Questions tagged [journals]

Questions about mathematical publishing, including specific journals, peer review etc.

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290 votes
34 answers
38k views

Which journals publish expository work?

I wonder if anyone else has noticed that the market for expository papers in mathematics is very narrow (more so than it used to be, perhaps). Are there any journals which publish expository work, ...
225 votes
11 answers
25k views

Refereeing a Paper [closed]

I've refereed at least a dozen papers in my (short) career so far and I still find the process completely baffling. I'm wondering what is actually expected and what people tend to do... Some things ...
164 votes
22 answers
25k views

When should a supervisor be a co-author?

What are people's views on this? To be specific: suppose a PhD student has produced a piece of original mathematical research. Suppose that student's supervisor suggested the problem, and gave a few ...
163 votes
9 answers
28k views

Endless controversy about the correctness of significant papers

In principle, a mathematical paper should be complete and correct. New statements should be supported by appropriate proofs. But this is only theory. Because we often cannot enter into the smallest ...
120 votes
41 answers
28k views

What are some very important papers published in non-top journals?

There has already been a question about important papers that were initially rejected. Many of the answers were very interesting. The question is here. My concern in this question is slightly ...
117 votes
13 answers
14k views

How do I fix someone's published error?

Paper A is in the literature, and has been for more than a decade. An error is discovered in paper A and is substantial in that many details are affected, although certain fundamental properties ...
113 votes
15 answers
54k views

Top specialized journals

In geometry/topology, there are (at least) three specialized journals that end up publishing a large fraction of the best papers in the subject -- Geometry and Topology, JDG, and GAFA. What journals ...
102 votes
8 answers
10k views

When should a result be made into a paper?

I recently posted a short (6 page) note on arXiv, and have more or less decided that I should not submit it to a journal. I could have tacked it onto the end of a previous paper, but I thought it ...
99 votes
2 answers
11k views

Extent of “unscientific”, and of wrong, papers in research mathematics

This question is cross-posted from academia.stackexchange.com where it got closed with the advice of posting it on MO. Kevin Buzzard's slides (PDF version) at a recent conference have really ...
96 votes
8 answers
95k views

Which are the best mathematics journals, and what are the differences between them? [closed]

Suppose you have a draft paper that you think is pretty good, and people tell you that you should submit it to a top journal. How do you work out where to send it to? Coming up with a shortlist isn't ...
95 votes
6 answers
6k views

Peer review 2.0

I have an idea for a website that could improve some well-known difficulties around peer review system and "hidden knowledge" in mathematics. It seems like a low hanging fruit that many ...
76 votes
33 answers
18k views

Free open-access peer-reviewed math journals

Is there any free (as in free beer, i.e., no publication fees or other fees whatsoever), open-access (free and open access to everyone) and peer-reviewed mathematics journal? I am interested in a ...
73 votes
17 answers
9k views

Mathematical research published in the form of poems

The article Friedrich Wille: Galerkins Lösungsnäherungen bei monotonen Abbildungen, Math. Z. 127 (1972), no. 1, 10-16 is written in the form of a lengthy poem, in a style similar to that of the ...
65 votes
6 answers
8k views

Does a referee have to check carefully the proof ?

I have always checked very carefully the papers I was refereeing when I wanted to suggest "accept". Actually I spend almost as much time checking the maths of a paper I referee than checking the maths ...
61 votes
10 answers
49k views

Should I not cite an arxiv.org paper which otherwise seems to be unpublished?

I want to cite a paper which is on arxiv.org but is not published or reviewed anywhere, and no publication or review seems to be in the pipeline. Would citing this arxiv.org paper be bad? Should I ...
60 votes
9 answers
5k views

Publishing conjectures

One has written a paper, the main contribution of which is a few conjectures. Several known theorems turned out to be special cases of the conjectures, however no new case of the conjectures was ...
60 votes
4 answers
5k views

A question about MathSciNet etiquette

Hello, Recently, a colleague of mine pointed me to a MathSciNet review of one of my papers that is completely off the mark - it is not negative or anything like that, but it grossly misrepresents the ...
59 votes
7 answers
7k views

What to do if you notice a substantial improvement to a result in a paper whilst refereeing it?

