Late last night, Steve Pec, publisher of AEQ, sent me, Professor Masood Raja, English Department Chair Ron Corthell, and Graduate Studies Coordinator Raymond Craig an email in response to a post that I made in February about Professor Raja’s experience trying to publish an article with AEQ. You may read my original post, along with Mr. Pec’s response, which he supposedly couldn’t post to the comments on his own, here.
I do feel that blogs that permit commenting, as mine does, should facilitate conversation. If Mr. Pec had a problem with Raja’s experience, which is also available on his own website here, he had every opportunity to post his response to the comments of my original post or to Raja’s blog. However, he did not choose this route. Instead, he sent an email detailing his theory of a student trying to please his professor by posting a story to the student’s blog, and he felt it necessary to bring this to the attention of the chair of the English department and the graduate studies coordinator.
First, Professor Raja and I are colleagues. I do not think of our academic and professional relationship as hierarchical, but as a meeting of minds with different experiences and knowledges to share. This isn’t grade school where I might leave an apple on the teacher’s desk hoping for a boost to my spelling test grade. Graduate school is an entirely different environment and experience. It is a different dynamic, which is certainly as various as their are schools and professors, but it is apparent to anyone with experience working with Raja that we are colleagues first and foremost.
Second, spamming this email to Professors Corthell and Craig was obviously meant to gain some kind of leverage on the part of Mr. Pec. His devised narrative of favors exchanged was meant to incite the departmental authorities against Professor Raja and me. This infantile end-run around is something I naively didn’t expect to encounter professionally.
So, let me make one thing clear to Mr. Pec and anyone else who may feel it necessary to make implicit threats against me regarding what I choose to post on dynamicsubspace.net. Any challenges will be met, and all provocations defended against. This is my blog, and I will run it as I see fit. Furthermore, I believe in the fundamental right of free speech for myself and others. One element of that idea of free speech is the freedom to conversation, and blogs are one arena that facilitates dialog. It is for that reason alone that I posted Mr. Pec’s reprehensible email to the original post about Professor Raja’s experience with Academic Exchange Quarterly–not for any implied threat by emailing Professor Corthell and Professor Craig.
It bears noting that dynamicsubspace.net isn’t the end all-be all of the Internet. Ideas posted here may be challenged here as well as any where else online where one can find a space to speak her or his mind. Battles need not be confined here to this, my little corner of the Net.
Comments are open to all sentient beings. Enjoy.
[...] of concern about practices at AEQ. N.B.: my response to Mr. Pec’s email is available here. Jason W. Ellis, PhD Student, English Literature Kent State University Owner [...]
I’m quite late to the discussion, but I just saw a CFP for this journal; I am *stunned* by the horrible design and management of their website. This is supposed to be an academic peer-reviewed journal, but perusing through their website, it seems shaky to me. No wonder almost all the editors positions are vacant. I’ve never seen an academic journal make such unusual demands of its submitters or its editors. Bizzare.
Hi Allison,
Thanks for commenting on this post. Yes, they do make unusual demands of contributors that don’t jive with common practices in the wider academic community. It’s not necessarily a scam in the sense that they take the money and run, but it is a pay-to-play scheme. This is a bad situation for someone who participates in this scheme, because it doesn’t look good on a CV, and your work won’t reach your intended audience.
Best of luck with your work.
Jason
[...] because he helped me deal with attacks on my blog publishing as a graduate student (here and here) and with professional issues relating to students. I wish Professor Corthell the best in his [...]
I am currently serving as a mentor to an Asst Prof in a tenure-track slot. She needs to have a certain quantity and quality of publications by the time her tenure clock expires. I wonder if other professors might comment on their dealings with AEQ. Is this a legitimate peer-reviewed journal?
I should add that the idea of paying for revising is weird to me. I have published extensively, and I understand when a book has too many late corrections, which requires reformatting, etc., which really does mean extra costs for the publisher that are then passed on to the author (per the contract!!!) because the author messed up.
However, if an author of a journal article does not submit revisions in a timely manner, journals just say “never mind” and move on. I was reading on the AEQ website that the costs are for when the author does not do something correctly??? My experience is that a journal then just outright rejects the submission. End of story. If the author can’t follow the guidelines, that article is out.
Am I missing something here? Clarification would be appreciated.
Keith Folse
University of Central Florida
Dear Professor Folse,
It is my understanding that AEQ is a pay-to-play operation. At least when I wrote this original post, AEQ would publish an article only if a fee was paid. No reputable academic journal would require an author to pay to publish an article. Certainly, there can be additional costs when an editor or author wants to publish a book and does not fulfill their responsibilities for copyediting, proofreading, etc. However, journals and their editors, like you say, reject the submission and move on when there is a problem with a manuscript (e.g., in need of editing, late, etc.). There is something rotten about AEQ and their practices, so I would recommend you steer your mentee away from them.
Best, Jason
I am really enjoying the theme/design of your weblog. Do you ever run into any browser compatibility problems? A couple of my blog audience have complained about my website not operating correctly in Explorer but looks great in Chrome. Do you have any recommendations to help fix this problem?
Hi, Thanks for the compliment and questions. I haven’t run into browser compatibility problems (that I am aware of). I have tested my site on Firefox and Safari, but I haven’t tried it in Explorer or Chrome. My site is hosted on WordPress.com and I use the Contempt theme, one of the publicly available themes, for dynamicsubspace.net. I went with WordPress, because I wanted to spend more time generating content than designing the site. I am afraid that I can’t offer much advice in terms of making your site more browser compliant other than to follow best standards-compliant coding for your CSS or HTML, or you can switch to wordpress.org for your backend–this might provide you with a more consistent look and feel if combined with a well-designed theme. Best, Jason