
www.animalmedicalresearch.org.
Thanks.
Nothing artificial about something that must be completed before one is allowed to take the next step.
Closed groups are formed. All their own. There is no one superfluous. There is no worry. Everything is predicted. This is a comfortable environment. Scientific activity is reduced to what is defined as "normal science".
These processes were very interesting at the junction of the USSR and post-USSR. The journals instantly degenerated into closed scientific groups. And it's not even about money. Rather, the keyword is "comfort."
Yes, I think that there is a commerce directed to university departments and research institutes which autopromotione the own personal. They manage resources to research and editorial business develop its marketing to capt such resources.
I believe more in journals edited to promote the science, without codicious interferences, free for authors and open freely their contents to the wide public.
The problem is how exactly science is understood. These are not cynical people. They are not robbers. They all do it sincerely. They do everything in strict accordance with the images of science 20 - 30 years ago. Time stopped just then. This is problem. Such self-sufficiency and such expert behavior is maturing gradually.
What to do? To do nothing. Just need to understand who you are dealing with. You can make your own scientific journal. Colleagues have gathered and have done. What is the problem? Why fight with people who just stopped in development? We live once. Time is the only thing we have. I do not think that it should be spent on war with the scientific remnants of the past.
What to add?
- Journal publishing is a an almost no cost - high profit process
- They have minimized their publishing costs:
- They have maximized their profits:
- you have to pay ~35$ per article!
In essence there is no free publishing for you as an author.
Shibabrata Pattanayak I agree that one of the ways to overcome this problem of not having a journal in which leading edge information can be published is to create your own. But it is time-consuming, as you know, and can be costly. Associating the journal with an organization is a wonderful way to cover costs.
I think many of these barriers are deliberately imposed by publishers to show as f their Journal is something extraordinary. Scholars should start ignoring such Journals, who as some have mentioned are racist & have huge language bias. Starve them of good material and let them die.
Dear Beth,
It is not understandable that editors think in their costs and do not repare in the time, work, dedication, editorial services, etc. that authors put and they do not pay. This is not an human relation but only interested in their own interest and not in the interest of science or of all the implicated ones.
I understand good journals. When the demand to publish there is so high that they reject above 90% of the papers, they reject even good papers.
I agree with @Beth Ann about path-breaking research. I also had experience when quite innovative article has been rejected by 4 journals, in one case by 1-day decision by the editor. I agree with @Dmitry about closed groups around some journals with comfortable life, that often block penetration of others. In fact, the same happens with scientific finance. There are old schools that mine almost an empty mine, but they know how to get grants (for example, to prove 20th modification of theorem that has no practical application). At the same time, one can find a new method or direction of research but get no publication - and no grant as a consequence. Very inefficient structure from the perspective of social optimality. But not the God is deciding about that, but ordinary people, often with egoistic group interests.
I have a conference paper about research groups, clustering and optimal size. It was almost published as book chapter (but a negative random shock had blocked it), so I have put it online in RG (you can read just part 1.2 about those issues): Conference Paper Using the Concept of Field in Space to Explain Socio-Economi...
Excessive and unnecessary presentation demands. Exhausting. For me ideas are everything, so it is more than exasperating to be faced with irrelevancies.
A lot of unnecessary requirements tend to be obstacles indeed for paper submission to some journals :
Tall and complicated paper format
E-submissions with unfriendly upload entries
Sectional and unruly word count requirements
I did not find any obstacles, publishing procedure is so simple in almost of trusted and indexed journals.
www.scimagojr.com
Regards
The Journals - especially those having high impact factors are overloaded by the Articles received. The main way the editorial board uses to build a high barrier to acceptance is "dark referees". Very often the latter are instructed on percentage of rejection. No doubt - this method is not completely objective. ...but in my opinion - it effectively works by filtering out the best publications. As to the referees - it is an attractive way to be the first to see the novel findings in their field of interests.
Interesting question. I was looking for such answers. Thank
They simply make delay for a prolonged period and compel the authors to withdraw the manuscript. They do not reply your communications.
@Helen Gouse, you may look into LaTex, a typesetting tool that easily changes your references to any format with a single command.
If artificial obstacles goes against quality in contents, it is a nonintelligent way.
Human nature - reviewer want the slow progress in an. Are of their own interest or just too busy and does attempt tonxriticall review.
Additional obstacles goes against charity with authors. Charity was a declared intention of some journals in the past and actually they have given pass to own commercial interests. A transformation which is incoherent.
Very interesting discussion. One obstacle is also associated with long processes of peer review, production, and publication of papers. For some journals, it takes over one year to get your paper published.
A concerned obstacle is the required number of pages. One can say much in few words, and almost anything with many words.
Artificial obstacles could protect interests of some editors, but putting obtacles to researchers is to put obstacles to advancement of published science.
I see the obstacle of perfect English to non English parlants, obstacles of payments, obstacles of technical requirements of presentation, cultural difference obstacle, obstacles of internationalization, etc. In all these obstacles there is a beneficiary which is not the author of research.
formatting and structure of the article that vary from one journal to another form a major obstacle.
The obstacles are peculiar to some journals and the reasons for putting such obstacles may have financial implications.
Other case is to put artificial obstacles to publish for the own author, but an intelligent author knows how be kind and efficient.
It is necessary to be in the body of editor to know the real thinking of him, but the authors see that it is more difficult to publish in the last years in traditional journals. Publish is more competitive for authors, but how about for editors?
Pretend final quality could be a reason to put artificial obstacles to publish. But this is not the main reason, I think.
