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James Butcher @journalology.com · 30/03/2026

Some publishers nearly doubled their output over the past decade. This graph shows the article growth for 8 commercial publishers between 2016 and 2025. Tomorrow I'll explore Elsevier's progress in 2025. More here: newsletter.journalology.com/p/how-did-th...

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James Butcher @journalology.com · 30/03/2026

Academia would work much better if researchers had a basic understanding of how balance sheets work. The level of ignorance among supposedly clever people is astounding.

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James Butcher @journalology.com · 26/03/2026

So true: "Authors are now routinely expected to disclose conflicts of interest, preregister studies and share data—practices that collectively enhance trust in the research process. However, equivalent standards of transparency are not consistently applied to editorial practices."

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James Butcher @journalology.com · 26/03/2026

Of course 0.999... equals 1. I learned this when I was a 10-year-old (and also when I was a 9.9999999999... year old). x = 0.999... 10x = 9.999... Subtracting 10x from x gives us: 9x = 9 x = 1 Q.E.D. www.scientificamerican.com/article/math...

scientificamerican.com

Mathematicians can’t agree on whether 0.999... equals 1

Whether 0.999... equals 1 is the subject of bitter dispute in countless online forums

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James Butcher @journalology.com · 25/03/2026

There's been a lot of hype about AI "peer" review. It's good to see a description of the Automated Reviewer in today's Nature paper. I would prefer independent verification of tools like these, though. I am open minded and skeptical in equal measure. I'm interested to hear what proper editors think.

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James Butcher @journalology.com · 25/03/2026

Human beings are innate storytellers. This editorial from an outgoing EiC is a beautifully written piece about beginnings and endings in scholarly communication. Save this article to refer to the next time you're asked to attend an "article of the future" workshop.

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James Butcher @journalology.com · 24/03/2026

No paper should be "too big to fail". Creating invisible harm is unacceptable.

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James Butcher @journalology.com · 24/03/2026

What are the authors proposing here? That institutions act as gatekeepers and quality controllers, rather than publishers? wonkhe.com/blogs/more-a...

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James Butcher @journalology.com · 24/03/2026

Are poor metadata due to technical limitations of peer review systems or publishers' policy decisions? This study suggests that it's a bit of both. OJS comes out worse than eJP and S1.

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James Butcher @journalology.com · 24/03/2026

Journal editors can use their influence to positively impact society. Tessa Richards, who passed away recently, is a great example: www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

theguardian.com

Tessa Richards obituary

Other lives: Medical editor who campaigned to involve patients in healthcare planning and research

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James Butcher @journalology.com · 23/03/2026

Stephanie Lovegrove Hansen's take on scholarly publishing gossip is spot on in many ways. However, let's be clear -- most people are excluded from industry "gossip". scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2026/03/23/t...

scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org

The Role of Gossip in Scholarly Publishing - The Scholarly Kitchen

Let’s say the quiet part out loud: gossip plays an important role in scholarly publishing. But is that a bad thing?

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James Butcher @journalology.com · 23/03/2026

Editors: don't bother spending time concocting catchy headlines. Google will change them anyway: "... multiple Verge staffers have seen examples of headlines that we never wrote appear in Google Search results — headlines that do not follow our editorial style" www.theverge.com/tech/896490/...

theverge.com

Google Search is now using AI to replace headlines

Let us know if you see more.

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James Butcher @journalology.com · 23/03/2026

The first person to tag on Bluesky has to be @stuartcantrill.com. I finally made it here, Stu. And I even managed to set up a custom domain name, as you suggested (2 years ago).

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