Talk:Academic journal

Confusing reviews and book reviews

The following paragraph under a discussion of review articles seems confused, is it a mix of statements regarding review articles and book reviews?

Unlike original research articles, book reviews tend to be solicited submissions, sometimes planned years in advance. Book review authors are paid a few hundred dollars for reviews, because of this, the standard definitions of open access do not require review articles to be open access, though many are so. They are typically relied upon by students beginning a study in a given field, or for current awareness of those already in the field.

--Vlehdonv (talk) 08:51, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

American or world-wide?

Under "Scholarly articles", why does it say "American academia"? Why not world-wide?

because other systems differ somewhat, this has been clarified.DGG 01:46, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

not complete

This article is still not complete--links are here to several more-specific pages that have not yet been written--they will be written over the next few days. DGG 01:46, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I have just done a start for List of academic journals. DGG 03:14, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

letter ranks

Can you give the exact place on their website where the list is located?

• And I would think this must be in a few subjects only pertinent to their interest, please specify
  • And, it is stated throughout the article that impact factors are not a measure of prestige, so I have changed the wording a little.

DGG 18:02, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

References

Isn't it ironic that this article doesn't have academic references?--BMF81 12:30, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, yes it is :) --WikiSlasher 03:28, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

example

The example is probably necessary, because it is in fact not always clear that any but the major journals are important. History seems a particularly obious example to use. DGG 07:46, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

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"List of the journal locators"

I have reverted for the umpteenth time an edit by an anon IP who adds a section about journal locators. It is almost totally irrelevant to this article. This editor makes troll-like edits to academic and in particular journal-related articles, either to insert this section or to aggressively challenge trivial facts, usually by adding {{fact}} tags. His dynamic IP address is 222.64.xxx.xxx, which resolves to Shanghai, China. andy (talk) 09:03, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Now also operating as 124.78.xxx.xxx - still Shanghai. andy (talk) 08:47, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Refereed vs non-refereed journals

This article needs some discussion of the difference between "refereed" and "non-refereed" journals (some journals have both refereed and non-refereed articles). This makes a difference in the kind of review they receive. Non-refereed journals are reviewed by an editor or editorial board for quality, but do not go through the process of multiple, and typically blind, peer-review characteristic of a refereed journal. That also qualifies the statement made in this article that academic journals are peer-reviewed, by definition. Peter G Werner (talk) 23:51, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

• Any references for this (in reliable sources)? --Crusio (talk) 04:57, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, as a matter of fact. Starting with Section 1.2 of the MLA Style Manual, which can be viewed here: [1] (use the "look inside" link). Some more books on academic publishing that explicitly discuss non-refereed journals: [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7]. I think you're defining "academic journal" quite narrowly in such a way that a priori excludes non-refereed journals from the category of "academic journal". As you can plainly see, not everybody who is writing on the topic of academic journals shares your definition. (I'll note here that nobody is saying that non-refereed journals are considered as prestigious as refereed ones, and several of the sources I've cited even warn scientific authors to avoid them.)

I will also add that you yourself are defending a definition of "academic journal" that is itself not based on any kind of citation whatsoever, and that the article in general lacks citations and has been flagged for it. Its pretty clear that how this article defines and describes academic journals is not written in stone and, in fact, could used some rewriting with reference to outside sources. Peter G Werner (talk) 08:36, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

• I have asked User:DGG for his opinion (he's a retired university librarian). One thing I note about the references you give above (and the way the discussion on DGG's talk page is going) is that this seems mainly (exclusively?) to concern the humanities (and perhaps the social sciences). Nevertheless, none of these sources gives a concrete example and I don't know of any example in the sciences. As for the current article, you're absolutely correct that it is (far) less than ideal. However, I've lacked time to overhaul it and barring that, I reverted your additions as unsourced because adding more unsourced assertions is not really going to make it better... --Crusio (talk) 10:12, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

"Usually" peer-reviewed?

