You may remember that last January I signed the Elsevier boycott. If you remember that, you may also remember that I realized the next day that we had just returned revisions of an invited paper to an Elsevier journal.
Well, it's happened again. I just realized that a paper I am co-author on appeared in an Elsevier journal. I don't have a good defense. It was a paper that's part of a student's dissertation, and it's in a field where I don't know the journals well. I'd regard that as a better defense if I'd encouraged the student to consider other alternatives, but (here's what's so embarrassing): I didn't think to check on who published the journal before she submitted it. I'm enough of a wimp that I might not have said anything about it, even if I knew, but I'm embarrassed that I didn't even check.
I promise that I'll do better in the future. Of course, that's an easy promise to make. All of the journals I normally submit to are either independent (my preference) or published by Wiley-Blackwell or Springer (not pillars of virtue, but not as bad as Elsevier).
Well, it's happened again. I just realized that a paper I am co-author on appeared in an Elsevier journal. I don't have a good defense. It was a paper that's part of a student's dissertation, and it's in a field where I don't know the journals well. I'd regard that as a better defense if I'd encouraged the student to consider other alternatives, but (here's what's so embarrassing): I didn't think to check on who published the journal before she submitted it. I'm enough of a wimp that I might not have said anything about it, even if I knew, but I'm embarrassed that I didn't even check.
I promise that I'll do better in the future. Of course, that's an easy promise to make. All of the journals I normally submit to are either independent (my preference) or published by Wiley-Blackwell or Springer (not pillars of virtue, but not as bad as Elsevier).



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