The new paradigm: feedback is not required
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JPIF-03-2019-098 |
| Pages | 138-139 |
| Date | 27 February 2019 |
| Published date | 27 February 2019 |
| Author | Nick French |
| Subject Matter | Property management & built environment |
Editorial
The new paradigm: feedback is not required
We all need people who will give us feedback. That’s how we improve (Bill Gates, Ted Talk, May 2013).
Introduction
This year, I start my 37th year involved with the Journal of Property Investment & Finance
( JPIF), initially as the assistant editor and latterly as the editor. In that time, I have seen the
academic publishing world change beyond recognition.
When I started “cut and paste”had a literal meaning. I would receive the typeset galleys
(an unformatted sheet of the printed articles produced on old fashioned plates) and I would
spend the best part of a day cutting them and pasting them to individual pages. These
would then be returned to the typesetter (in physical form) and the paper copy of the journal
would be printed from my draft layouts. It was a long and laborious process. Nowadays,
papers are now published online as they are accepted and then allocated to a specific issue
after publication. It is a very different world.
Likewise, the refereeing procedure was all done with multiple hard copies and the Royal
Mail. It took much longer and often was in handwriting that then had to then be transcribed
into the review to be sent back to the author(s), just in case that the possibility of recognising
someone’s handwriting diluted the double blind refereeing process. But it all worked and, in
my view, the fact that the author had to invest a lot of time in ensuring that the paper copy
of their work was well presented and well written made the standard of submissions a little
bit higher.
Nowadays, everything is electronic and for some reason that has made the attention to
detail in the submissions less rigorous. There are a greater number of typos and spelling
errors; there are more cases of the author including their name on the actual document for
review and, sadly, there is much less attention to the house style requirements of the journal.
You would think that it would be the opposite as “grammar checks”and “spell checkers”
become the norm but, I think, this just negates the skill of the author proof reading their own
paper before submission. Indeed, probably half of the papers that are reviewed are returned
with the comment of “poor English”(even to native English speakers) or “please proof read
before resubmitting”. Electronic expediency sadly leads to lower standards.
Another change in submissions is that the number of papers submitted that are not
ready to be sent for review has increased substantially. Once upon a time, I would send all
papers for review by the editorial board; nowadays, it is probably, only 60 per cent of
submissions that are of a standard suitable for review. I would not waste the time of my
editorial board members by sending them incomplete, poorly written, poorly explained and
poorly referenced papers. I am even receiving at least ten papers a year that are not even on
the topic of “Property investment”. It is frustrating and time consuming.
More worryingly, there is now a trend in journals for the author to recommend the
referee. I simply do not understand that. The merit of double blind refereeing is to ensure
that there is not any “relationship”between the writer and the reviewer. Obviously, the
referee will be familiar with the work of a previous published author (it would be worrying if
they were not) but they would not be sure that the current paper is by the same author. But a
direct recommendation by the author to tell the editor to whom they should send the paper
for review is, in my mind, an abdication of the role of the editor and undermines the whole
reviewing process.
Journal of Property Investment &
Finance
Vol. 37 No. 2, 2019
pp. 138-139
© Emerald PublishingLimited
1463-578X
DOI 10.1108/JPIF-03-2019-098
138
JPIF
37,2
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