Hi Stevan. This is addressed to you because of your depth of knowledge of journals and their structure in general rather than any preconceived notion on my part that you'll be able to comment on the following issue. Anyway, here goes...
I've been in academia more than 20 years. Over that time it's been my impression (and my stats and dataset may be faulty here) that journals in numerous fields have cut back on the number of "Comments" to articles they publish. This, if correct, has raised two issues in my mind:- 1. What is the reason for this change ? Two possibilities come to mind - one is that there's an increase in the number of publishable papers, leaving less room in existing journals for "Comments". The second is that the journal editors and referees would have a quieter time if instead of publishing "Comments" they waited until further full papers on the topic became available. In the course of typing this I've come up with a third reason, similar to the second, which is that editors may have been "burned" by past "Comments" in some way - either by comments which are excessively narrow or by the fractious nature of those who pen them. 2. Does this open the field to journals mainly or entirely devoted to the publishing of "Comments" on articles in other journals ? If such a journal were to be launched, what would be the reaction of established journals / academics ? Would the whole scheme founder on a tide of ostracism, or would it flourish because everyone would want to make sure that in writing future papers they had all the bases covered in their area ? Thanks for any comments. Sincerely, Roger Collins UCC School of Business
