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Scholarly Journals Die a Proper Electronic Death

Electronic Research!The Christian Science Monitor recently reported the timely and appropriate death of elitist hardcopy scholarly journals — a welcome and deserved demise and here’s why:

For years, traditional “peer review” has come under fire. A jury of three experts, the peer reviewers, assess each article and recommend only those that they feel represent the most significant new work.

At many elite scientific journals, fewer than 10 percent of the articles submitted are accepted. Many of the rejected articles eventually travel down the “food chain” to be published in a plethora of less prestigious (and less noticed) specialty journals.

A year ago, the respected US journal Science was forced to retract two papers it had published about stem cells. The articles had been submitted by a South Korean team led by Hwang Woo-Suk.

Peer reviewers, as well as the editors, had failed to detect the fraud. In general, peer reviewers, themselves researchers pressed for time, don’t try to re-create experiments and rarely ask to see the raw data that supports a paper’s conclusions.

While peer review is expected to separate the wheat from the chaff, it’s “slow, expensive, profligate of academic time, highly subjective, prone to bias, easily abused, poor at detecting gross defects, and almost useless for detecting fraud,” summed up one critic in BMJ, the British medical journal, in 1997.

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Favorites of 2006

I’m not anticipating anything earthshattering to be released or to happen in the next fifteen days and so I present to you my favorites of 2006 a good two weeks earlier than it has been traditionally released.

Music
A lot of albums were released during the year but not a lot of them caught my attention, and many of those that did somehow didn’t manage to keep it for all that long. I have two albums in mind for this year – the eponymous Pearl Jam release and the soundtrack to the Disney film High School Musical.

Pearl Jam’s eponymous album was a nice return to a strong rocking band. It takes its place among some of my favorite albums ever. From the moment you open up the avocado emblazened album and put it in to the last moments of the last song you realize what a good thing you have. I was particularly pleased with the fact that for a limited time Pearl Jam basically gave away the mp3 of the first single off of the album, “World Wide Suicide.” I was unable to see them when they were playing at The Gorge in George, Washington (yes, very funny) but I know that the next time they are around I will certainly make a good effort to see them. The album as a whole is a no-punches held back crticism of the current government in power in the United States and the directions that we have taken in foreign policy. I think you could say that the band doesn’t particularly agree with the direction being taken.

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Favorites of 2005

The yearly tradition of writing about the year in the last 48 hours that remain of the year continues, with 2005 being yet another spectacular one for favorites. I once more reiterate the standard year end disclaimer that these are just my favorites, and that you very well may detest each and every single item that I so adore.

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Believing in the Dead

Do you believe in the Dead? Or do you believe the Dead crumble into dust? I’m not talking about the Grateful Dead, I’m talking about what you are when you are no longer living. A deeply religious friend of mine believes there is a “thin veil” between the living and the Dead and you can communicate with those who have passed if you are sensitive enough and aware enough to either peer through the veil or strong enough to fold back a corner of the veil for a clear angle to touch.

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Do You Need an Agent?

Yes, you need an Agent if you plan to have a serious career as an author — especially as a book author — because an Agent has value in adding what you don’t know to the publishing equation. In my Writing Advice for Authors message, I dug into the process of writing and I also touched on the importance of having an Agent on your side no matter what sort of paid writing path you choose to pursue.

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Boles Books Goes Live

I am pleased to announce my newest website — Boles Books — that will allow you to more easily purchase and read books, articles, videos, monographs and research papers written by me, David W. Boles, and my collaborators.

As well, Boles Books is a good contact portal for Publishers who need an established author who can write good and fast and on deadline.
You can sign up for a newsletter on the website so you can stay in the loop on new projects and other items for sale.

The site is still developing, but you can go there now and poke around to see a suggestion of what the site will look like in the future.

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Hand Jive: American Sign Language for Real Life

I am pleased to announce my book with Janna M. Sweenie, Hand Jive: American Sign Langue for Real Life is a done deal. This will be a funky and fantastic look at ASL and how you can learn to communicate with the Deaf in a fast and furious way.

Barnes and Noble logo

Our book will be published by Barnes and Noble Publishing, Inc., (yes, they publish books as well as sell them!) and the book will be distributed by Sterling.

Hand Jive: American Sign Langue for Real Life will be available for purchase in the Fall of 2006 and for more information on this book and other exciting ongoing and future projects, be sure to visit us online at http://BolesBooks.com.

Be sure to check out the book cover art.