OPINIONS ABOUT JOURNALS, EDITORS AND SCHOLARS' BEHAVIOR
1) I have submitted three papers to Applied
Economics (one last year (2000), and two in February 2001), however, until
now I did not receive any referee report. Mark Taylor (editor) where are
you?
2) I sent an article to Journal of Policy
Modeling. After one year I received the following letter from the editor:
"I am happy to inform you that we have received 4 sets of comments regarding
your paper. All agree on the significance of your research but have concluded
that the paper, as it stands at the moment, seriously lacks the strong and
concrete policy orientation (and policy prescription) that is at the heart
of the Journal." Yes, FOUR referees said that the paper is good, and then
rejected the paper... Well, if the paper is good, but lacks policy
orientation, I think that the correct journal's reply would be: "Please make
a revision so as to include policy orientation." I don't think that
is worth waiting one year to listen "the paper is good, but we will
not publish it" . As a result I will never more submit any work to
this journal.
3) I want to relate a good experience. I
submitted my paper to Economic Theory. The paper was rejected, however the
referee convinced me that it was lacking economic motivation. The paper was
mathematically correct, but there was no economic motivation for the results,
etc. After careful and painful analysis I was convinced and revised the paper
entirely.
4) I submitted one paper to Kredit und Kapital, an international journal
edited in Germany. Of course my paper was written in English. To my
surprise, the secretary of the Journal sent me a letter apologizing
for the referee report being written in German. I do not read German, and
honestly, I cannot understand anything the referee said. Thanks God the
paper was rejected anyway...
5) I am going to reproduce the words of
the referee report I received from Bulletin of Economic Research, it shows
quite clearly its editorial standards : "I recommend that the paper be rejected
by the Bulletion of Economic Research. Since I am rather busy at the moment
and since my opinion on this paper is negative, I decided to reply without
delay and without a detailed report".
