JAWRA Blog

There’s a good article in this week’s Science, “Coercive Citation in Academic Publishing.” (You need access to see the full article.) As the authors define it, “Coercive self-citation refers to requests that (i) give no indication that the manuscript was lacking in attribution; (ii) make no suggestion as to specific articles, authors, or a body of work requiring review; and (iii) only guide authors to add citations from the editor’s journal.” Though the study did not specifically cover water resources journals, the practice seems far too common.

For the record, I believe coercive self-citation is a perversion of an editor’s role, and editors who use it are cheaters. Even a joking suggestion to me about the possibility receives a very cold reception.

We’re not talking about legitimate recommendations. There’s nothing wrong with suggesting a specific reference if it makes a genuine contribution to the article under review. Authors sometimes miss things, and it is the role of reviewers and editors to point out shortcomings. When in doubt, the above definition is a good guideline for our policy.

Citation counts are not perfect, but nobody has yet shown a better way of measuring journal quality. Let’s keep the system honest.

I normally don’t get on reviewers, because I so appreciate their contributions. But, sometimes an unclear comment can make their hard work go to waste.

Under the “Literature Cited…” review category, one reviewer wrote, “There are not enough relevant references in the paper.” That’s all, no hint of what works or subject area might have been shortchanged.

What am I supposed to recommend to the author? There is no magic number of required citations. The comment sent me scrambling back to the other reviews, to see if they noted the same shortcoming, perhaps with better recommendations. Nothing there. In the end, I told the author to think about the comment but not necessarily do anything.

Lesson: Say WHAT you think and WHY. Tell the author what needs to be done to satisfy your concern.

Too many authors don’t realize an abstract is NOT the place for a big introduction to your study. Background information doesn’t belong here! I’ll repeat what I’ve said before: online, you have about 7 seconds to engage the reader before they go elsewhere. Don’t waste those precious first words.

Here’s some advice. Read your abstract until you come to the first sentence which tells what you actually did. Delete everything before it. Trust me, it’ll make for better reading.

There’s a nice article in the Wiley-Blackwell blog on sentence length. Recommended reading for all aspiring JAWRA authors. Ernest Hemingway started out as a reporter, and his style retained the short, crisp sentences of good reporting. I spend entirely too much of my time untangling overly complex phrasing of authors, and wishing they were more like Hemingway.

I recently accepted a paper by a Chinese author. Maybe he lacked the confidence to use the lofty and long phrases typical of science writing, or maybe his ESL teacher had wisely focused on Ernest Hemingway. In any event, he presented his work in short, declarative sentences. What a breath of fresh air! Amazingly, one reviewer took this fellow to task over his short sentences; this was one of those rare reviewer recommendations I happily told the author to ignore!