misguided editors deliberately cultivate a ‘classical’ (that is,
unreadable) format for their journals, under the illusion that
this makes them look more academically ‘respectable’. From an
author’s point of view this approach is a liability. You want your
journal offprints to look prestigious and presentable to appoint-
ment and promotion committees for a long time ahead, not
nondescript and old-fashioned within a few years. Other things
being equal, it is always best to go for journals that have a styl-
ish and simple modern design and clear, uncluttered layouts,
incorporating appropriate amounts of white space around your
text. Good handling of equations, graphics, charts and tables is
important in the social sciences.
All these points of comparison above assume that you are con-
sidering publishing in an orthodox journal that essentially sells
paper copies as the basis of its subscriptions. Even these journals
have responded extensively to the growth of the Internet by
expanding their electronic presence. Virtually all titles are avail-
able electronically via major contents aggregator sites (like
Ingenta or JStor) and some journals also have electronic-only
subscriptions.^4 In addition to the paper circulation of journals it
may be worth learning about your possible target journal’s elec-
tronic readerships, including the number of times articles were
downloaded. Some journals will also publish articles in enhanced
form electronically, such as using colourized versions instead of
being confined to the black-and-white of the normal print ver-
sion. Other print titles do ‘advance on publication’, putting up
forthcoming articles for on-line access on their Web sites as soon
as they are accepted, rather than waiting for the relevant journal
issue to be printed. This way your article is officially seen as pub-
lished six months earlier than otherwise, which can be important
when you are looking for an academic job.
A further way to curtail the acceptance-to-publication delay
is to publish in a Web-only journal, which is published elec-
tronically but not in print. Such titles are common now in the
physical sciences, and they are beginning to spring up too in
parts of the humanities and social sciences, especially in areas
like information science, informatics and business studies.
Where they have become established some refereed Web-
only journals are starting to be quite successful and well read.
234 ◆AUTHORING A PHD