A few months ago I registered on Elsevier’s clunky old on-line manuscript submissions site and submitted a paper to Journal of Archaeological Science. It got turned down because the two peer reviewers disagreed on whether it should be accepted or not. No biggie: I resubmitted elsewhere. Today Elsevier Science & Technology Journals spammed the address I submitted from with an offer of language revision!
Need help getting published? Elsevier Language services can help youDear Dr. Martin Rundkvist,
Could expert language editing improve your chances of getting published?
• Language Editing
• Language Editing PlusOur language editing team will make sure your manuscript is written in the highest standard of English.
We will correct spelling, grammatical and punctuation errors. We will also check for problems in parallelisms, tense and conjugations and eliminate improper language and poor word choice.
No, Elsevier, I do not need help getting published. I have a rather comfortable body of work in the scholarly literature, thank you. Nor do I need your help with language revision. You see, I’m the editor and main language revisor of an international journal. Do you have any idea how unprofessional it is to a) spam contributors to your journals, b) suggest in said spam that they may need some help to get into print? Shouldn’t you employ marketing people who know a little something about academics and academic publishing?