Ramblings on academic-related matters. For information on my research see https://www.psy.ox.ac.uk/research/oxford-study-of-children-s-communication-i

BishopBlog: What is going on at the Journal of Psycholinguistic Research?

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2024-10-24 06:00:08

Ramblings on academic-related matters. For information on my research see https://www.psy.ox.ac.uk/research/oxford-study-of-children-s-communication-impairments. Twin analysis blog: http://dbtemp.blogspot.com/ . ERP time-frequency analysis blog: bishoptechbits.blogspot.com/ . For tweets, follow @deevybee.

Last week this blog focussed on problems affecting Scientific Reports, a mega-journal published by Springer Nature. This week I look at a journal at the opposite end of the spectrum, the Journal of Psycholinguistic Research (JPR), a small, specialist journal which has published just 2187 papers since it was founded in 1971. This is fewer than Scientific Reports publishes in one year. It was brought to my attention by Anna Abalkina because it shows every sign of having been targeted by one or more Eastern European paper mills.

Now, this was really surprising to me. JPR was founded in 1971 by Robert Rieber, whose obituaries in the New York Times and the American Psychologist confirm he had a distinguished career (though both misnamed JPR!). The Advisory and Editorial boards of the journal are peppered with names of famous linguists and psychologists, starting with Noam Chomsky. So there is a sense that if this can happen to JPR, no journal is safe.