Writing about EER's triumphs the other day, reminded me that I've been getting a few emails recently from journals I've never heard of inviting me to join the Board. This is typical:
Dear William Scott,
I hope this email finds you well.
I represent XXXXX, a highly reputable outfit strategically located in XXXXX. We would like to cordially invite you to become an Editorial Board member of our journal, entitled XXXXX.
We have come across your recent article, "Higher education and ESD in England: a critical commentary on recent initiatives" published in Environmental Education Research. With your academic achievements and your profound insights, it is my privilege to sincerely invite you to join us. Finally, we earnestly hope that you would be interested in taking this opportunity. We would like to cooperate with such an excellent scholar as you.
Looking forward to your favourable response.
Best regards,
Editorial Office
XXXXX
I'm deleting all such emails, unacknowledged, which you might think ill-mannered of me.
Coincidently (or not), last week's Economist has a worrying article [ Publish and don't be damned ] on journal blacklists operated by some libraries because of their poor policies and practices around peer review. I recommend it. More disturbing, perhaps, are the very real threats to people who expose such practices.
I am not, of course, lest there be doubt in your mind, saying that XXXXX is one of those journals ...
Meanwhile, you might like to look up the paper Testing Inter-hemispheric Social Priming Theory ostensibly written by Gerry Jay Louis, from the Institute of Interdisciplinary Political and Fecal Studies. Go on ...
Respond