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The persuasion of style
The Editor's Chair I DennisW. Organ, Editor
The Persuasion of Style or, How to Risk Not Getting a Paper Published in Business Horizons
o paraphrase the prophet Amos, I am neither a stylist nor the son of a stylist. Far be it from me to instruct our contributors in the finer matters of sentence structure, choice of metaphors, or paragraph length. Those who write for us have ampler authorities from which to draw. Still, it should occasion neither surprise nor outrage to discover that, regardless of substance, certain characteristics of manuscripts predispose me toward favor or disfavor. Thus, in the interest of fairness, I thought I should divulge to prospective contributors some exemplars of characteristics that put their manuscripts in at least some fleeting jeopardy. To begin with, a cover letter addressed to "Professor Harvey Bunke" registers some immediate disapproval. I refer here not to any slight to my ego and certainly not to any lack of respect for my predecessor. But nearly five years have elapsed since Harv dealt with any B H manuscripts, and more than four years' worth of B H issues have appeared without his name on tile masthead. From such a cover letter, I c o n c l u d e - not unreasonably, I think--that the author has not looked carefully (if at all) at any issues during that time, and probably has no idea of what has already appeared in our pages during this interval on the relevant topic. Forgive me if I grant ever-so-slight an advantage to those authors who appear to have glanced at our product a few times in the last four years. I feel some vexation as well when I find a manuscript that has not undergone even the most cursory proofreading. When I see page after page of errors and oversights--lines repeated, lines missing, pages out of order, misspellings--I cannot help but think that the care given to the substance has also suffered. Even worse, I take oflense that a writer would have no greater respect
T
for me, our reviewers, and our staff than to deliver a product in such shoddy condition. One particularly annoying oversight is a lack of pagination. When I need to direct an author's attention to certain statements in different parts of the manuscript, I don't like having to number the pages myself and then tell the author I did so--trying to indicate whether I numbered them such that the cover page, or the abstract page, or the first text page, counts as page 1. A manuscript loses a point or two in my mind when I see a statement such as "long hours of work under adverse conditions represent an important cause of job stress (Brown, White, and Gray 1976; Rogers, Autry, and Cassidy 1984; Martin and Lewis 1985; Athos, Porthos, Aramis, and D'Artagnan 1988; Chillingworth, 1993)." Such an assertion probably qualifies as a redundancy anyway, but an author who wants to make it explicit certainly does not need to cite an "authority." And if there is any doubt that the reader would take the statement at face value, a single illustrative reference should suffice. In fact, if you can dispense with citations in the text altogether, except for direct quotes, that would be best of all. We try to provide text that is more "readable" than many academic journals, and having parentheses scattered indiscriminately throughout an article tends to interrupt the flow, Some papers put a damper on my interest when they overdo the listing of things. Lists {whether the items are numbered or offset by bullet points) do not make for lively reading. Though I would not hang anyone who highlights a few important elements, my enthusiasm for the message starts to fade after the third or fourth list of 7, 9, or 12 items. Considering I have a vested interest in steeling myself to continue reading as closely as I can, I figure the casual reader will give up in the early going.
The more manuscripts I read, the more I find myself reacting to certain predictable forms of rhetorical hype. I wish I had a nickel for every time I've encountered the words "crucial," "critical," "extremely complex," and "imperative," among others. I'd love to have a dollar for every paper that, in its opening page, refers to the "ever increasing pace of change in the business environment," or "today's turbulent marketplace." If I thought it would make a difference, I'd be glad to stipulate right now for the record that ours is a "unique" era in that respect---even though I don't for one second believe it--just to dispense with the urgency of making the claim. (Who knows? The next time I see such a statement, I might even see myself cited as a reference for it.)
