That, was almost, completely unreadable, whoever, wrote it definitely needs, some, help.

I guess Forbes is financially unable to hire an editor. If only there were some sort of publication that would note such business troubles....

ecmoRandomNumbers: DistendedPendulusFrenulum: That, was almost, completely unreadable, whoever, wrote it definitely needs, some, help.

THANK YOU!

God, I thought my ADD was kicking in or I was having a seizure. I couldn't get past the first two paragraphs.

As it is. I couldn't either, and I wanted to. Shoot, the man.

Make More Hinjews: ecmoRandomNumbers: DistendedPendulusFrenulum: That, was almost, completely unreadable, whoever, wrote it definitely needs, some, help.

THANK YOU!

God, I thought my ADD was kicking in or I was having a seizure. I couldn't get past the first two paragraphs.

As it is. I couldn't either, and I wanted to. Shoot, the man.

I, don't see the problem, with the article. It appeared. To be pretty good-writed, to me.

I guess we now know what William Shatner's doing post-Priceline.

This guy, obviously, gets paid per comma.

The piece, on the whole, is unreadable. Finding others, here on Fark, reaching the same conclusion gives me comfort, in a manner of speaking. Comma.

This was in the economist last week if you want a version that's actually well-written: http://www.economist.com/node/21545974

The editing, the checking, the decisions about whether to publish, these are all also done for free to you.



Who's doing what to me and for how much?

I thought it was just me. Glad to see I'm not the only one who thought the writing was stupid stupid stupid.

DistendedPendulusFrenulum: That, was almost, completely unreadable, whoever, wrote it definitely needs, some, help.

Do you know how I know you've likely never read a scientific publication?

Up in smoke? That's where I wanna' be.

About frickin' time. As the article says, the pebble that starts the avalanche.

Now if I dare to dream - Perhaps next we'll see publicly funded research forced into the public domain, rather than going straight to Monsanto's shareholders. Ah, good times, good times! Down with the bourgeois gatekeepers of science!

Couldn't happen to a nicer guy publisher. Seriously, ALL academic journals are expensive, but given what I've heard about Elsevier, they are so profitable because they are extortionate, rent-seeking bandits:

One method that they have for getting away with it is a practice known as "bundling", where instead of giving libraries the choice of which journals they want to subscribe to, they offer them the choice between a large collection of journals (chosen by them) or nothing at all. So if some Elsevier journals in the "bundle" are indispensable to a library, that library is forced to subscribe at very high subscription rates to a large number of journals, across all the sciences, many of which they do not want.

Elsevier supports many of the measures, such as the Research Works Act, that attempt to stop the move to open access. They also supported SOPA and PIPA and lobbied strongly for them.

In general, why are the results of someone else's research, paid for largely by taxpayer's money, copyrighted by the journal where it was published? The authors don't get a cut of the sales in return. The taxpayers who paid for it all don't have access to the results, unless they do it through a university library who paid through the nose for it. Years after publication costs have been recovered, articles are still behind a subscription wall.

I'll be ecstatic if, in ten years, the Open Access movement has taken a big bite out of the commercial journals... even if browbeaten grad students still dream of publishing in Nature or Cell instead of PLOS.

Fark: If we don't understand TFA, we can at least complain about commas.

ecmoRandomNumbers: DistendedPendulusFrenulum: That, was almost, completely unreadable, whoever, wrote it definitely needs, some, help.

THANK YOU!

God, I thought my ADD was kicking in or I was having a seizure. I couldn't get past the first two paragraphs.

Yup. Thought I put my glasses on upside down.

rico567: ecmoRandomNumbers: DistendedPendulusFrenulum: That, was almost, completely unreadable, whoever, wrote it definitely needs, some, help.

THANK YOU!

God, I thought my ADD was kicking in or I was having a seizure. I couldn't get past the first two paragraphs.

Yup. Thought I put my glasses on upside down.

in my mind, it was like...Christopher Walken, had, you know, dictated it...

But there will always be enough junior level scientists and authors who are desperate for publications and who will submit their papers to Elsevier Journals. The more people that boycott them, the easier it will be for people like me to get our papers published in Elsevier journals.

That is some wanton cruelty to the common comma right there. Did they change the punctuation rules in Britain while I wasn't looking?

it takes some basic comma sense to master the english language

So - peer review science goes out the window because no one can be arsed waiting for some pedants to methodically go through experimental technique, results, results analysis, and conclusions.

Science. Soon to be as accurate as Wikipedia.

narkor: Science. Soon to be as accurate as Wikipedia.

I am comma-blind. For me the article was easy.

My personal favorites:

"everything is moving/has moved online" and "get/keep their jobs"

Who writes/reads like this?

Ramien: That is some wanton cruelty to the common comma right there. Did they change the punctuation rules in Britain while I wasn't looking?

That's a comma misconception. Remember, in large numbers, there's a comma, between each three, digits in it, to keep it, easy to read.

It,s sad, when, a vald point, is lost, I the, commas,.

Valid even

catastrophe averted: My personal favorites:

"everything is moving/has moved online" and "get/keep their jobs"

Who writes/reads like this?

He saved/wasted your time by condensing/confusing/mixing his words. It isn't his fault that you didn't accept/understand/like/read/parse/conjugate/bind/collate/wash/rinse/re peat/stop/drop/roll/reduce/reuse/recycle/enjoy it.