Looks like the lead should be rewritten as "An academic journal is a periodical publication, usually peer-reviewed, ...."; below are some quotations. Fgnievinski (talk) 01:02, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

"Not all academic journals are refereed, that is, not all use the quality control mechanism of 'peer review'..." p.103 [8] (see also full paragraph below)

"In nonrefereed journals, the editorial decision to accept or reject is made in-houce, either by the editor or by staff at the journal. (...) Usually refereed journals are considered stronger and more prestigious than those that are not." p.285 [9]

"Refereed or peer-reviewed journals are almost invariably more prestigious that nonrefereed journals. The latter usually do not have outside or ad hoc reviewers; instad, an editor alone makes determination of the publishability of a particular article." p.41 [10]

"Non-peer reviewed academic joumals. These scholarly periodicals publish scholarly articles but are not peer reviewed. At such a journal, only the editor (or two or three staff members) reads the submissions and determines whether each should be published in the journal. There is no editorial board or review committee whose opinion the editor takes into account; no other scholars review and rate the submissions. Since a review by peers remains the sine qua non of quality in academic publishing, you should not consider such a journal. Some non-peer-reviewed academic journals have quite high reputations within a field; Harvard Business Review does not have an anonymous review process or external reviewers and has an excellent reputation. These are the exceptions that prove the rule. I do not recommend non-peer-reviewer journals for junior scholars." p.106 [11]

Fgnievinski: Valid point. Be WP:BOLD and WP:DIY. kashmiri ^TALK 19:41, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

@Kashmiri: Gee, I'll pass; I don't want to be remembered as the guy who made peer review optional in academic journals... :o) Seriously though, if no one does it, I can do it in a couple of days. Fgnievinski (talk) 19:14, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Fgnievinski: You have sources to back your edits, so just go ahead :) We don't (usually) debate minor edits on Wikipedia. This page is monitored by quite a few folks, so in case your edit is too controversial someone will revert it, no worries :) kashmiri ^TALK 19:39, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

I don't think this is a "minor edit" and I am sure it is not going to be uncontroversial... --Randykitty (talk) 23:20, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Not unless you argue that Hindawi does not publish a single academic journal. I think Fgnievinski rightly spotted the problem with definition, and took pain to back himself up with sources. Also, IMHO the attribute of being "peer-reviewed" is not essential but accidental to being an "academic journal", even when it is a relatively common "accident". kashmiri ^TALK 00:26, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

I don't get that. Hindawi journals are peer-reviewed, so they are obviously academic journals. The only unusual feature is that they don't have an editor-in-chief, but that's not the issue here. --Randykitty (talk) 12:27, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

I think that Kashmiri was alluding to the fact that Hindawi at one point had been misidentified as a predatory publisher, which has has as one of its characteristics "Accepting articles quickly with little or no peer review". Fgnievinski (talk) 01:00, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

As background, in the 19th century the journal editor usually did the reviewing on his own authority; in the early 20th, there was often an editorial board who shared the responsibility, each in their different specialty. This board could sometimes be very large--over 100 people sometimes, and the effect was essentially the same as peer-reviewing. Some journals published by societies, such as the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, published any paper from a member, or any paper that a member would submit and take the responsibility for--if the members were sufficient high-level, as here ,or comprised all the specialists in a very narrow subject, as sometimes happened, the quality control was also high, though there could be occasional aberrations. In the other direction, peer-review can sometimes be perfunctory, where an article will be given a cursory review and published unless ridiculous. DGG ( talk ) 20:34, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

I guess part of the issue is whether editorial review is considered a type of peer review or not. If the editors are fellow researchers in the field, then editors and authors are peers, and editorial peer review ensues. Then review journals, where articles are by invitation only, are editorially peer reviewed. It seems that peer review = external peer review + editorial peer review, and editorial review = editorial journalistic review and editorial peer review. Your thoughts? Fgnievinski (talk) 21:23, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Not all review journals are by invitation only. Even if they are, that doesn't mean they don't get sent out for review. And if it doesn't get sent out but is reviewed by peers on the editorial board, that just means that the journal recognizes regular reviewers by naming them on the editorial board. --Randykitty (talk) 21:13, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

More evidence of the current contradiction in Wikipedia: Sokal affair says that "Social Text, an academic journal ... [which] did not practice academic peer review". Fgnievinski (talk) 19:25, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

