From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2014 18:59:42 -0600

Not sure what you mean by "Harvard" journals, Ari. Harvard University
Press doesn't publish journals at all.

Sandy


> From: Ari Belenkiy <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2014 17:06:24 -0800
>
> Sandy, I can mention several "top" Harvard and Oxford journals. For
> example, I got a panegyric from HTR's referee - they don't mind
> sending the entire referee's report... with an advice to submit the
> paper to "more specialized" journal.
>
> Fred, my impression was that editors "of old" put originality
> (novelty) before everything else. They would laugh at rejection by a
> referee because you are unfamiliar with "secondary" sources, let alone
> because of the "wrong" style of references.
>
> I agree, the appropriateness of the paper for this particular journal
> (a so-called "readership") might be a good reason to reject a paper
> despite its virtues, but in a matter of days - not months!
>
> Ari Belenkiy
>
>
> On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 2:38 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>>  From: Fred Jenkins <[log in to unmask]>
>>  Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2014 21:01:34 -0500
>>
>>  I cannot say that Ari's has been my experience with humanities journals (and I am nobody important and don't have a lot of connections).  I have had a number of articles accepted and a couple rejected, always courteously and with readers' reports of 1-2 pages that gave reasons, whether I agreed with them or not. And given the number of peer-reviewed papers retracted in the "exact sciences," I would not hold them up as a beacon of good practice.
>>
>>  Fred W. Jenkins, Ph.D.
>>  Professor and Associate Dean for Collections and Operations
>>  University of Dayton Libraries
>>  Dayton, OH 45469-1360
>>
>>
>>
>>  On Tue, Mar 4, 2014 at 6:23 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>  From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]>
>>>  Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2014 00:39:44 -0600
>>>
>>>  I'm not sure what journals Ari has submitted his articles to--he
>>>  openly mentions one by name--but his description doesn't match the
>>>  experience of authors who submitted articles to the dozen journals in
>>>  the humanities that we published at Penn State University Press while
>>>  I was director there. One must be careful in condemning an entire
>>>  system og journal publishing based on the experience of just one
>>>  author like Ari.
>>>
>>>  Sandy Thatcher
>>>
>>>  *****
>>>
>>>  From: Ari Belenkiy <[log in to unmask]>
>>>
>>>  Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2014 14:55:55 -0800
>>>
>>>  Well, let me share my story as well.  Trying to publish with
>>>  humanities journals for almost 10 years, I observed that there exist a
>>>  formal process behind which is emptiness.
>>>
>>>  You wait for 3-4 months, getting thereafter a refusal either on
>>>  general grounds, such as style of references or appropriateness for
>>>  this journal, or because you don't quote some "important" secondary
>>>  literature. The (low) quality of referees' 2-3 brief remarks don't
>>>  warrant for such a long wait! (I can share some reviews - quite a fun
>>>  to read. Actually, I have received only one serious (though negative)
>>>  assessment of my work - from Vigilae Christianae - on 14 pages).
>>>
>>>  Though the originality of the paper is often stated inter alia, the
>>>  editor lurks behind any negative remark done by a referee - of course
>>>  as a pretext to reject the paper.  In fact, these remarks are key
>>>  words, signals that a referee sends to the editor as a sign that s/he
>>>  does not want this paper be published.
>>>
>>>  I have never seen that the editor looked deeply in the matter
>>>  afterwards.  The editor never goes back to access the quality of
>>>  referee (the well- recognized practice in exact sciences), which I
>>>  believe is a malfunction detrimental to the humanities.
>>>
>>>  In humanities, publishers and editors have no initiative to publish
>>>  something unusual and original. The goal is to put through the journal
>>>  pipe as many papers of their PhD candidates as journal pages permit.
>
>  >>
>>>
>>>  Instead of OA hysteria, its proponents should rather address the
>>>  quality of the referees' duties in humanities.
>>>
>>>  Academia is about the quality and originality of published materials,
>>>  not about OA.
>>>
>>>  Ari Belenkiy
>>>
>>>
>>>  SFU
>>>  Canada