Academic publishing
Encyclopedia
Academic publishing describes the subfield of publishing
which distributes academic
research
and scholarship
. Most academic work is published in journal
article, book
or thesis
form. The part of academic written output that is not formally published but merely printed up or posted is often called the "grey literature". Most scientific and scholarly journals, and many academic and scholarly books, though not all, are based on some form of peer review
or editorial refereeing to qualify texts for publication. Peer review quality and selectivity standards vary greatly from journal to journal, publisher to publisher, and field to field.
Most established academic discipline
s have their own journals and other outlets for publication, although many academic journals are somewhat interdisciplinary
, and publish work from several distinct fields or subfields. Along with the variation in review and publication procedures, the kinds of publications that are accepted as contributions to knowledge or research differ greatly among fields and subfields.
Academic publishing is undergoing major changes, as it makes the transition from the print to the electronic format. Business models are different in the electronic environment. Since the early 1990s, licensing of electronic resources, particularly journals, has been very common. Currently, an important trend, particularly with respect to scholarly journals, is open access via the Internet. There are two main forms of open access: open access publishing, in which a whole journal (or book) or individual articles are made available free for all on the web by the publisher at the time of publication (sometimes, but not always, for an extra publication fee paid by the author or the author's institution or funder); and open access self-archiving
, in which authors themselves make a copy of their published articles available free for all on the web.
was the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society
in the 17th century. At that time, the act of publishing academic inquiry was controversial, and widely ridiculed. It was not at all unusual for a new discovery to be announced as an anagram
, reserving priority for the discoverer, but indecipherable for anyone not in on the secret: both Isaac Newton
and Leibniz used this approach. However, this method did not work well. Robert K. Merton
, a sociologist, found that 92% of cases of simultaneous discovery in the 17th century ended in dispute. The number of disputes dropped to 72% in the 18th century, 59% by the latter half of the 19th century, and 33% by the first half of the 20th century. The decline in contested claims for priority in research discoveries can be credited to the increasing acceptance of the publication of papers in modern academic journals, with estimates suggesting that around 50 million journal articles have been published since the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society
started publishing.
The Royal Society
was steadfast in its not yet popular belief that science could only move forward through a transparent and open exchange of ideas backed by experimental evidence.
demand for these journals, the commercial publishers lost little of the market when they raised the prices significantly. Although there are over 2,000 publishers, three for-profit companies (Reed Elsevier
, Springer Science+Business Media
, and John Wiley & Sons
) account for 42% of articles published. What data is available indicates that these companies have high profit margin
s, especially compared to the smaller publishers which likely operate with low margins. These factors have contributed to the "serials crisis
" - from 1986–2005, the number of serials purchased has increased an average of 1.9% per year while total expenditures on serials has increased 7.6% per year.
Unlike most industries, in academic publishing the two most important inputs are provided "virtually free of charge". These are the articles and the peer review process. Publishers argue that they add value to the publishing process through support to the peer review group, including stipends, as well as through typesetting, printing, and web publishing. Investment analysts, however, have been skeptical of the value added by for-profit publishers, as exemplified by a 2005 Deutsche Bank analysis which stated that "we believe the publisher adds relatively little value to the publishing process... We are simply observing that if the process really were as complex, costly and value-added as the publishers protest that it is, 40% margins wouldn’t be available."
). The university budget cuts have reduced library budgets and reduced subsidies to university-affiliated publishers. The humanities have been particularly affected by the pressure on university publishers, which are less able to publish monograph
s when libraries can't afford to purchase them. For example, the ARL found that in "1986, libraries spent 44% of their budgets on books compared with 56% on journals; twelve years later, the ratio had skewed to 28% and 72%." Meanwhile, monographs are increasingly expected for tenure in the humanities. The Modern Language Association has expressed hope that electronic publishing
will solve the issue.
In 2009 and 2010, surveys and reports found that libraries faced continuing budget cuts, with one survey in 2009 finding that one-third of libraries had their budgets cut by 5% or more.
.
It is also considered that "Online scientific interaction outside the traditional journal space is becoming more and more important to academic communication".
. It contains original research
results or reviews existing results. Such a paper, also called an article, will only be considered valid if it undergoes a process of peer review
by one or more referees (who are academics in the same field) in order to check that the content of the paper is suitable for publication
in the journal. A paper may undergo a series of reviews, edits and re-submissions before finally being accepted or rejected for publication. This process typically takes several months. Next there is often a delay of many months (or in some subjects, over a year) before publication, particularly for the most popular journals where the number of acceptable articles outnumbers the space for printing. Due to this, many academics self-archive a 'pre-print' copy of their paper for free download from their personal or institutional website
.
Some journals, particularly newer ones, are now published in electronic form only. Paper journals are now generally made available in electronic form as well, both to individual subscribers, and to libraries. Almost always these electronic versions are available to subscribers immediately upon publication of the paper version, or even before; sometimes they are also made available to non-subscribers, either immediately (by open access journals) or after an embargo
of anywhere from two to twenty-four months or more, in order to protect against loss of subscriptions. Journals having this delayed availability are sometimes called delayed open access journal
s.
. Failures in peer review, while they are probably common, are sometimes scandalous (the Bogdanov Affair
in theoretical physics is one example).
Once peer review has been completed, the original author(s) of the article will modify their submission in line with the reviewers' comments, and this is repeated until the editor is satisfied.
The production process, controlled by a production editor or publisher, then takes an article through copy editing
, typesetting
, inclusion in a specific issue of a journal, and then printing and online publication. Copy editing seeks to ensure that an article conforms to the journal's house style, that all of the referencing and labelling is correct, and that there are no spelling or grammatical errors. Typesetting deals with the appearance of the article — layouts, fonts, headings etc., both for print and online publication. Historically, these activities were all carried out in-house in a publisher, but increasingly are subject to outsourcing
. The majority of typesetting is probably now done in India and China, and copy editing is frequently done by local freelancers, or by staff at the typesetters in India or China. Even printing and distribution are now tending to move overseas to lower-cost areas of the world, such as Singapore.
In much of the 20th century, such articles were photographed for printing into proceedings and journals, and this stage were known as camera-ready copy. With modern digital submission in formats such as PDF
, this photographing step is no longer necessary, though the term is still sometimes used.