• So then correct that article... --Randykitty (talk) 22:40, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
  • Well, all the above discussion points to the opposite direction, i.e., it's the present article that seems to need an update. E.g., law journals, predatory journals, Social Text and other social-sciences journals are considered academic journals even though they perform no peer review. I don't want to implement the change without clear consensus. Fgnievinski (talk) 00:55, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
    • If you have a look at the look at the one source in the Social Text actually refers to its "little magazine" tradition. And law journals are indeed a special case, but I don't think you could simply call them non-refereed. They usually have a huge editorial board (whatever name they may give it), which will vet articles. No respectable law journal will have submissions just checked by the EIC who then accepts or rejects. Instead, submissions are reviewed by multiple law students and probably also by some of the faculty advisers that most of those journals have. It's only the predatory journals that claim to have peer review but don't really do a serious review (if any at all). --Randykitty (talk) 09:45, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
      • First, about Social Text, the full quotation reads [12]: "[it] has always seen its lineage in the 'little magazine' tradition of the independent Left as much as in the academic domain" [emphasis added]; furthermore, it is more often referred to as a journal than a magazine: [13]. Second, about law journals, a quick search indicates that peer-review is rare: [14]; it seems that many sources similarly claiming lack of peer review could be easily found. Third, about occurrences of peer review failure, I've responded to it in Talk:Peer review. Fourth, I've started this section with quotations to several books -- they can't just be thrown out the window simply because they reject one editor's opinion. Fgnievinski (talk) 02:23, 12 December 2014 (UTC)
        • • The Sokal affair is almost 20 years ago now, Social Text has evolved since then. Your NYT reference does not say that law reviews are not reviewed, just that some people think they are badly reviewed, which is not the same thing. Similarly, the fact that peer review sometimes fails does not mean that there is no peer review. As for the books, I have a few references of my own and will dig out the books early next week (I'm away from my office right now). --Randykitty (talk) 10:21, 12 December 2014 (UTC)
            • Let me know if you got any of those sources you mentioned, otherwise I'll go ahead and cite the original ones listed at the top. Thanks. Fgnievinski (talk) 21:47, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

• Sorry, I'm still traveling and won't get back to my office before January 15... --Randykitty (talk) 22:36, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Here's some new info. I've used my library's subscription to Ulrich's Periodicals Directory. Its results are presented in tabular format, one row per journal, and there's a column titled "Referred". Then I searched for 'Serial Type:("Journal") Content Type:("Academic / Scholarly") Language of Text:("English")' and found the following non-referred academic/scholarly journals in English among the results: Art and Australia, Agricultural Science, The Australian Law Journal, Australian Nursing and Midwifery Journal, etc. (just the first few, in alphabetical order). Evidence for the non-defining character of peer review in academic/scholarly journals? You and I may hate that fact, but still... Fgnievinski (talk) 00:43, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

• EBSCO's definition of academic journal: "It is a broad classification that includes both 'peer-reviewed' journals as well as journals that are not 'peer-reviewed' but intended for an academic audience." [15] They also define "peer review" to include "Editorial Board Peer Review" [16]. Mounting evidence... Fgnievinski (talk) 03:26, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

• The discussion about law journals is continued at Talk:Law review#Categorizing peer reviewed or not. Fgnievinski (talk) 15:47, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

I was quite surprised to see the intro statement suggesting that academic journals are all peer-reviewed. I'm a little late on this discussion, but I can say in the sciences that there are definitely some well known academic journals (PNAS probably being the most well known), which are not peer reviewed. I'm going to be bold here and change that part to "usually peer-reviewed".Dig Deeper (talk) 21:43, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Recent edits

I am concerned about this recent edit. One thing is that several of the sources are suspect (I have removed the most obvious nonreliable sources and tagged most of the others. Another is that most of what is claimed there is wrong. Let me go through this point by point. 1/ "The typical academic journal has very low distribution and thus provides authors with very limited exposure". Seems reasonable at first sight, bt which scientist still searches for articles by looking at tables of contents? Nowadays we have databases and an article that appeared in the Nauru Journal of Obscure Data will be indexed at a minimum in Google Scholar and be easy to find. Any journal more notable, will also be listed in indexes like PubMed, Web of Science, or others. 2/ "It can take up to two years before an academic journal reviews an article for publication". This is not supported by the sources cited. At best, one of which says that it can take years to publish a scholarly article. It's a PowerPoint presentation and it is not clear whether "several years" includes, for example, the time to carry out the research being reported. In any case, in most fields, a journal that takes more than, say, six weeks to review a paper will soon find itself out of business. In the social sciences and humanities, things may sometimes go slower, but two years seems over he top. 3/ "In recent years, rather than seek publication in academic journals, many researchers have opted to publish on the Internet". One wonders how these "many researchers" deal with promotion and tenure committees... Not really sourced either.

