Re: Copyright, Embargo, and the Ingelfinger Rule

From: Fytton Rowland <J.F.Rowland_at_lboro.ac.uk>
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2003 13:03:32 +0100

Stevan wrote:

>sh> "(since the author population is exactly the same as the referee
>sh> population!)"

That statement is untrue. Not all authors referee, either for one
particular journal, or at all. Remove "exactly" and replace it with
"substantially" and it might become true. Probably all referees are also
authors, but not necessarily for that particular journal. For example,
a staistician might referee across many disciplines but her/his own
writing will be for statistical journals.

This statement has much in common with the frequently made one that, for
any given journal, the authors and the readers are the same people. That
isn't true either - there are students, schoolteachers and practitioners
who read the scholarly literature but do not contribute to it.

Fytton Rowland, Loughborough University, UK.
Received on Mon Jun 16 2003 - 13:03:32 BST