The author
will review and correct proofs at one or more stages in the production process. The proof correction cycle has historically been labour-intensive as handwritten comments by authors and editors are manually transcribed by a proof reader
onto a clean version of the proof. In recent years, this process has been streamlined by the introduction of e-annotations in Microsoft Word
, Adobe Acrobat
, and other programs, but it still remains a time-consuming and error-prone process.
sources they have used. This gives credit to authors whose work they use and avoids plagiarism
. It also provides support for their assertions and arguments and helps readers to find more information on the subject.
Each scholarly journal uses a specific format for citations (also known as references). Among the most common formats used in research papers are the APA
, CMS
, and MLA
styles.
The American Psychological Association (APA) style is often used in the social sciences. The Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) is used in business
, communications, economics
, and social sciences
. The CMS style uses footnotes at the bottom of page to help readers locate the sources. The Modern Language Association (MLA)
style is widely used in the humanities
.
research
is initially published in scientific journal
s and considered to be a primary source
; see that article for details. Technical report
s, for minor research results and engineering and design work (including computer software) round out the primary literature. Secondary source
s in the sciences include articles in review journals (which provide a synthesis of research articles on a topic to highlight advances and new lines of research), and book
s for large projects, broad arguments, or compilations of articles. Tertiary source
s might include encyclopedia
s and similar works intended for broad public consumption or academic libraries.
A partial exception to scientific publication practices is in many fields of applied science, particularly that of U.S. computer science
research. An equally prestigious site of publication within U.S. computer science are some academic conference
s. Reasons for this departure include a large number of such conferences, the quick pace of research progress, and computer science professional society support for the distribution and archiving of conference proceedings
.
, may have very "hard" or highly quantitative standards for publication, much like the natural sciences. Others, like anthropology
or sociology
, emphasize field work and reporting on first-hand observation as well as quantitative work. Some social science fields, such as public health
or demography
, have significant shared interests with professions like law
and medicine
, and scholars in these fields often also publish in professional magazines.
is in principle similar to publishing elsewhere in the academy; a range of journals, from general to extremely specialized, are available, and university press
es print many new humanities books every year.
Scholarly publishing requirements in the humanities (as well as some social sciences) are currently a subject of significant controversy within the academy
. The following describes the situation in the United States. In many fields, such as literature
and history
, several published articles are typically required for a first tenure-track job, and a published or forthcoming book is now often required before tenure
. Some critics complain that this de facto system has emerged without thought to its consequences; they claim that the predictable result is the publication of much shoddy work, as well as unreasonable demands on the already limited research time of young scholars. To make matters worse, the circulation of many humanities journals in the 1990s declined to almost untenable levels, as many libraries cancelled subscriptions, leaving fewer and fewer peer-reviewed outlets for publication; and many humanities professors' first books sell only a few hundred copies, which often does not pay for the cost of their printing. Some scholars have called for a publication subvention
of a few thousand dollars to be associated with each graduate student fellow
ship or new tenure-track hire, in order to alleviate the financial pressure on journals.
Note: Law review
is the generic term for a journal of legal
scholarship in the United States
, often operating by rules radically different from those for most other academic publishing
model, also known as "author-pays" or "paid on behalf of the author", where a publication charge is paid by the author, his university, or the agency which provides his research grant
. The online distribution of individual articles and academic journals then takes place without charge to readers and libraries. Most Open access journal
s remove all the financial, technical, and legal barriers that limit access to academic materials to paying customers. The Public Library of Science
and BioMed Central
are prominent examples of this model.
Open access has been criticized on quality grounds, as the desire to obtain publishing fees could cause the journal to relax the standard of peer review. It may be criticized on financial grounds as well, because the necessary publication fees have proven to be higher than originally expected. Open access advocates generally reply that because open access is as much based on peer reviewing as traditional publishing, the quality should be the same (recognizing that both traditional and open access journals have a range of quality). It has been argued that good science done by academic institutions who cannot afford to pay for open access might not get published at all, but most open access journals permit the waiver of the fee for financial hardship or authors in underdeveloped countries
. Moreover, all authors have the option of self-archiving
their articles in their institutional repositories in order to make them open access whether or not they publish in an open access journal
.
If they publish in a Hybrid open access journal
, authors pay a subscription journal a publication fee to make their individual article open access. Other articles in such hybrid journals are either made available after a delay, or remain available only by subscription. Many of the traditional publishers (including Wiley-Blackwell, Wiley-VCH
, Oxford University Press
, Springer Science+Business Media
and Wharton School Publishing
) have already introduced such a hybrid option, and more are following. Proponents of open access suggest that such moves by corporate publishers illustrate that open access, or a mix of open access and traditional publishing, can be financially viable, and evidence to that effect is emerging. It remains unclear whether this is practical in fields outside the sciences, where there is much less availability of outside funding. In 2006, several funding agencies, including the Wellcome Trust
and several divisions of the Research Council
s in the UK announced the availability of extra funding to their grantees for such open access journal
publication fees.
countries in top 20 ranking with fastest performance improvement are, Italy
which stands at tenth and Canada
at 13th globally. Iran, China, India
and Brazil
are the only developing countries among 31 nations with 97.5% of the world's total scientific productivity. The remaining 162 developing countries contribute less than 2.5% of the world's scientific output.
Reported crisis in scholarly publishing
Publishing
Publishing is the process of production and dissemination of literature or information—the activity of making information available to the general public...
which distributes academic
Academia
Academia is the community of students and scholars engaged in higher education and research.-Etymology:The word comes from the akademeia in ancient Greece. Outside the city walls of Athens, the gymnasium was made famous by Plato as a center of learning...
research
Research
Research can be defined as the scientific search for knowledge, or as any systematic investigation, to establish novel facts, solve new or existing problems, prove new ideas, or develop new theories, usually using a scientific method...
and scholarship
Scholarly method
Scholarly method or scholarship is the body of principles and practices used by scholars to make their claims about the world as valid and trustworthy as possible, and to make them known to the scholarly public.-Methods:...
