woensdag 4 juli 2012

Ecological Economics must be economizing on language editors

How else can you explain the publication of a paper with the title

Economical sustainability of pinestraw raking in slash pine stands in the southeastern United States

Economical? As in the meaning of "thrifty"? What on Earth is "thrifty sustainability"?

I can forgive my students, especially non-economists, making this mistake, and as a non-native English speaker I understand the confusion between "economy" and "economics", the Dutch translation of which is "economie" in both cases. But I wouldn't expect such a mistake in the title of a paper in an international peer-reviewed journal that has "economics" in the name.

I know I'm being a bit of a language nazi here, but the point is also that Ecological Economics has a strange position in the environmental economics literature. The quality of the publications varies wildly between highly influential and original ideas on one hand, and vague econophobic claptrap on the other. Nevertheless, its impact factor is high enough to make it an A-journal. Perhaps that is why I have so far submitted most of my papers to that journal.

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