my world is crumbling!

July 8, 2010 at 9:22 am | | literature, news

What the what?!?

JACS will now consider Communications of any length up to 4 journal pages and will include the Abstract in the PDF and print versions, starting with Volume 132, issue 27 (July 14, 2010). Authors should refer to the online Information for Authors and use the Communications template when submitting Communications.

Four pages is not a letter. That’s an article, dammit. And abstracts for letters. WTF? No no no. This is all wrong.

What’s the best part of JACS Comms? That they’re short and sweet. You can actually read the damn things, instead of just reading the abstract and looking at the pretty pictures (like we all do with full articles). No longer. Now JACS Comms will be long and complex. Boo.

Instead of destroying the sanctity of the blessed JACS Comm, ACS should have added an intermediate category between Comms and Full Papers.

This is almost as bad as when ACS defaced the elegant JACS by adding images!

(Unlike FSP, I really am a curmudgeon.)

3 Comments »

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  1. Physical Review Letters has been four pages since time immemorial, and is a fine number by me. My favourite length, actually.

    Comment by PhilipJ — July 8, 2010 #

  2. I understand the appeal of the 2-page Comm format, but wow is it annoying to read one and find that there’s really 9 additional pages with all the important info tacked on as an online supporting file.

    Comment by Doug Natelson — July 8, 2010 #

  3. there will still be 9 additional pages in the supporting information now that the Comms are 4 pages.

    Comment by sam — July 8, 2010 #

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