. Most academic work is published in journal
Academic journal
An academic journal is a peer-reviewed periodical in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as forums for the introduction and presentation for scrutiny of new research, and the critique of existing research...
article, book
Book
A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of hot lava, paper, parchment, or other materials, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf or leaflet, and each side of a leaf is called a page...
or thesis
Thesis
A dissertation or thesis is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings...
form. The part of academic written output that is not formally published but merely printed up or posted is often called the "grey literature". Most scientific and scholarly journals, and many academic and scholarly books, though not all, are based on some form of peer review
Peer review
Peer review is a process of self-regulation by a profession or a process of evaluation involving qualified individuals within the relevant field. Peer review methods are employed to maintain standards, improve performance and provide credibility...
or editorial refereeing to qualify texts for publication. Peer review quality and selectivity standards vary greatly from journal to journal, publisher to publisher, and field to field.
Most established academic discipline
Academic discipline
An academic discipline, or field of study, is a branch of knowledge that is taught and researched at the college or university level. Disciplines are defined , and recognized by the academic journals in which research is published, and the learned societies and academic departments or faculties to...
s have their own journals and other outlets for publication, although many academic journals are somewhat interdisciplinary
Interdisciplinarity
Interdisciplinarity involves the combining of two or more academic fields into one single discipline. An interdisciplinary field crosses traditional boundaries between academic disciplines or schools of thought, as new needs and professions have emerged....
, and publish work from several distinct fields or subfields. Along with the variation in review and publication procedures, the kinds of publications that are accepted as contributions to knowledge or research differ greatly among fields and subfields.
Academic publishing is undergoing major changes, as it makes the transition from the print to the electronic format. Business models are different in the electronic environment. Since the early 1990s, licensing of electronic resources, particularly journals, has been very common. Currently, an important trend, particularly with respect to scholarly journals, is open access via the Internet. There are two main forms of open access: open access publishing, in which a whole journal (or book) or individual articles are made available free for all on the web by the publisher at the time of publication (sometimes, but not always, for an extra publication fee paid by the author or the author's institution or funder); and open access self-archiving
Self-archiving
To self-archive is to deposit a free copy of a digital document on the World Wide Web in order to provide open access to it. The term usually refers to the self-archiving of peer-reviewed research journal and conference articles as well as theses, deposited in the author's own institutional...
, in which authors themselves make a copy of their published articles available free for all on the web.
History
Among the earliest research journalsScientific journal
In academic publishing, a scientific journal is a periodical publication intended to further the progress of science, usually by reporting new research. There are thousands of scientific journals in publication, and many more have been published at various points in the past...
was the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society
The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society is a scientific journal published by the Royal Society of London. It was established in 1665, making it the first journal in the world exclusively devoted to science, and it has remained in continuous publication ever since, making it the world's...
in the 17th century. At that time, the act of publishing academic inquiry was controversial, and widely ridiculed. It was not at all unusual for a new discovery to be announced as an anagram
Anagram
An anagram is a type of word play, the result of rearranging the letters of a word or phrase to produce a new word or phrase, using all the original letters exactly once; e.g., orchestra = carthorse, A decimal point = I'm a dot in place, Tom Marvolo Riddle = I am Lord Voldemort. Someone who...
, reserving priority for the discoverer, but indecipherable for anyone not in on the secret: both Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton PRS was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian, who has been "considered by many to be the greatest and most influential scientist who ever lived."...
and Leibniz used this approach. However, this method did not work well. Robert K. Merton
Robert K. Merton
Robert King Merton was a distinguished American sociologist. He spent most of his career teaching at Columbia University, where he attained the rank of University Professor...
, a sociologist, found that 92% of cases of simultaneous discovery in the 17th century ended in dispute. The number of disputes dropped to 72% in the 18th century, 59% by the latter half of the 19th century, and 33% by the first half of the 20th century. The decline in contested claims for priority in research discoveries can be credited to the increasing acceptance of the publication of papers in modern academic journals, with estimates suggesting that around 50 million journal articles have been published since the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society
The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society is a scientific journal published by the Royal Society of London. It was established in 1665, making it the first journal in the world exclusively devoted to science, and it has remained in continuous publication ever since, making it the world's...
started publishing.
The Royal Society
Royal Society
The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...
was steadfast in its not yet popular belief that science could only move forward through a transparent and open exchange of ideas backed by experimental evidence.
Publishers and business aspects
In the 1960s and 1970s, commercial publishers began to selectively acquire "top-quality" journals which were previously published by nonprofit academic societies. Due to the inelasticElasticity (economics)
In economics, elasticity is the measurement of how changing one economic variable affects others. For example:* "If I lower the price of my product, how much more will I sell?"* "If I raise the price, how much less will I sell?"...
demand for these journals, the commercial publishers lost little of the market when they raised the prices significantly. Although there are over 2,000 publishers, three for-profit companies (Reed Elsevier
Reed Elsevier
Reed Elsevier is a publisher and information provider operating in the science, medical, legal, risk and business sectors. It is listed on several of the world's major stock exchanges. It is a FTSE 100 and FT500 Global company...
, Springer Science+Business Media
Springer Science+Business Media
- Selected publications :* Encyclopaedia of Mathematics* Ergebnisse der Mathematik und ihrer Grenzgebiete * Graduate Texts in Mathematics * Grothendieck's Séminaire de géométrie algébrique...
, and John Wiley & Sons
John Wiley & Sons
John Wiley & Sons, Inc., also referred to as Wiley, is a global publishing company that specializes in academic publishing and markets its products to professionals and consumers, students and instructors in higher education, and researchers and practitioners in scientific, technical, medical, and...
) account for 42% of articles published. What data is available indicates that these companies have high profit margin
Profit margin
Profit margin, net margin, net profit margin or net profit ratio all refer to a measure of profitability. It is calculated by finding the net profit as a percentage of the revenue.Net profit Margin = x100...
s, especially compared to the smaller publishers which likely operate with low margins. These factors have contributed to the "serials crisis
Serials crisis
The term serials crisis has become a common shorthand to describe the chronic subscription cost increases of many scholarly journals. The prices of these institutional or library subscriptions have been rising much faster than the Consumer Price Index for several decades, while the funds available...
" - from 1986–2005, the number of serials purchased has increased an average of 1.9% per year while total expenditures on serials has increased 7.6% per year.
