the joys of publishing, continued
Music: The Boo Radley's: Everything's Alright Forever (1992)
The proofing process at a certain journal grinds on. I first detail my frustrations with the post-acceptance proof here. After submitting five, single-spaced pages of corrections to the proof, the editor responded thusly. Yesterday I received another note from the editor; apparently a three-fold team of folks associated with the journal decided a line-by-line response to our requested suggestions was in order.
Ok, all you budding scholars out there: this is not normal. It's unusual to have proofs come to you for approval in such bad shape. It's also unusual to see an editor so defensive about stuff. I mean, I had editors literally rewrite my sentences---but heck, the sentences were usually better as a result. Perhaps I am misreading the situation; apparently I've been doing that online lately.
Anyhoo, so it's not so much the editor that's giving us a hard time as it is someone at the "national office" of the organization who publishes the journal---a non academic, I suspect, and one who cites style manuals with the evangelical zeal of a bible-thumper. As I was responding to their "response" to our corrections, I caught myself laughing aloud and saying, "seriously?" Thinking about this I'm laughing as I type this.
I won't clobber y'all with the entire response I sent back today. But I want to share some particularly funny tidbits (I'm especially amused by our reference to bad bible verses). Our replies are in boldface, and our original requests/pose is in italics. The editors' prose is plain:
Howdy Folks,
Below we respond to your response to requested changes. Since this is a new process for us, we don't know quite how to respond to the response. To make this easier to read, our comments in are GREEN. Following your lead, we respond item by item below:
p. 397, line 5: This author's name is backwards, and the co-author's name is missing. This line should read: "Joshua Gunn and __________" --no problem, this will be corrected
Great!
p. 397, lines 9-18: Someone has re-written our abstract, and it no longer makes sense. We request our original abstract be put back in:
In this essay we argue that the rhetoric of Foss, Waters, and Armada's recent work on "agentic orientation," as well as the rhetoric of the popular bestselling DVD and book The Secret, are typical of "magical voluntarism." Magical voluntarism is an idealist understanding of human agency in which a subject can fulfill her needs and desires by simple wish-fulfillment and the manipulation of symbols, irrelevant of structural constraint or material limitation. Embracing magical voluntarism, we argue, leads to narcissistic complacency, regressive infantilism, and elitist arrogance. A more materialist and dialectical understanding of agency is better.
--We strictly adhere to APA, 5th edition. Word limit for abstract is 120—please edit down to that word limit [above has 133 words]
Ok, we deleted a sentence so there are 95 words. Is it possible to copy and paste the italicized abstract above? If not, let us know and we'll send the revised abstract another way.
[. . . snip . . . ]
p. 400, line 21: the numeral "2" should be changed to the word "two." In humanities writing, numbers less than 20 are usually spelled-out. We prefer "two" to "2." If the press insists on a numeral, then we would prefer the would prefer "last couple of centuries" than "2." Having the numeral "2" appear in the text makes us look foolish to our colleagues in the humanities.
--we will change 2 with “last couple of centuries”—however the APA rule is: APA 5th ed., pg. 124, rule 3.42-e: “Use figures to express numbers that represent time.” We will abide by this rule, as we do throughout all articles published in this journal.
Ok, but as with any documentation style, there are always exceptions and allowances. For example, according to APA 5th ed., pg. 125, rule 3.43a: "Use words to express . . . numbers below 10 that do not represent precise measurements and that are grouped for comparison with numbers below ten." Our phrase, "two centuries," refers to spans of time, however, it is not a reference to a precise measurement, as with "2 weeks ago" or "March 30, 1994." It is, in other words, an inexact reference, which is why "couple" will work just as well. In general, all style guides allow for some flexibility when strict adherence would lead to a confusion of meaning. We believe for some readers, "2 centuries" appears strange. (Thankfully, no one adheres to the 20th chapter of Leviticus as strictly).
[. . . snip . . . ]
p. 409, line 3: "2" should be "two."
--: APA 5th ed., pg. 124, rule 3.42-e: “Use figures to express numbers that represent time.”
See comment for p. 400 above. If we cannot use "two," we would prefer the line to read, ". . . characterized in the last couple of centuries." [. . . snip . . . ]
These are the corrections you requested.
Many thanks for correcting all these issues. We hope our response meets without objection.
Cordially,
Tweedle Dum and Doktor D.
________________________________________________________
I confess I am not a detail-oriented person. But I must also say that I've never quite encountered such fascistic tendencies in the post-acceptance process, either. I suspect this is a consequence of publishing a humanities-style essay in a mostly quantitative, social-scientific journal.