Tradeoffs Among Editorial Goals in Complex Publishing Environments

Abstract

Editors need to think about their intrinsic rewards, and hence about their motives and goals. Why do you want to serve as an editor? What satisfactions do you hope to receive from the experience? Recognition? Visibility? Methodological change? Establishment of a nascent research domain? Incremental improvement in an established domain? Promote the development of a sub-discipline? This chapter offers an explicit analysis of some central choices that editors can make about their roles. Reflecting on these choices can help editors to use their time and efforts more effectively and to see the advantages and disadvantages of their activities.

Some editors achieve greater success than do others. Circulations, subscription revenues, downloads, and citations offer quantitative evidence. The historical statistics include instances in which citations to a specific journal have risen dramatically, or plummeted, during one editor’s term and then stabilized when that editor left the job.

Keywords: editing, journals, editorial goals, performance