The editor who has added these remarks is very strident about them ("well-known truth"), so before reverting this addition completely, I'd like to hear the opinion of other editors here. Thanks. --Randykitty (talk) 16:42, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

• I support Rendy Kitty's views in this matter, and I have decided to review these references. The first reference is a power point slide which can be downloaded from the linked reference (#2) [17]. --- Steve Quinn (talk) 17:38, 4 August 2013 (Signature and time stamp belatedly added by User:Steve Quinn on 24 October 2013).

Power point slide

First of all, page three of this PP refers to monographs and not academic journals. It also says these monographs have limited distribution. However, what exactly is meant by "limited distribution"? Also, "limited distribution" compared to what?

Page three also states the distribution of these monographs "is steadily diminishing". This appears to be an unsupported statement. From my view monographs have been proliferating. Just take a look at the Springer website [18], for example, and choose various disciplines [19]. Additionally, take a look at Wiley-Blackwell and see how many books have been published [20] around the last five years, or ten years. Also, "Wiley-Blackwell publishes nearly 1,500 peer-reviewed journals and 1,500+ new books annually in print and online, as well as databases, major reference works and laboratory protocols."

In any case, my view or the view of the recent edit can be considered only opinion. I am not really presenting anything that shows either view is statistically sound. Neither is the recent edit (so far). I think this shows that distribution of these monographs is not steadily diminishing.

Page three also states the unsubstantiated logical conclusion that pay walls and membership limit the readership-audience. A reliable source or two is really needed to back this up. I think this statement is an over generalization. For one thing, academic libraries at colleges and universities are probably going to be able to have the needed materials available. How limited or how available I cannot say; but this helps to specify or define the argument.

Then the power point goes on to say and show that SUIC academic papers and other related materials are available online. This is not unique. For example, MIT has the same service available [21] and I can access scholarly works that have been refereed and otherwise vetted, including thesis and scientific articles, even though I am not an MIT alumni, faculty, or student. U-Penn has a similar service available known as Scholarly Commons [22].

At the same time, this source now counters the recent edit's opening statement, "The typical academic journal has very low distribution and thus provides authors with very limited exposure." If anything, this power point shows scholarly works are becoming more available as time goes on through access points such as SUIC. MIT and U-Penn portals can be added to this mix, as well as other universities. ---- Steve Quinn (talk) 18:21, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

More and more, as time passes, authors of journal articles and other scholarly works are now posting their work on the University site, which he or she is affiliated. Hence, both distribution and exposure appear to be increasing. This is also supported by the graph on page 11.

Finally, it is not clear that posting only on the arxiv.org site is accepted as a reliable and citable source. It is true that some articles, which have been independently posted there, have received substantial citations. But, I doubt this is the norm.

Maybe someday it will become commonplace. But at this time, arxiv.org is a self-published repository. So, it is a great place to download an author's self-published version that is also in a prestigious peer reviewed publication. ---- Steve Quinn (talk) 17:38, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Australian news article

The second reference appears to be cherry picking by presenting an article in an Australian newspaper that discusses the faults of pay wall publishers. If anything this article supports the view that limited access has been and still changing. According to the article, this change is happening because the internet, Google search, and Google Scholar make articles much more widely available than in the days before the internet. Furthermore, some institutions are changing their policy resulting in broader availability. Hence, the article states that the National Institutes of Health has decided "that all medical research it funds has to be made publicly available within 12months". Also, this article was published in 2009. The push and publicity within the last four years are a catalyst for increasing accessibility, four years later. ---- Steve Quinn (talk) 18:39, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

UC Berkley

This is more of the same. First the faults of pay wall publishing are noted. In this case, one person may have started some kind of insurgency. There is agreement that accessibility is more so and can be more so thanks to the world wide web. But, this does not support the statement that academic journals have low distribution and "very limited" exposure. In fact this article states that "Amsterdam-based Elsevier publishes and distributes over 2,000 academic journals, and its business is based on charging fees to access, read, and share academic articles. Gowers argued that Elsevier’s access fees are “so far above the average that it seems quite extraordinary that they can get away with it.'"

This is one academic publisher producing 2,000 academic journals and "they can get away with it". I am not seeing low distribution and "very limited" exposure.