Unlike most industries, in academic publishing the two most important inputs are provided "virtually free of charge". These are the articles and the peer review process. Publishers argue that they add value to the publishing process through support to the peer review group, including stipends, as well as through typesetting, printing, and web publishing. Investment analysts, however, have been skeptical of the value added by for-profit publishers, as exemplified by a 2005 Deutsche Bank analysis which stated that "we believe the publisher adds relatively little value to the publishing process... We are simply observing that if the process really were as complex, costly and value-added as the publishers protest that it is, 40% margins wouldn’t be available."
Crisis
A crisis in academic publishing is "widely perceived"; the apparent crisis has to do with the combined pressure of budget cuts at universities and increased costs for journals (the serials crisisSerials crisis
The term serials crisis has become a common shorthand to describe the chronic subscription cost increases of many scholarly journals. The prices of these institutional or library subscriptions have been rising much faster than the Consumer Price Index for several decades, while the funds available...
). The university budget cuts have reduced library budgets and reduced subsidies to university-affiliated publishers. The humanities have been particularly affected by the pressure on university publishers, which are less able to publish monograph
Monograph
A monograph is a work of writing upon a single subject, usually by a single author.It is often a scholarly essay or learned treatise, and may be released in the manner of a book or journal article. It is by definition a single document that forms a complete text in itself...
s when libraries can't afford to purchase them. For example, the ARL found that in "1986, libraries spent 44% of their budgets on books compared with 56% on journals; twelve years later, the ratio had skewed to 28% and 72%." Meanwhile, monographs are increasingly expected for tenure in the humanities. The Modern Language Association has expressed hope that electronic publishing
Electronic publishing
Electronic publishing or ePublishing includes the digital publication of e-books and electronic articles, and the development of digital libraries and catalogues. Electronic publishing has become common in scientific publishing where it has been argued that peer-reviewed scientific journals are in...
will solve the issue.
In 2009 and 2010, surveys and reports found that libraries faced continuing budget cuts, with one survey in 2009 finding that one-third of libraries had their budgets cut by 5% or more.
The future of academic publishing
Several models are being investigated such as open publication models or adding community-oriented features..
It is also considered that "Online scientific interaction outside the traditional journal space is becoming more and more important to academic communication".
Scholarly paper
In academic publishing, a paper is an academic work that is usually published in an academic journalAcademic journal
An academic journal is a peer-reviewed periodical in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as forums for the introduction and presentation for scrutiny of new research, and the critique of existing research...
. It contains original research
Research
Research can be defined as the scientific search for knowledge, or as any systematic investigation, to establish novel facts, solve new or existing problems, prove new ideas, or develop new theories, usually using a scientific method...
results or reviews existing results. Such a paper, also called an article, will only be considered valid if it undergoes a process of peer review
Peer review
Peer review is a process of self-regulation by a profession or a process of evaluation involving qualified individuals within the relevant field. Peer review methods are employed to maintain standards, improve performance and provide credibility...
by one or more referees (who are academics in the same field) in order to check that the content of the paper is suitable for publication
Publication
To publish is to make content available to the public. While specific use of the term may vary among countries, it is usually applied to text, images, or other audio-visual content on any medium, including paper or electronic publishing forms such as websites, e-books, Compact Discs and MP3s...
in the journal. A paper may undergo a series of reviews, edits and re-submissions before finally being accepted or rejected for publication. This process typically takes several months. Next there is often a delay of many months (or in some subjects, over a year) before publication, particularly for the most popular journals where the number of acceptable articles outnumbers the space for printing. Due to this, many academics self-archive a 'pre-print' copy of their paper for free download from their personal or institutional website
Website
A website, also written as Web site, web site, or simply site, is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos or other digital assets. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet...
.
Some journals, particularly newer ones, are now published in electronic form only. Paper journals are now generally made available in electronic form as well, both to individual subscribers, and to libraries. Almost always these electronic versions are available to subscribers immediately upon publication of the paper version, or even before; sometimes they are also made available to non-subscribers, either immediately (by open access journals) or after an embargo
Embargo (academic publishing)
In academic publishing, an embargo is a period during which access is not allowed to certain types of users. The purpose of this is to protect the revenue of the publisher.Various types exist:* A moving wall is a fixed period of months or years...
of anywhere from two to twenty-four months or more, in order to protect against loss of subscriptions. Journals having this delayed availability are sometimes called delayed open access journal
Delayed open access journal
Delayed open access journals are traditional subscription-based journals that provide open access or free access upon the elapse of an embargo period following the initial publication date...
s.
Peer review
Peer review is a central concept for most academic publishing; other scholars in a field must find a work sufficiently high in quality for it to merit publication. The process also guards against plagiarismPlagiarism
Plagiarism is defined in dictionaries as the "wrongful appropriation," "close imitation," or "purloining and publication" of another author's "language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions," and the representation of them as one's own original work, but the notion remains problematic with nebulous...
. Failures in peer review, while they are probably common, are sometimes scandalous (the Bogdanov Affair
Bogdanov Affair
The Bogdanov Affair is an academic dispute regarding the legitimacy of a series of theoretical physics papers written by French twins Igor and Grichka Bogdanov . These papers were published in reputable scientific journals, and were alleged by their authors to culminate in a proposed theory for...
in theoretical physics is one example).
Publishing process
The process of academic publishing is divided into two distinct phases. The process of peer review is organized by the journal editor and is complete when the content of the article, together with any associated images or figures, are accepted for publication. The peer review process is increasingly managed online, through the use of proprietary systems, commercial software packages (e.g. ScholarOne Manuscripts, Aries Editorial Manager, and EJournalPress), or open source and free software (e.g. Open Journal Systems).Once peer review has been completed, the original author(s) of the article will modify their submission in line with the reviewers' comments, and this is repeated until the editor is satisfied.
The production process, controlled by a production editor or publisher, then takes an article through copy editing
Copy editing
Copy editing is the work that an editor does to improve the formatting, style, and accuracy of text. Unlike general editing, copy editing might not involve changing the substance of the text. Copy refers to written or typewritten text for typesetting, printing, or publication...
, typesetting
Typesetting
Typesetting is the composition of text by means of types.Typesetting requires the prior process of designing a font and storing it in some manner...