What would you do/have you done in such a situation? Hand out the improvement for free in your report Wait until the result is published and then submit elsewhere Inform the editor about the ...
57 votes
5 answers
6k views

What about a mathematics journal for 'negative' results?

In the empirical sciences, there are a number of journals that publish 'negative' results. Negative or null results occur when researchers are unable to confirm the findings obtained from earlier ...
55 votes
7 answers
3k views

On referee-author communications

Every time I referee a paper, I dream of a system which would allow me to ask the author a question without troubling the editors. It would save time for everyone involved, most importanly the referee;...
54 votes
6 answers
15k views

Publication rates in Mathematics

Have there been any studies of publication rates in Mathematics? We are trying to construct a workload model for the Faculty of Science and Engineering at my institution. Part of this involves ...
54 votes
6 answers
6k views

What happened to online articles published in K-theory (Springer journal)?

As most people probably know, the journal "K-theory" used to be published by Springer, but was discontinued after the editorial board resigned around 2007. The editors (or many of them) started the ...
54 votes
8 answers
6k views

Proper way to deal with papers you've already refereed.

This question is anonymous for obvious reasons. I referee what feels like a decent number of papers (though I don't know how many is normal!), and I try to take it seriously. Sometimes, based on ...
52 votes
10 answers
6k views

Where to publish a math textbook in Creative Commons

The question I am asking concerns publishing and not mathematics in a strict sense, the argument might be off-topic for this site... but I will try anyway. Suppose that you are writing a textbook in ...
51 votes
5 answers
4k views

How to resolve a disagreement about a mathematical proof?

I am having a problem which should not exist. I am reading what I believe to be an important paper by a person - let me call him/her $A$ - whom I believe to be a serious and talented mathematician. A ...
50 votes
11 answers
10k views

Publishing papers that became classics before they were submitted

Sometimes the following happens: a result is proven, but the author never submits a paper for publication. In some cases, a preprint appears. In some cases, the proof is so short that it can be ...
49 votes
3 answers
13k views

how to use arxiv?

This is a soft question. How do people usually use arxiv to put their papers? At which stage does one usually put his/her paper/report there? Someone suggests me to submit a paper while putting it on ...
48 votes
7 answers
19k views

How to correct an error in a submitted paper?

Suppose that after submitting a paper for publication, but before hearing anything back from the referee, I discover an error in the paper that needs to be corrected, or an omission that needs to be ...
46 votes
14 answers
12k views

How to select a journal?

What are good criteria for selecting a journal to submit a paper to? One criterion per answer, please. It is easy to group journals by subject and prestige, but is there a thought-process that you ...
46 votes
5 answers
5k views

Publishing journals articles without transferring copyright.

I'm a grad student getting close to submitting my first journal article (which will be single-authored). My understanding is that it's standard practice for authors to transfer the copyright of their ...
45 votes
3 answers
18k views

Submission of a paper with a serious error to a good journal

I recently obtained (or so I thought) a good result, and after a month of reading and rereading what I'd written, submitted my paper to a very good journal. I'm early in my career (got my Ph.D. a few ...
45 votes
4 answers
1k views

How to write computer-assisted mathematics well?

Much has been said about writting good papers in mathematics. A short google query yields countless sources of advice. This skill also appears to be quite transferrable between basic branches of ...
44 votes
9 answers
4k views

Journals and other sources with "easy reading" papers?