Recent edit synthesis

The recent edit appears to be a synthesis or perhaps just plain original research based on an article and university web sites disseminating a view that supports the open access movement. That's fine. But, this is about the control pay wall publishers have, and parts of the open access movement; which is covered in this article. There is no bridge between these sources and low distribution of journals and "very limited" exposure. This is about alternate publishing strategies. These alternate publishing strategies appear to be taking place in parallel with pay wall publishing. Also, as I stated earlier, since 2009 the publicity and push behind such movements is causing changes. In 2012, this UC Berkeley article shows one of the results. --- Steve Quinn (talk) 21:02, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Also, a source is needed to say "typical journal". This cannot be inferred from this set of articles because that might be construed as synthesis.---- Steve Quinn (talk) 21:17, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Actually, I am not seeing anything in these sources that says what a "typical journal" is. The first sentence of the recent edit appears to be promoting a point of view, not actually supported by the sources. ---- Steve Quinn (talk) 21:38, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Spinger OA

Even Sprnger adds peer reviewed OA journals [23],

[24], [25].

So, what is the "typical academic journal" that "has very low distribution and thus provides authors with very limited exposure"? These are unsubstantiated claims in this most recent edit. ---- Steve Quinn (talk) 21:57, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Accuracy

All three sentences of this most recent do not accurately reflect what the references say. And, sorry to say, but -- in fact, I don't think these sentences accurately reflect any sources that exist. --- Steve Quinn (talk) 05:54, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Reverted

I have reverted the recent edits and restored the last stable version, per the above detailed reasoning of Steve Quinn. Please do not restore this material without first obtaining a consensus here. --Randykitty (talk) 08:46, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

• The editor restored the material so I've removed it again per this discussion. I've warned the editor about warring. andy (talk) 09:21, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Difference

What is the diffrence between Academic journal and scientific journal ? For me no difference and why do we speak about book review in an article about academic journal ? For me the title of this article has to be changed into academic press and not academic journal. Snipre (talk) 17:17, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

• A scientific journal is a journal publishing work in the "hard" sciences: chemistry, physics, biology, etc. Academic journals also includes journals from the social sciences and humanities. In the latter two fields (especially the last one), book reviews are an important part of the written academic production. Even many journals in the sciences publish book reviews. So I don't think that we need to change the title or remove the book reviews. --Randykitty (talk) 17:23, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
• in concur with Randykitty, academic journals generally cover any sort of field in which academics publish scholarly papers. Hard sciences have book reviews as well. for instance, Mathematical reviews and Notices of the American Mathematical Society both regularly publish book reviews. --Mark viking (talk) 17:44, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Are MR and Notices really good examples? MR publishes only reviews (no peer-reviewed article) and Notices is more like a newsletter (with announcements and some expository articles) than a journal (mostly peer-reviewed research articles). —David Eppstein (talk) 21:19, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

Ok for book review. But do you do a difference in English between hard sciences and human sciences ? Snipre (talk) 19:50, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

To understand the difference between academic and scientific journals, you need to understand the difference between academia and science. A history journal (e.g. The American Historical Review) is an academic journal, but it is not a scientific journal. Likewise for a journal relating to musical theory (e.g. Journal of Music Theory). Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 21:55, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

For me we can have a scientific approach in all human sciences: the tools and the subjects are different but the methods are the same. Doing a difference between a article about historical subject and another about sex behaviour of bees is just an old way of thinking. All articles have the same approach: define a subject or a problem related to the subject, define a methodology to study the subject, apply the methodology and discuss the results. That is a scientific approach and this can be applied in music, history or painting.

Ok, but still we have the problem of relation: academia article includes scientific article or scientific article is just a particular class of academia article ? Right now, scientific article is considered as part of academia arcticle but in that case how can we describe other academia articles which are not scientific article. And if you are asking why I take care of that problem the reason is just the classification of these subjects in Wikidata. So I need a good definition of academia article and scientific article in order to classify them correctly and if necessary to correct at the same time the corresponding articles in wikipedia. Snipre (talk) 07:18, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

It's a quirk of English to limit the use of the word "science" to the "hard" sciences. In many other languages, including French (I assume that's a language your more familiar with given your user name history), social sciences and humanities are also called "science". So, yes, scientific journal is a subclass of academic journals. Perhaps it would be helpful to have a look at our categorization scheme (see Category:Academic journals). --Randykitty (talk) 08:32, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Proposed merge of Electronic journal into Academic journal

outdated concept fgnievinski (talk) 01:25, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Please

Hi, reference number 2 says "Journal research papers require peer review that typically involves an editor and two reviewers", of course book reviews and the like do not require peer review. Its necessary to specify Hastengeims (talk) 15:52, 22 October 2022 (UTC)