, inclusion in a specific issue of a journal, and then printing and online publication. Copy editing seeks to ensure that an article conforms to the journal's house style, that all of the referencing and labelling is correct, and that there are no spelling or grammatical errors. Typesetting deals with the appearance of the article — layouts, fonts, headings etc., both for print and online publication. Historically, these activities were all carried out in-house in a publisher, but increasingly are subject to outsourcing
Outsourcing
Outsourcing is the process of contracting a business function to someone else.-Overview:The term outsourcing is used inconsistently but usually involves the contracting out of a business function - commonly one previously performed in-house - to an external provider...
. The majority of typesetting is probably now done in India and China, and copy editing is frequently done by local freelancers, or by staff at the typesetters in India or China. Even printing and distribution are now tending to move overseas to lower-cost areas of the world, such as Singapore.
In much of the 20th century, such articles were photographed for printing into proceedings and journals, and this stage were known as camera-ready copy. With modern digital submission in formats such as PDF
Portable Document Format
Portable Document Format is an open standard for document exchange. This file format, created by Adobe Systems in 1993, is used for representing documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems....
, this photographing step is no longer necessary, though the term is still sometimes used.
The author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
will review and correct proofs at one or more stages in the production process. The proof correction cycle has historically been labour-intensive as handwritten comments by authors and editors are manually transcribed by a proof reader
Proofreading
Proofreading is the reading of a galley proof or computer monitor to detect and correct production-errors of text or art. Proofreaders are expected to be consistently accurate by default because they occupy the last stage of typographic production before publication.-Traditional method:A proof is...
onto a clean version of the proof. In recent years, this process has been streamlined by the introduction of e-annotations in Microsoft Word
Microsoft Word
Microsoft Word is a word processor designed by Microsoft. It was first released in 1983 under the name Multi-Tool Word for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other platforms including IBM PCs running DOS , the Apple Macintosh , the AT&T Unix PC , Atari ST , SCO UNIX,...
, Adobe Acrobat
Adobe Acrobat
Adobe Acrobat is a family of application software developed by Adobe Systems to view, create, manipulate, print and manage files in Portable Document Format . All members of the family, except Adobe Reader , are commercial software, while the latter is available as freeware and can be downloaded...
, and other programs, but it still remains a time-consuming and error-prone process.
Citations
Academic authors citeCitation
Broadly, a citation is a reference to a published or unpublished source . More precisely, a citation is an abbreviated alphanumeric expression Broadly, a citation is a reference to a published or unpublished source (not always the original source). More precisely, a citation is an abbreviated...
sources they have used. This gives credit to authors whose work they use and avoids plagiarism
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is defined in dictionaries as the "wrongful appropriation," "close imitation," or "purloining and publication" of another author's "language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions," and the representation of them as one's own original work, but the notion remains problematic with nebulous...
. It also provides support for their assertions and arguments and helps readers to find more information on the subject.
Each scholarly journal uses a specific format for citations (also known as references). Among the most common formats used in research papers are the APA
APA style
American Psychological Association Style is a set of rules that authors use when submitting papers for publications in APA journals. The APA states that they were developed to assist reading comprehension in the social and behavioral sciences, for clarity of communication, and to "move the idea...
, CMS
The Chicago Manual of Style
The Chicago Manual of Style is a style guide for American English published since 1906 by the University of Chicago Press. Its 16 editions have prescribed writing and citation styles widely used in publishing...
, and MLA
The MLA Style Manual
The MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing is the third edition of The MLA Style Manual, first published by the Modern Language Association of America in 1985...
styles.
The American Psychological Association (APA) style is often used in the social sciences. The Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) is used in business
Business
A business is an organization engaged in the trade of goods, services, or both to consumers. Businesses are predominant in capitalist economies, where most of them are privately owned and administered to earn profit to increase the wealth of their owners. Businesses may also be not-for-profit...
, communications, economics
Economics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
, and social sciences
Social sciences
Social science is the field of study concerned with society. "Social science" is commonly used as an umbrella term to refer to a plurality of fields outside of the natural sciences usually exclusive of the administrative or managerial sciences...
. The CMS style uses footnotes at the bottom of page to help readers locate the sources. The Modern Language Association (MLA)
The MLA Style Manual
The MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing is the third edition of The MLA Style Manual, first published by the Modern Language Association of America in 1985...
style is widely used in the humanities
Humanities
The humanities are academic disciplines that study the human condition, using methods that are primarily analytical, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural sciences....
.
Natural sciences
Scientific, technical, and medical (STM) literature is a large industry which generated $19 billion in revenue; 60% of that revenue came from North America. Most scientificScience
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
research
Research
Research can be defined as the scientific search for knowledge, or as any systematic investigation, to establish novel facts, solve new or existing problems, prove new ideas, or develop new theories, usually using a scientific method...
is initially published in scientific journal
Scientific journal
In academic publishing, a scientific journal is a periodical publication intended to further the progress of science, usually by reporting new research. There are thousands of scientific journals in publication, and many more have been published at various points in the past...
s and considered to be a primary source
Primary source
Primary source is a term used in a number of disciplines to describe source material that is closest to the person, information, period, or idea being studied....
; see that article for details. Technical report
Technical report
A technical report is a document that describes the process, progress, or results of technical or scientific research or the state of a technical or scientific research problem. It might also include recommendations and conclusions of the research...
s, for minor research results and engineering and design work (including computer software) round out the primary literature. Secondary source
Secondary source
In scholarship, a secondary source is a document or recording that relates or discusses information originally presented elsewhere. A secondary source contrasts with a primary source, which is an original source of the information being discussed; a primary source can be a person with direct...
s in the sciences include articles in review journals (which provide a synthesis of research articles on a topic to highlight advances and new lines of research), and book
Book
A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of hot lava, paper, parchment, or other materials, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf or leaflet, and each side of a leaf is called a page...
s for large projects, broad arguments, or compilations of articles. Tertiary source
Tertiary source
In scholarship, a tertiary source is a term used to describe a work which is chiefly a selection or compilation of other primary and secondary sources. The distinction between a secondary and tertiary source is relative, whereas the difference between primary and secondary sources is more absolute...
s might include encyclopedia
Encyclopedia
An encyclopedia is a type of reference work, a compendium holding a summary of information from either all branches of knowledge or a particular branch of knowledge....
s and similar works intended for broad public consumption or academic libraries.
