In 2009, I sent in an article for publication to a fairly renowned peer-reviewed journal in my field that only publishes a single issue per year. They accepted it for the 2010 issue. It did not appear in the 2010 issue. Wondering what had happened, I waited a year... 2011 rolled around and it was not in the 2011 issue. When I inquired whether I should remove it from my CV as an 'upcoming publication,' I was assured it would appear in the 2012 issue and simply wasn't included in 2011 because it didn't fit with the revised theme of the issue (which is true; I checked).
So now I am wondering what my obligation is to stick with a journal that keeps pushing back the publication date for something that I know can be published elsewhere.
While I have enough publications to not worry too much about it, I am wondering whether I should send it elsewhere, or if I am obligated to wait for this journal to publish it. I am not desperate for publications, but would like my article published since I worked hard on it and I don't want it to be too outdated by the time it's finally printed. Since the journal has postponed for this long, I don't have much faith in their following through in a year...
What would you do?
As a journal editor, I think you are entirely within your rights to withdraw the article and send it somewhere else. If I knew I could place it elsewhere, I'd pull it and send it there.
ReplyDeleteIn my field, being a journal editor is a completely voluntary, unremunerated position which frequently doesn't even net the incumbent a course release from their university. I find it very helpful to bear that in mind when contemplating emailing an editor with a query or complaint. Remember that the poor bastard is doing this off the side of his/her desk, for free, probably late in the evenings after all the grading is finished, and with luck they've got some clerical support but maybe not even that much. It nets a little bit of prestige, but essentially it is undertaken entirely as a thankless service to the discipline.
ReplyDeleteThis doesn't excuse bouncing the article two years in a row and not bothering to tell you, at all. It just may explain how it might have happened. In the circumstances in which a lot of journals are edited, some things can fall through the cracks.
Which means that authors have to be ceaselessly vigilant but at the same time profusely grateful for the service being done.
So yes, absolutely you can pull it and send it elsewhere, but I would write to the offending journal first and ask them if they're absolutely CERTAIN it's going to be published in the 2012 issue, because otherwise, since you'd like it to see daylight, you're wondering if you should pull it and send it somewhere else.
(Journal story: the editor of the flagship journal in my discipline once became so overwhelmed that he simply stopped responding to anything - emails, articles, faxes, phone calls - from anyone. For a very long time. Finally his co-editor (from the other side of the discipline) was persuaded by, well, everyone to go into the guy's office while he was out,, where he discovered two years' worth of submissions stuffed under the desk. Some say he also found the editor himself, or his bones, gnawed by rats, but I have always believed that a fictional addition.)
Anyway: I'd email first and ask for assurances. Or, if you're really dubious about the quality of those assurances, then just pull it (with apologetic murmurs); but bear in mind that wherever else you send it you'll be starting the process all over again.
I should say that my position as a journal editor is a "completely voluntary, unremunerated position which frequently doesn't even net the incumbent a course release from their university." But that I still think it's within an author's right to pull a piece if we can't get it between covers before it goes stale.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely! (And my hat is off to you, Editor F&T!) Of course CC can pull the article. Perhaps should pull the article. Just, phrase the letter as to a harrassed-to-the-point-of-overwhelm colleague. "Let me take this off your hands", not "you idiot!"
ReplyDeleteI had something similar happen once. I asked for it back and they released it. It'll be published elsewhere (in a revised form) later this year.
ReplyDeleteHmmm, yes, good point, MA. Even when I am at fault I remember the pissy colleagues' pissiness.
ReplyDeleteSo: look out for your work, sans pissoir.
I haven't been pissy about it with the editor although I haven't heard from the editor at all. He is lucky enough to have an assistant (as a director of a program). His assistant emailed me the acceptance letter, so I have been communicating with her. She emailed me an assurance that it was still an article they wanted but that it didn't fit with their themes the past two years, and would go in next year's issue (and this is where I'm dubious b/c they've postponed for so long that the theme might likely change again).
ReplyDeleteThanks for all of your advice.
Just copy-paste the article to CM. We'll read it. I promise.
ReplyDeleteTo bad there isn't a "Journal of Papers Snobbishly Held But Not Published" or just a magazine called "Rejectotron 5000: The Journal of Stomped-on Academica."
ReplyDelete