In late November 2005 I sent a proposal, reproduced below, to a number of U.S. legal periodicals to see what enthusiasm there might be for limiting simultaneous submissions. As of late December the response has been minimal, and that negative. The fundamental argument against limiting the number of simultaneous submissions being the fear that a deluge of articles might become a dearth of articles, particularly for a specialized or a low-ranked journal.
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Proposal on Simultaneous Submissions
I am sending this proposal to twenty journals to see what enthusiasm there is, in principle, for the idea of curbing simultaneous article submissions. It's socially wasteful for authors to be sending articles to fifty or a hundred journals for simultaneous consideration, and I believe the time is ripe for placing some constraint on that process.
I'm sure you are aware that most non-U.S. law journals, contrary to the situation in the U.S., require exclusive submission. Moving to such a position would be extreme. I would like to advocate that U.S. law journals move to a limit of (let us say) six simultaneous submissions. The advantages are quite obvious. Authors would need to assess what journals would realistically accept their article, and such restraint would allow each journal more energy to better evaluate and process their submissions.
The main objection is one of competition. It's necessary for the majority of your peer journals to move in that direction too. So the purpose of this initial proposal is to test your reaction, to see if anyone has ideas or objections, and to ask what you think would be a reasonable suggested limit on the number of simultaneous submissions.
Should there be enough positive response, my thought on process is that I will send a proposal to forty law journals, and with a reasonable response from that group to send on the proposal to another forty journals informing them of the response to that date. Continuing then through all the journals, and starting on one or more additional complete rounds of the journals, each time with a larger list of interested journals. If well received, I'm hopeful this process of tentative commitment could be accomplished by the end of March, with firm commitments before summer 2005, and an implementation date by the end of summer 2005.
Posted by doyle at December 29, 2004 1:42 PM