A partial exception to scientific publication practices is in many fields of applied science, particularly that of U.S. computer science
Computer science
Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...
research. An equally prestigious site of publication within U.S. computer science are some academic conference
Academic conference
An academic conference or symposium is a conference for researchers to present and discuss their work. Together with academic or scientific journals, conferences provide an important channel for exchange of information between researchers.-Overview:Conferences are usually composed of various...
s. Reasons for this departure include a large number of such conferences, the quick pace of research progress, and computer science professional society support for the distribution and archiving of conference proceedings
Proceedings
In academia, proceedings are the collection of academic papers that are published in the context of an academic conference. They are usually distributed as printed books either before the conference opens or after the conference has closed. Proceedings contain the contributions made by researchers...
.
Social sciences
Publishing in the social sciences is very different in different fields. Some fields, like economicsEconomics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
, may have very "hard" or highly quantitative standards for publication, much like the natural sciences. Others, like anthropology
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
or sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
, emphasize field work and reporting on first-hand observation as well as quantitative work. Some social science fields, such as public health
Public health
Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals" . It is concerned with threats to health based on population health...
or demography
Demography
Demography is the statistical study of human population. It can be a very general science that can be applied to any kind of dynamic human population, that is, one that changes over time or space...
, have significant shared interests with professions like law
Law
Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...
and medicine
Medicine
Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
, and scholars in these fields often also publish in professional magazines.
Humanities
Publishing in the humanitiesHumanities
The humanities are academic disciplines that study the human condition, using methods that are primarily analytical, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural sciences....
is in principle similar to publishing elsewhere in the academy; a range of journals, from general to extremely specialized, are available, and university press
University press
A university press is an academic, nonprofit publishing house that is typically affiliated with a large research university, and publishes work that has been reviewed by scholars in the field. It produces mainly scholarly works...
es print many new humanities books every year.
Scholarly publishing requirements in the humanities (as well as some social sciences) are currently a subject of significant controversy within the academy
Academy
An academy is an institution of higher learning, research, or honorary membership.The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 385 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the goddess of wisdom and skill, north of Athens, Greece. In the western world academia is the...
. The following describes the situation in the United States. In many fields, such as literature
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
and history
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
, several published articles are typically required for a first tenure-track job, and a published or forthcoming book is now often required before tenure
Tenure
Tenure commonly refers to life tenure in a job and specifically to a senior academic's contractual right not to have his or her position terminated without just cause.-19th century:...
. Some critics complain that this de facto system has emerged without thought to its consequences; they claim that the predictable result is the publication of much shoddy work, as well as unreasonable demands on the already limited research time of young scholars. To make matters worse, the circulation of many humanities journals in the 1990s declined to almost untenable levels, as many libraries cancelled subscriptions, leaving fewer and fewer peer-reviewed outlets for publication; and many humanities professors' first books sell only a few hundred copies, which often does not pay for the cost of their printing. Some scholars have called for a publication subvention
Publication subvention
In academic publishing, a publication subvention is guaranteed funding towards a partial subsidy of a scholar's publication in book form. The idea has recently been proposed as a possible solution to the "crisis," as some identify it, associated with the difficulty of publishing scholarly books,...
of a few thousand dollars to be associated with each graduate student fellow
Fellow
A fellow in the broadest sense is someone who is an equal or a comrade. The term fellow is also used to describe a person, particularly by those in the upper social classes. It is most often used in an academic context: a fellow is often part of an elite group of learned people who are awarded...
ship or new tenure-track hire, in order to alleviate the financial pressure on journals.
Categories of papers
An academic paper typically belongs to some particular category such as:- Position paperPosition paperA position paper is an essay that presents an opinion about an issue, typically that of the author or another specified entity; such as a political party. Position papers are published in academia, in politics, in law and other domains....
, Vision paper - Theory research paper
- Research paperAcademic journalAn academic journal is a peer-reviewed periodical in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as forums for the introduction and presentation for scrutiny of new research, and the critique of existing research...
- Case reportCase reportIn medicine, a case report is a detailed report of the symptoms, signs, diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up of an individual patient. Case reports may contain a demographic profile of the patient, but usually describe an unusual or novel occurrence....
or Case SeriesCase seriesA case series is a medical research descriptive study that tracks patients with a known exposure given similar treatment or examines their medical records for exposure and outcome. It can be retrospective or prospective and usually involves a smaller number of patients than more powerful... - Technical paper
- System paper
- Technical note
- Review articleReview articleReview articles are an attempt to summarize the current state of understanding on a topic. They analyze or discuss research previously published by others, rather than reporting new experimental results....
or Survey paper - Species paper
Note: Law review
Law review
A law review is a scholarly journal focusing on legal issues, normally published by an organization of students at a law school or through a bar association...
is the generic term for a journal of legal
Law
Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...
scholarship in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, often operating by rules radically different from those for most other academic publishing
Open access journals
An alternative to the subscription model of journal publishing is the Open access journalOpen access journal
Open access journals are scholarly journals that are available online to the reader "without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself." Some are subsidized, and some require payment on behalf of the author.Subsidized journals...
model, also known as "author-pays" or "paid on behalf of the author", where a publication charge is paid by the author, his university, or the agency which provides his research grant
Research funding
Research funding is a term generally covering any funding for scientific research, in the areas of both "hard" science and technology and social science. The term often connotes funding obtained through a competitive process, in which potential research projects are evaluated and only the most...
. The online distribution of individual articles and academic journals then takes place without charge to readers and libraries. Most Open access journal
Open access journal
Open access journals are scholarly journals that are available online to the reader "without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself." Some are subsidized, and some require payment on behalf of the author.Subsidized journals...
s remove all the financial, technical, and legal barriers that limit access to academic materials to paying customers. The Public Library of Science
Public Library of Science
The Public Library of Science is a nonprofit open-access scientific publishing project aimed at creating a library of open access journals and other scientific literature under an open content license...
and BioMed Central
BioMed Central
BioMed Central is a UK-based, for-profit scientific publisher specialising in open access journal publication. BMC, and its sister companies Chemistry Central and PhysMath Central, publish over 200 scientific journals. Most BMC journals are now published only online. BMC describes itself as the...
are prominent examples of this model.
