We shouldn't forget that there are different kinds of editing, all
normally carried out by someone paid by the publisher other than the
journal editor (who, in this country at least, is actually paid too -
all expenses are covered, and a fee/honorarium or royalty too - gone are
the days when universities considered it prestigious to house a journal's
editorial office - these days they charge back all the costs plus a -
sometimes hefty - overhead).
1) Language editing - particularly vital, of course, where the author
is a non-native speaker, but often essential also for native speakers
whose writing is unclear, obscure or plain incomprehensible
2) Style editing - some of this may be essential (e.g. using
discipline-accepted standards for quantity measures, terminology etc),
while other (putting the text into the journal's preferred house style
for spelling, punctuation and layout) may not
3) There is also the essential work to make sure that the citations
are linkable (i.e. accurate - an awful lot aren't) and actually linked
to/from cited documents, bibliographic databases etc
Don't let's throw the baby out with the bathwater!
Sally
Sally Morris, Chief Executive
Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers
South House, The Street, Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex BN13 3UU, UK
Phone: +44 (0)1903 871686 Fax: +44 (0)1903 871457
E-mail: chief-exec_at_alpsp.org
ALPSP Website
http://www.alpsp.org
----- Original Message -----
From: "Fytton Rowland" <J.F.Rowland_at_LBORO.AC.UK>
To: <AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG>
Sent: Thursday, October 16, 2003 1:01 AM
Subject: Re: Scientific publishing is not just about administering peer-review
> I haven't reposted Etienne's post ans Stevan's answers, but I'd just like
> to say that I think we are getting to the heart of the matter now. If we
> mostly agree that peer review (including within that term the activities of
> the academic editor, the editorial board, and the referees of a journal)
> must remain, and that the administration of peer review has a cost, the
> remaining activity of professional, paid editors is copy-editing. Is copy-
> editing necessary?
>
> I think it is useful to have focussed in on this as a key issue within the
> question of "the cost of the essentials".
>
> Fytton Rowland.
>
> Quoting Stevan Harnad <harnad_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk>:
>
> > On Wed, 15 Oct 2003, Etienne Joly wrote:
Received on Mon Nov 03 2003 - 15:29:02 GMT