The new rule is, that you need to add, a comma, whenever you take, a breath.

/How does Forbes allow this drivel?

HotIgneous Intruder: /How does Forbes allow this drivel?

I hear they get journalism students to write it for them for free and then they make YOU pay to read it.

drsewell: It,s sad, when, a vald point, is lost, I the, commas,.

drsewell: Valid even

I am inventing a new word, for this, writing style.

It is, "vald."

As in, "Her piece had some merit, but it was way too vald with comma usage for public consumption."

Great, now the Khajit will try something else to get those moon sugar and skooma.

catastrophe averted: My personal favorites:

"everything is moving/has moved online" and "get/keep their jobs"

Who writes/reads like this?

Mid-sentence slashies? That dog won't hunt, Monsignor.

Dracolich: catastrophe averted: My personal favorites:

"everything is moving/has moved online" and "get/keep their jobs"

Who writes/reads like this?

He saved/wasted your time by condensing/confusing/mixing his words. It isn't his fault that you didn't accept/understand/like/read/parse/conjugate/bind/collate/wash/rinse/re peat/stop/drop/roll/reduce/reuse/recycle/enjoy it.

That is the best laugh out loud I've had in a month! Thank you, sir!

Make More Hinjews: drsewell: It,s sad, when, a vald point, is lost, I the, commas,.

drsewell: Valid even

I am inventing a new word, for this, writing style.

It is, "vald."

As in, "Her piece had some merit, but it was way too vald with comma usage for public consumption."

Vald. A perfectly cromulent word. I shall incorporate it into my online dictionary.

Make More Hinjews: drsewell: It,s sad, when, a vald point, is lost, I the, commas,.

drsewell: Valid even

I am inventing a new word, for this, writing style.

It is, "vald."

As in, "Her piece had some merit, but it was way too vald with comma usage for public consumption."

I totally agree. I seriously don't get this generation with all the vald pieces. Hello, there's nothing wrong with just trimming a little. Damn near prepubescent looking when her piece is vald.

/v? what?

One of the driving forces behind this is the way that researchers are assessed and promoted. If you want to advance your career as an academic you have to publish, ideally in the prestigious, "high impact" journals. The number of your papers and where they were published gets turned into a metric that's compared with that of the other candidates. That's what allows the journal publishers to get away with their extortion - they are guaranteed a steady stream of papers by people competing for a dwindling number of posts.

If you're a professor with a secure reputation then you can afford to publish wherever you want, but if you're a young nobody trying to make a name for yourself, then your options are a lot more restricted. If you really want to change the stranglehold of the publishers, then you need change the way that you judge academics and their work.

Bad_Seed: If you really want to change the stranglehold of the publishers, then you need change the way that you judge academics and their work.

Thumb wrestling skill? Horseshoe throwing? Back fat percentage? Eyebrow to forehead ratio?

/you're right though

miss diminutive: Bad_Seed: If you really want to change the stranglehold of the publishers, then you need change the way that you judge academics and their work.

Thumb wrestling skill? Horseshoe throwing? Back fat percentage? Eyebrow to forehead ratio?

/you're right though

If we could have gone with eyebrow to forehead ratio, I might still be an academic.

No Such Agency: Couldn't happen to a nicer guy publisher. Seriously, ALL academic journals are expensive, but given what I've heard about Elsevier, they are so profitable because they are extortionate, rent-seeking bandits:

One method that they have for getting away with it is a practice known as "bundling", where instead of giving libraries the choice of which journals they want to subscribe to, they offer them the choice between a large collection of journals (chosen by them) or nothing at all. So if some Elsevier journals in the "bundle" are indispensable to a library, that library is forced to subscribe at very high subscription rates to a large number of journals, across all the sciences, many of which they do not want.

that sounds a bit illegal (new window)

Currently using 2 Elsevier textbooks for partially online classes. Oh, boy are they expensive!!!

Getting a kick, etc.

Came to comment on the atrocious writing. Mind you, I was a late-comer to grammar myself.

/still no excuse
//vald!

miss diminutive: Bad_Seed: If you really want to change the stranglehold of the publishers, then you need change the way that you judge academics and their work.

Thumb wrestling skill? Horseshoe throwing? Back fat percentage? Eyebrow to forehead ratio?

/you're right though

Something that's less mechanical. People invent indexes and metrics because they think that quantifying something and slapping a number on it is more "objective" and less prone to prejudice and favouritism, But every metric can be gamed and you often create perverse incentives that lead people to simply increase their score instead of doing more of what the metric is supposed to be measuring (also applied to standardised testing). The problem we have today is that people have a mistrust or old-fashioned human judgement.

Bad_Seed: The problem we have today is that people have a mistrust or old-fashioned human judgement.

Or fear lawsuits or grievances filed for "discrimination".

Monkeyfark Ridiculous:
that sounds a bit illegal (new window)

Well yes it does, but your own link shows that companies try to get away with it all the time. I'm sure Elsevier has some sneaky way of making their arrangement quasi-legal. Non-bundled subscriptions may simply be usuriously expensive.

LeroyB: This guy, obviously, gets paid per comma.

IF only there were some sort of guide or sutra on how to use that punctuation mark

If you write a 'news' article and you quote blogs and commentors of blogs, you have failed as a journalist and at life

that is all