Open access has been criticized on quality grounds, as the desire to obtain publishing fees could cause the journal to relax the standard of peer review. It may be criticized on financial grounds as well, because the necessary publication fees have proven to be higher than originally expected. Open access advocates generally reply that because open access is as much based on peer reviewing as traditional publishing, the quality should be the same (recognizing that both traditional and open access journals have a range of quality). It has been argued that good science done by academic institutions who cannot afford to pay for open access might not get published at all, but most open access journals permit the waiver of the fee for financial hardship or authors in underdeveloped countries
Developing country
A developing country, also known as a less-developed country, is a nation with a low level of material well-being. Since no single definition of the term developing country is recognized internationally, the levels of development may vary widely within so-called developing countries...
. Moreover, all authors have the option of self-archiving
Self-archiving
To self-archive is to deposit a free copy of a digital document on the World Wide Web in order to provide open access to it. The term usually refers to the self-archiving of peer-reviewed research journal and conference articles as well as theses, deposited in the author's own institutional...
their articles in their institutional repositories in order to make them open access whether or not they publish in an open access journal
Open access journal
Open access journals are scholarly journals that are available online to the reader "without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself." Some are subsidized, and some require payment on behalf of the author.Subsidized journals...
.
If they publish in a Hybrid open access journal
Hybrid Open Access journal
A newly popular variation on open access journals is the Hybrid Open Access Journal. This refers to a journal where only some of the articles are open access...
, authors pay a subscription journal a publication fee to make their individual article open access. Other articles in such hybrid journals are either made available after a delay, or remain available only by subscription. Many of the traditional publishers (including Wiley-Blackwell, Wiley-VCH
Wiley-VCH
Wiley-VCH is a German publisher owned by John Wiley & Sons. It was founded in 1921 by two German "learned societies". Later, it was merged into the German Chemical Society . It has been owned by John Wiley & Sons since 1996....
, Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...
, Springer Science+Business Media
Springer Science+Business Media
- Selected publications :* Encyclopaedia of Mathematics* Ergebnisse der Mathematik und ihrer Grenzgebiete * Graduate Texts in Mathematics * Grothendieck's Séminaire de géométrie algébrique...
and Wharton School Publishing
Wharton School Publishing
Wharton School Publishing is a publishing house, a division of The Wharton School and Pearson Education. The imprint brings together a variety of business educators and corporate executives on a list that features works in many formats, including print, audio, electronic documents, CD-ROM and video...
) have already introduced such a hybrid option, and more are following. Proponents of open access suggest that such moves by corporate publishers illustrate that open access, or a mix of open access and traditional publishing, can be financially viable, and evidence to that effect is emerging. It remains unclear whether this is practical in fields outside the sciences, where there is much less availability of outside funding. In 2006, several funding agencies, including the Wellcome Trust
Wellcome Trust
The Wellcome Trust was established in 1936 as an independent charity funding research to improve human and animal health. With an endowment of around £13.9 billion, it is the United Kingdom's largest non-governmental source of funds for biomedical research...
and several divisions of the Research Council
Research Council
The UK Research Councils, of which there are currently seven, are publicly-funded agencies responsible for co-ordinating and funding particular areas of research, including the arts, humanities, all areas of science and engineering...
s in the UK announced the availability of extra funding to their grantees for such open access journal
Open access journal
Open access journals are scholarly journals that are available online to the reader "without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself." Some are subsidized, and some require payment on behalf of the author.Subsidized journals...
publication fees.
Academic publishing growth
In recent decades there has been a growth in academic publishing in developing countries as they become more advanced in science and technology. Although the large majority of scientific output and academic documents are produced in developed countries, the rate of growth in these countries has stabilized and is much smaller than the growth rate in some of the developing countries. The fastest scientific output growth rate over the last two decades has been in the Middle East and Asia with Iran leading with an 11-fold increase followed by the Republic of Korea, Turkey, Cyprus, China, and Oman. In comparison the only G8G8
The Group of Eight is a forum, created by France in 1975, for the governments of seven major economies: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In 1997, the group added Russia, thus becoming the G8...
countries in top 20 ranking with fastest performance improvement are, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
which stands at tenth and Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
at 13th globally. Iran, China, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
and Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
are the only developing countries among 31 nations with 97.5% of the world's total scientific productivity. The remaining 162 developing countries contribute less than 2.5% of the world's scientific output.
See also
- Academic administrationAcademic administrationAn academic administration is a branch of university or college employees responsible for the maintenance and supervision of the institution and separate from the faculty or academics, although some personnel may have joint responsibilities...
- Academic authorshipAcademic authorshipAcademic authorship of journal articles, books and other original works is a means by which academics communicate the results of their scholarly work, establish priority for their discoveries, and build their reputation among their peers. Authorship is a primary basis on which many academics are...
- Academic conferenceAcademic conferenceAn academic conference or symposium is a conference for researchers to present and discuss their work. Together with academic or scientific journals, conferences provide an important channel for exchange of information between researchers.-Overview:Conferences are usually composed of various...
- Academic journalAcademic journalAn academic journal is a peer-reviewed periodical in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as forums for the introduction and presentation for scrutiny of new research, and the critique of existing research...
- Academic publishing in the People's Republic of China
- Academic termAcademic termAn academic term is a division of an academic year, the time during which a school, college or university holds classes. These divisions may be called terms...
- Academic pressUniversity pressA university press is an academic, nonprofit publishing house that is typically affiliated with a large research university, and publishes work that has been reviewed by scholars in the field. It produces mainly scholarly works...
- Acknowledgment indexAcknowledgment indexAn acknowledgment index is a method for indexing and analyzing acknowledgements in the scientific literature and, thus, quantifies the impact of acknowledgments. Typically, a scholarly article has a section where the authors acknowledge entities such as funding, technical staff, colleagues, etc....
- AuthorAIDAuthorAIDAuthorAID is the name given to a growing number of web-based activities that provide developmental editing assistance to scientists and researchers from developing countries who wish to prepare scientific articles for publication in peer reviewed journals...
- Citation indexCitation indexA citation index is a kind of bibliographic database, an index of citations between publications, allowing the user to easily establish which later documents cite which earlier documents. The first citation indices were legal citators such as Shepard's Citations...