Artificial obstacle is the case of journals which give their keys and instructions to some state researchers but they do not give them to other researchers. If such researchers do not have sufficient injust privileges in some cases, some journals can contribute more to such injustices.
In other cases, journals provide service of good translation but this is not free usually.
I find obstacles in the required number of words per article, as if with many words one could explain better his content. With rigour and precision in expressions one can say much in few words.
In the world of science there is a certain endogamy. Each school rejects other new visions of the problems it develops. This is a limitation, to promote a unique vision of a problem and to reject others.
Artificial obstacles are put by referees in many cases to publish in the journals. They have not got reason always.
The treat which editors give to authors is a very important sample of their morale quality.
A minority of journals are comprehensive with local authors and give exit to their scientific production. These journals are appreciated by authors.
Yes, local journals understand better to local scientists. What is certain in your home can be rejected out of your local residence.
The main obstacle is to pay a tax for being author in those journals. The counterpart is to give you a good statistics of its relevance in cites. Change money for numbers is not an intelligent interchange.
Artificial obstacles are to put technological obstacles which are not accessible to all researchers or all pockets.
Journals put review and paper for articles. But the main work is of authors. Pretend to cost the work of edition and to free the work of authors does not seem just.
What Ministry of Education asks to researchers is what such authorities do not have in their CV: publications in the Q1 or Q2 of JCR rankings usually.
When a journal puts obstacles to publish in it, you must think that other journals put facilities to publish in them.
Probably most part of journals does not put obstacles to publish in them, but only a minority of them.
In reality, I think that most part of recommended journals by evaluators put artificial obstacles to publish in them.
All facility to publish a good article is an intelligent view. Put restrictions in language, very specialized conditions of editing, economic taxes, etc. do not collaborate with a kind science.
A very recommended journal by statistics could be a bad option for an independent author.
So as to elect the research that is rigorous and of a standard that is suitable for publication.
Thank you, Majid. I see that what admits a journal would be not accepted in other. What is standard for ones is not for others. At end one must elect with prudence his election of journal because one has not got all the time and patience to suffer many rejections.
If demand of papers overpass to the available number of pages of a journal, it is reasonable to put obstacles to some papers. What is not reasonable is to put a limit of pages for a journal from researchers viewpoint.
Existen barreras no solo del idioma, sino del giro idiomatico, ya que palabras, frases o metaforas, no se entiende de la misma manera en otro idioma que no sea el original, por lo que es mas facil publicar y hacerse entender al que es nativo de habla inglesa. Ademas de considerar en algunos casos los costos superiores para los que tienen sus monedas subvaluadas.
In other times, journals as Metron accepted five languages to publish in it. This was recomfortant for me in the years 90. Limit all communication to a unique language is a narrow view.
Pienso que aceptar un solo idioma es pretender favorecer a una parte y obstaculizar al resto de idiomas.
A journal should be a vehicle of communication of science between scientists. Put obstacles to this communication does not make a service to science or scientists.
Limited space could be an obstacle, but do not help to perfectione a paper is also an obstacle when referee could do it with slight work.
Each journal has its school. Many of them pretend internationalization as a mean to gain respect but I think that respect is gained for other things.
you are quite right Mariano re artificial obstacles. The worse in my opinion are inhouse styles. These are really petty minded and add nothing to credibility. However, they are embedded in academic protocol, if you think its bad that journals do this try having your PhD rejected by an assessor for doing x when a university down the road allowed a candidate to do just that. I'm afraid its just one of those things we have to live with.
However, to answer one of your earlier responders if you are looking at open access and think fees being charged are exorbitant publish online. I've got a large number of citations and a few collaborative research projects just from publishing here on Research Gate.
A possible reason is that: a journal must attend to many people. The obstacles come from masive affluence.
And, why does most part of universities put artificial obstacles to aprove in them?
Probably because the science and the study is considered as a competition now.
It is curious that obstacles are put by codicious journals mainly.
An obstacle I observe is a recommended number of pages per article. When the number of pages is large, articles low its quality very frequently.
I think that promises given by some journals of a better recognition of our work could be false or contradictory for data and evolution of scientist.
Yes, it is the most part of Q1 journals whom put artificial obstacles to publish in them articles from a researcher of other countries or languages.
Send an article to an editorial board which cannot understand the point of view of author, it is a loss of time, money, work, vision, etc. If moreover they pretend a respect which they do not gain... better each one in his home and God in the of all ones.
A reason to put obstacles is to have many pretendients and to like select well the elected one. But these situations are propiciated by same journals which pretend to be the first one among them.
Each journal is a World, so I prefer the known good to unknown optimal.
While many journals put artificial obstacles and do not do a service to the community of researchers, the science would be a market product and would not be a solidarious work.
Estas cosas ocurren cuando se anteponen criterios codiciosos particulares sobre el valor de la ciencia por sí misma.
Pienso que lo artificial es el planteamiento de algunos editores y políticas de publicación centradas en el predominio y en hacer crecer las diferencias entre todos los actores afectados.
From here the dilemma of maximum private benefit vs. solidarity. What builds a good society is solidarity over interested benefits.
I would recommend solidarity in journals. If solidarity is law, many of first journals of rankings would disappear. I think so.
A reason for this could be their artificial measures to publish and to select authors for the journals.
A reason could be the influence of publishing in these journals. But merits of authors are mercantilized which is negative to value the recognition of an author.
Other more solidary journals do not put obstacles to publish in them, thanks to God.
Obstacles are for the filtering and classified the researchs works into good and bad research works according to scientific scales, so that the journals are abile maintained the quality of scientific research, in addition, all journals have become considering that the process of scientific publishing as a business process to gain profits.
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