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> The process of peer-review, copy-editing, and online publication I'm confused that you aren't aware of this but, peer review and copy-editing is by-and-large

> The process of peer-review, copy-editing, and online publication I'm confused that you aren't aware of this but, peer review and copy-editing is by-and-large done by other academics, not journal publishers, and, at most, for what amounts to an honorarium. And online publication is not a job, per se. We automated it a long time ago. Teenages have tumblr blogs now. There is no reason why the practical aspects of online journal curation could not be handled by a very small team of people working in the IT departments of a few universities. Journal article publication may contribute to academic careers, but that has nothing to do with the publishers' involvement: it has to do with the quality of the journal, which is driven by the academics in writing and reviewing for it. Simply put, journal publishers are >entirely< overhead.

benbreen 9y ago
See my comment below. Copy-editing isn't performed by other academics (or at least it shouldn't be given their other responsibilities, in my view). And although peer review relies on specialists volunteering their time, finding and vetting those specialists still requires work. I'm not trying to say that the current publishing model is defensible, but I am pointing out that running a high quality peer reviewed journal still requires at least one or two dedicated workers. Whether you think they should be paid for their time or expected to volunteer is a different issue, but we shouldn't pretend that the whole apparatus is an illusion created by greedy publishers.
- dekhn 9y ago
  I always - always - sent my paper to at least one non-coauthor for a final copy-edit before being submitted. Also, no editor at any journal (I've published ~20 papers) made any edits to my papers.
  - benbreen 9y ago
    This must be highly field-specific then. I published a peer-reviewed paper a couple months ago that came back with around 50 suggested copy edits, as well as a few paragraphs of suggested changes from the journal editor. And then it went through the process again in a lesser form at the page proofs stage. Granted, a lot of those suggested edits were to make it conform to a somewhat arbitrary and tedious house style, but it also caught things that I or the other people I shared the paper with didn't see.
    - dekhn 9y ago
      Oh, I didn't include edits to stay within house style, but then, I wouldn't submit a paper that wasn't already in house style. If the editor sent some copy edits to the text, I'd just send it back to them unedited and ask them to publish it. In fact, I love pushing back against unreasonable editorial requests.

benbreen 9y ago

See my comment below. Copy-editing isn't performed by other academics (or at least it shouldn't be given their other responsibilities, in my view). And although peer review relies on specialists volunteering their time, finding and vetting those specialists still requires work. I'm not trying to say that the current publishing model is defensible, but I am pointing out that running a high quality peer reviewed journal still requires at least one or two dedicated workers. Whether you think they should be paid for their time or expected to volunteer is a different issue, but we shouldn't pretend that the whole apparatus is an illusion created by greedy publishers.

dekhn 9y ago
I always - always - sent my paper to at least one non-coauthor for a final copy-edit before being submitted. Also, no editor at any journal (I've published ~20 papers) made any edits to my papers.
- benbreen 9y ago
  This must be highly field-specific then. I published a peer-reviewed paper a couple months ago that came back with around 50 suggested copy edits, as well as a few paragraphs of suggested changes from the journal editor. And then it went through the process again in a lesser form at the page proofs stage. Granted, a lot of those suggested edits were to make it conform to a somewhat arbitrary and tedious house style, but it also caught things that I or the other people I shared the paper with didn't see.
  - dekhn 9y ago
    Oh, I didn't include edits to stay within house style, but then, I wouldn't submit a paper that wasn't already in house style. If the editor sent some copy edits to the text, I'd just send it back to them unedited and ask them to publish it. In fact, I love pushing back against unreasonable editorial requests.