- Council of Science EditorsCouncil of Science EditorsThe Council of Science Editors is a nonprofit professional membership organization. CSE's mission is to serve editorial professionals in the sciences by creating a supportive network for career development, providing educational opportunities, and developing resources for identifying and...
- European Association of Science EditorsEuropean Association of Science EditorsThe ' is a non-profit membership organisation for people interested in science communication and editing. Founded in 1982, in France, EASE now has an international membership from diverse backgrounds and professional experience....
- Grey literature
- Impact factorImpact factorThe impact factor, often abbreviated IF, is a measure reflecting the average number of citations to articles published in science and social science journals. It is frequently used as a proxy for the relative importance of a journal within its field, with journals with higher impact factors deemed...
- IMRADIMRAD- The basic structure of a scientific paper :The IMRAD structure is currently the most prominent norm for the structure of a scientific paper. IMRAD is an acronym for Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion...
- JSTORJSTORJSTOR is an online system for archiving academic journals, founded in 1995. It provides its member institutions full-text searches of digitized back issues of several hundred well-known journals, dating back to 1665 in the case of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society...
– online archive of academic journals - Law reviewLaw reviewA law review is a scholarly journal focusing on legal issues, normally published by an organization of students at a law school or through a bar association...
- List of academic databases and search engines
- Moving wall
- Open access (publishing)
- Peer reviewPeer reviewPeer review is a process of self-regulation by a profession or a process of evaluation involving qualified individuals within the relevant field. Peer review methods are employed to maintain standards, improve performance and provide credibility...
- ProceedingsProceedingsIn academia, proceedings are the collection of academic papers that are published in the context of an academic conference. They are usually distributed as printed books either before the conference opens or after the conference has closed. Proceedings contain the contributions made by researchers...
- Scholarly methodScholarly methodScholarly method or scholarship is the body of principles and practices used by scholars to make their claims about the world as valid and trustworthy as possible, and to make them known to the scholarly public.-Methods:...
- Self archiving
- Scientific methodScientific methodScientific method refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of...
- Scientific literatureScientific literatureScientific literature comprises scientific publications that report original empirical and theoretical work in the natural and social sciences, and within a scientific field is often abbreviated as the literature. Academic publishing is the process of placing the results of one's research into the...
- Scientific writingScientific writing-History:Scientific writing in English started in the 14th century.The Royal Society established good practice for scientific writing. Founder member Thomas Sprat wrote on the importance of plain and accurate description rather than rhetorical flourishes in his History of the Royal Society of London...
- Survey articleSurvey articleIn academia, a survey article is a paper that is a work of synthesis, published through the usual channels...
General references
- Jonathan Culler and Kevin Lamb. Just being difficult? : academic writing in the public arena Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-8047-4709-1
- William Germano. Getting It Published, 2nd Edition: A Guide for Scholars and Anyone Else Serious About Serious Books. ISBN 978-0-226-28853-6. Read a chapter.
- Wellington, J. J. Getting published : a guide for lecturers and researcherLondon ; New York : RoutledgeFalmer, 2003. ISBN 0-415-29847-4
- John A. Goldsmith et al. "Teaching and Research" in The Chicago Guide to Your Academic Career. ISBN 0-226-30151-6.
- Cary Nelson and Stephen Watt. "Scholarly Books" and "Peer Review" in Academic Keywords: A Devil's Dictionary for Higher Education. ISBN 0-415-92203-8.
- Carol Tenopir and Donald King. "Towards Electronic Journals: Realities for Librarians and Publishers. SLA, 2000. ISBN 0-87111-507-7.
- Björk, B-C. (2007) "A model of scientific communication as a global distributed information system" Information Research, 12(2) paper 307. (Available at http://InformationR.net/ir/12-2/paper307.html or http://www.sciencemodel.net/)
- Furman, R. (2007). Practical tips for publishing scholarly articles: Writing and publishing in the helping professions. Chicago: Lyceum Books.
External links
- Costs of publishing an article - publication charge, processing fee,.. source: BMC
- Libertas Academica Open access publishing in medicine and the biological sciences
- "Who Owns John Sutherland?" by John Sutherland, a discussion of publishing from the London Review of BooksLondon Review of BooksThe London Review of Books is a fortnightly British magazine of literary and intellectual essays.-History:The LRB was founded in 1979, during the year-long lock-out at The Times, by publisher A...
. - "How to Write a Scientific Paper" by E. R. SchulmanEric SchulmanEric Schulman is an American astronomer and science humorist. Schulman received his bachelor's degree from UCLA and his PhD from the University of Michigan. He is the author of A Briefer History of Time: From the Big Bang to the Big Mac and has been a member of the editorial board of the Annals of...
, Annals of Improbable ResearchAnnals of Improbable ResearchThe Annals of Improbable Research is a bi-monthly magazine devoted to scientific humor, in the form of a satirical take on the standard academic journal...
, Vol. 2, No. 5 (1996). - New ScientistNew ScientistNew Scientist is a weekly non-peer-reviewed English-language international science magazine, which since 1996 has also run a website, covering recent developments in science and technology for a general audience. Founded in 1956, it is published by Reed Business Information Ltd, a subsidiary of...
, 30 August 2005, "Most scientific papers are probably wrong" - "Links for writing a scientific paper"
- Public Library of Science
- Scholarly publishing bibliography compiled by Charles W. Bailey, Jr., updated frequently
Reported crisis in scholarly publishing
- Crisis in Scholarly Publishing: Executive Summary, by Stephen Boyd and Andrew Herkovic (1999)
- The Future of Scholarly Publishing (from the Modern Language AssociationModern Language AssociationThe Modern Language Association of America is the principal professional association in the United States for scholars of language and literature...
, (2001)) - The Crisis in Scholarly Communication (2002?)
- Understanding the Economic Burden of Scholarly Publishing, by Cathy N. Davidson (2003)
- The Scholarly Communication Crisis (2004)
- A Failure in Communications, The metamorphosis of academic publishing by Brian Evans (2006)
- The Crisis in Scientific Publishing (University of Maryland, frequently updated.)
- Layoffs at SUNY Press (December 19, 2008).
- Layoffs at Oxford University Press (January 22, 2009).
- Controversial layoffs at the University of New Mexico Press (March 31, 2009).