Monday, 4 December 2006

soft question - How to select a journal?

Many shall find this criterion worthless, but personally I can't help taking the production quality of the journal into account (even if it is not of primary importance).



Quality paper and ink improve the reading comfort, and some journals (some of Elsevier particularly) have pages with pale ink, or thin paper that let the verso appear. On the other end of the scope are journals like Acta mathematica of Publications mathématiques de l'IHES with nice paper and fonts.



Another aspect of this criterion is the processing quality. To compare two very different experiences, in my first article incredible mistakes have been added after the proofs (expressions like $n/2$ replaced by $n^2$) while the AMS journals do an amazing job, showing you exactly what they changed in your paper (corrected spellings e.g.) and sometimes asking for confirmation. This part you cannot judge before being published in the journal, or discussing with colleagues.

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