Some time ago the journal "Algebra and Analysis" (English translation is published in "St. Petersburg Mathematical Journal") had a special section which was called "easy readings for professional ...
44 votes
3 answers
9k views

Publishing a Simple Paper as an Undergraduate

First off I apologize if this question does not belong here, I would be happy to hear about any better locations to post this on. I am a (first year) undergraduate mathematics student, and I recently ...
41 votes
4 answers
8k views

Math papers where the only issue is that someone else could've done it but didn't

Do editors for top math journals ever read a submitted paper, agree that there are no mistakes and the result is new, yet still reject it on the basis that this is a top math journal and someone could'...
41 votes
6 answers
13k views

Submitting to arXiv when unaffiliated

I am writing a short paper in the area of combinatorics. When the paper is complete, I would like to be able to submit it to arXiv. The reasons that I would like to submit to arXiv are: To obtain a ...
41 votes
4 answers
4k views

Missing citations of "to appear" papers on MathSciNet

Recently, looking at my author profile on MathSciNet (Am I a narcissist?), I saw that my citations counter is lower than what I expected. After a while, I realized what the problem is: Many of my ...
Maxxt's user avatar
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40 votes
5 answers
7k views

Publishing mathematical coincidences

I've always wondered how some "mathematical coincidences" are published, or spread to a wider audience. For instance, the almost integer: $$ e^\pi -\pi = 19.9990999\ldots $$ was "noticed almost ...
40 votes
5 answers
3k views

Access to journals during pandemic

I have just graduated from the University of Chicago and no longer have access to online journal resources, but I cannot afford to pay for them directly. Normally, I would be able to access library ...
39 votes
4 answers
5k views

Should one post a paper on the arXiv if it is not intended to be published?

A brief description: I have written a paper which contains a new result which I believe is somewhat important but not vital to the field. It is a generalization of an existing proof to get ...
38 votes
21 answers
16k views

Journals for undergraduates

Are there math journals that are aimed for undergraduates? I don't mean here journals where students can publish their papers, but journals that publish introductory articles that an undergraduate can ...
38 votes
9 answers
3k views

A series of articles should be published all in the same journal, or in different journals?

There is a series of papers, which build on each other, to be published. The series starts with purely mathematical articles, and ends with articles oriented to some applications. What would be the ...
38 votes
5 answers
5k views

Requesting a referee's report on my paper from a math journal

I have been in situations when I submitted a paper to a math journal, but at the end of the refereeing process the final report was not sent to me. It has happened both in case when my paper was ...
38 votes
1 answer
5k views

Published AI-generated nonsense math papers

I guess most of us know that one can easily automatically generate a math-like nonsense paper, and that it is possible to have such a paper published. However, I was quite sure that nobody actually ...
Mateusz Kwaśnicki's user avatar
37 votes
6 answers
6k views

Obsessive editing/revising of math papers

I've been wanting to ask this question, because I have no insights into the way other mathematicians prepare papers (for eventual publication). How much are editing, revising, updating, adding to, ...
36 votes
8 answers
6k views

Submitting a companion paper with detailed proofs ?

In papers there are often sketchy arguments in proofs that I find hard to understand. Filling in the gaps is laborious and time-consuming. According to the post www.mathoverflow.net/questions/40729/...
36 votes
3 answers
3k views

On Mathematical Analysis of MathSciNet & MathOverflow

This question has two original motivations: mathematical and social. The mathematical motivation is mainly based on what I have seen about Zipf's law here and there. The Zipf's law simply states ...
Morteza Azad's user avatar
36 votes
3 answers
5k views

Dealing with unwanted co-authorship requests

This post is a sequel to: Collaboration or acknowledgment? The following has come to my attention. A senior mathematician (let us call him or her Alice) suggested a problem to a young mathematician (...
36 votes
7 answers
3k views

Papers in which the questions were more interesting than the results

I am looking for examples of recently (last 20 years, say) published math papers such that: the results/examples were fairly trivial (by this I mean anyone with the definitions and standard ...
36 votes
2 answers
3k views

Does anyone want a pretty Maass form?

A few months ago, I was curious about some properties of Maass cusp forms, of nonabelian arithmetic origin. As a result, I went through a somewhat predictable process of finding a totally real $A_4$ ...

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