publication again

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A reply to Chris Collom -- I think you have misunderstood my comments.       
  Yes, I do read many journals, and their tone and content bear out my 
arguments that strict control on format, and a high rejection rate is vital 
for journal health. I have personal knowledge of a situation in which this 
is demonstrated.
         The publisher of a society journal informed the society (of which I 
am a member) that it planned to increase the pagination by 25 per cent, to 
accommodate the increased volume of submissions. The increased cost would, 
naturally, be passed on to the subscribers. The papers in this journal; have 
become longer and longer, and ever more specialized -- I have ceased to take 
it. Now, it can hardly be a coincidence that the citation rating of the 
journal has dipped recently, while that of other journals published by the 
selfsame society have remained high, coincident with tight pagination 
policy. (The irony is that the publisher has put the journals on the web 
without the society's permission, but this may not hav an effect on the 
journal's content or its citation rating). 
        The moral is clear. If journals state (and all journals have clear 
submission guidelines), that they publish papers of general interest (within 
their own disciplines), and that these papers should be accessible and brief 
(and even those journals that publish long, monographic treatments have 
their limits), then they are NOT going to publish papers which they find 
"too long" or "too boring". 
        The authors job is to seek a more appropriate outlet, not to sit on 
the sidelines and whine about the iniquities of journals. What Chris Collom 
fails to see is that journal editors have a duty to serve their readers -- 
too many scientists publish material in a kind of vacuum, as if readers 
didn't exist.
        Take it from me: a long, boring, arcane paper will be no less long, 
boring and arcane for being published on the web. Content is independent of 
medium, and so is citation rating.
         Any journal, ANY journal, whether published on paper, CD-ROM, 
world-wide web, cured buffalo hide or antique rice paper, is doomed to 
failure unless it lays down strict guidelines about what it will publish, 
and what it won't. It will perish for lack of readers.


Henry Gee
henrygee@ess.ucla.edu