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James Butcher

@journalology.com
115 followers 66 following 44 posts

newsletter.journalology.com I write a newsletter on Substack called Journalology, which covers the news and trends in academic publishing.

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James Butcher @journalology.com · 28/09/2026
Here's another quote from that story: "Publishers have talked for a long time about the risk of cancellations to subscription journals by zero-embargo deposition of author-accepted manuscripts. I was never convinced that was a huge problem, especially for high quality journals."
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James Butcher @journalology.com · 14/09/2026
You can never have too many puns… Thanks for reading until the end. It’s good to know someone does!
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James Butcher @journalology.com · 12/06/2026
This opinion piece in Learned Publishing provides an interesting perspective. "For scientists, the tactile rituals of print have been replaced by point-and-click sequences: upload, review dashboard, revision, repost. Engagement is episodic and placeless." onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
From Gatekeepers to Gateways: How Acceleration and Platform Logic Reshape Life‐Science Journals
Click on the article title to read more.
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James Butcher @journalology.com · 12/06/2026
I disagree. Armoured Personnel Carriers are important.
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James Butcher @journalology.com · 28/04/2026
Most journals charge less than that. See: www.openapc.net/blog/
openapc.net
Making sure you're not a bot!
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James Butcher @journalology.com · 02/04/2026
They spend a lot on marketing...
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James Butcher @journalology.com · 02/04/2026
I'm not criticising what you've done here. It's great. Rather, I'm making the point that "NFP = good" and "commercial = bad" is too black and white. Most academics won't get the financial nuances. It's more fun to bash the commercial publishers anyway.
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James Butcher @journalology.com · 02/04/2026
If a commericial publisher charges $3000 and gives $1000 profit to shareholders, is that worse than a not-for-profit charging $4000 (because it doesn't have economies of scale) and giving $1000 of profit to charitable efforts?
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James Butcher @journalology.com · 02/04/2026
Researchers need to understand why publishing is expensive. Transparency is always a good thing (unless it breaks anti-competition laws).
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James Butcher @journalology.com · 02/04/2026
The adjusted profit margin is 38%, which is the figure before interest on loans and taxes are paid. The RELX shareholders received 24.5% of revenues, paid out in dividends. It's worth noting that the share price halved between May 25 and Feb 26. There's risk as well as reward.
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James Butcher @journalology.com · 01/04/2026
Excellent choice of photo @sciam.bsky.social
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James Butcher @journalology.com · 31/03/2026
Radical change will only happen if organisations are willing to pay for it to the tune of hundreds of millions of £$€ Business is a proven way of raising capital. If that’s off the table, someone else needs to stump up the cash.
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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
"Clear, criteria-linked decision correspondence can strengthen trust without undermining selectivity or editorial autonomy." onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
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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
That's so 20th century. Hallucinate. Make stuff up. It's the modern way.
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James Butcher @journalology.com · 25/03/2026
Are you looking for a list?
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James Butcher @journalology.com · 25/03/2026
Very true. Some people don't let facts get in the way of their preconceived ideas.
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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
Would you be offended if I said I'm not ****ing surprised you voted that way?
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James Butcher @journalology.com · 25/03/2026
This also holds true when using social media. For example, Bluesky.
nature.com
Nervous networker or conference presenter? Just care less, says speech coach Susie Ashfield
The author of Just F**cking Say It offers tips to boost your confidence as a public speaker.
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James Butcher @journalology.com · 25/03/2026
I have this thought regularly when reading opinion pieces about academic publishing.
derekthompson.org
Why Can't People Agree on a Shared Set of Facts?
Nir Eyal on the power of belief, the atheist's case for prayer, and the origins of self-confidence
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James Butcher @journalology.com · 25/03/2026
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
link.springer.com
The defensibility of beginnings and endings - Advances in Health Sciences Education
In this editorial the editor considers the beginnings and endings of scholarly inquiry and the implications of how beginnings and endings are presented in scholarly writing.
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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
Angela’s argument was a lot more coherent than this one.
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James Butcher @journalology.com · 24/03/2026
retractionwatch.com/2026/03/23/g...
retractionwatch.com
Guest post: A call to end the ‘impact on conclusions’ test for retraction
The Ship of Theseus paradox asks, if you replace all the wood in a ship, is it still the same ship? Likewise, is it possible to change all the facts inside an article without altering its conclusio…
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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
journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...
journals.plos.org
Manuscript submission systems and metadata completeness in Crossref: Patterns and associations
The importance of open research information, particularly publication metadata, is widely recognised. Crossref is one of the most important infrastructures for registering open metadata as part of…
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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
"By the time she left in 2023, the journal had a patient editor, a patient advisory board, and more than a thousand patient and public reviewers."
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James Butcher @journalology.com · 24/03/2026
"When she arrived [at the BMJ] in 1983, patients might be pictured naked in the journal without their consent and with just a black band across their eyes intended to disguise their identity, a device that was later understood to be wholly ineffective."
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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 · 24/03/2026
PLOS is marked 57/100 and yet is ranked 193 out of 28,259 journals. The bar has been set high.
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James Butcher @journalology.com · 23/03/2026
It's human nature to exchange news and speculate. However, I have a core principle for Journalology: keep to the facts and avoid gossip. Analysis, yes. Whistledown, no. newsletter.journalology.com
newsletter.journalology.com
Journalology | James Butcher | Substack
Journalology collates and analyses scholarly publishing news. Click to read Journalology, by James Butcher, a Substack publication with thousands of subscribers.
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James Butcher @journalology.com · 23/03/2026
When I had a corporate job I rarely went to publishing industry events. Indeed, 99% of people working in scholarly publishing don't have that opportunity. I'm now on the conference circuit fairly regularly and often see the same (Caucasian) faces in the coffee queue.
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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
👋
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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
Thanks, Stu. As you know, I'm firmly of the opinion that social media = distraction machine. I am dipping a toe into the Bluesky waters (oxymoron?!?) as an experiment.
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James Butcher @journalology.com · 23/03/2026
Small correction: RELX spends $2B on tech. Elsevier probably accounts for a thrid of that. Regardless, it's a lot of cash. We may not like the large profit margins, but they're possible because of significant capital investment.
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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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