2
Please don't read me as saying that I attend first and foremost to form. I can tolerate a multitude of sins in a paper that promises to deliver a demonstrable value-added contribution to our readers. Our staff will take care of the line editing. But at the margin, subjective reactions to a paper can and do bear upon the ultimate assessment of a manuscript. What we're talking about here has much in c o m m o n with a first impression at a job interview. We all k n o w the decision whether or not to hire someone shouldn't hinge on such "irrelevant" considerations as punctuality, dress, posture, eye contact, and handshake. We also k n o w that, in fact, such things do count toward winnowing out the pack of applicants. Give yourself every chance of getting a fair reading from me. ~3
Business Horizons / March-April 1999
The Persuasion of Style or, How to Risk Not Getting a Paper Published in Business Horizons
o paraphrase the prophet Amos, I am neither a stylist nor the son of a stylist. Far be it from me to instruct our contributors in the finer matters of sentence structure, choice of metaphors, or paragraph length. Those who write for us have ampler authorities from which to draw. Still, it should occasion neither surprise nor outrage to discover that, regardless of substance, certain characteristics of manuscripts predispose me toward favor or disfavor. Thus, in the interest of fairness, I thought I should divulge to prospective contributors some exemplars of characteristics that put their manuscripts in at least some fleeting jeopardy. To begin with, a cover letter addressed to "Professor Harvey Bunke" registers some immediate disapproval. I refer here not to any slight to my ego and certainly not to any lack of respect for my predecessor. But nearly five years have elapsed since Harv dealt with any B H manuscripts, and more than four years' worth of B H issues have appeared without his name on tile masthead. From such a cover letter, I c o n c l u d e - not unreasonably, I think--that the author has not looked carefully (if at all) at any issues during that time, and probably has no idea of what has already appeared in our pages during this interval on the relevant topic. Forgive me if I grant ever-so-slight an advantage to those authors who appear to have glanced at our product a few times in the last four years. I feel some vexation as well when I find a manuscript that has not undergone even the most cursory proofreading. When I see page after page of errors and oversights--lines repeated, lines missing, pages out of order, misspellings--I cannot help but think that the care given to the substance has also suffered. Even worse, I take oflense that a writer would have no greater respect
T
for me, our reviewers, and our staff than to deliver a product in such shoddy condition. One particularly annoying oversight is a lack of pagination. When I need to direct an author's attention to certain statements in different parts of the manuscript, I don't like having to number the pages myself and then tell the author I did so--trying to indicate whether I numbered them such that the cover page, or the abstract page, or the first text page, counts as page 1. A manuscript loses a point or two in my mind when I see a statement such as "long hours of work under adverse conditions represent an important cause of job stress (Brown, White, and Gray 1976; Rogers, Autry, and Cassidy 1984; Martin and Lewis 1985; Athos, Porthos, Aramis, and D'Artagnan 1988; Chillingworth, 1993)." Such an assertion probably qualifies as a redundancy anyway, but an author who wants to make it explicit certainly does not need to cite an "authority." And if there is any doubt that the reader would take the statement at face value, a single illustrative reference should suffice. In fact, if you can dispense with citations in the text altogether, except for direct quotes, that would be best of all. We try to provide text that is more "readable" than many academic journals, and having parentheses scattered indiscriminately throughout an article tends to interrupt the flow, Some papers put a damper on my interest when they overdo the listing of things. Lists {whether the items are numbered or offset by bullet points) do not make for lively reading. Though I would not hang anyone who highlights a few important elements, my enthusiasm for the message starts to fade after the third or fourth list of 7, 9, or 12 items. Considering I have a vested interest in steeling myself to continue reading as closely as I can, I figure the casual reader will give up in the early going.
The more manuscripts I read, the more I find myself reacting to certain predictable forms of rhetorical hype. I wish I had a nickel for every time I've encountered the words "crucial," "critical," "extremely complex," and "imperative," among others. I'd love to have a dollar for every paper that, in its opening page, refers to the "ever increasing pace of change in the business environment," or "today's turbulent marketplace." If I thought it would make a difference, I'd be glad to stipulate right now for the record that ours is a "unique" era in that respect---even though I don't for one second believe it--just to dispense with the urgency of making the claim. (Who knows? The next time I see such a statement, I might even see myself cited as a reference for it.)
2
Please don't read me as saying that I attend first and foremost to form. I can tolerate a multitude of sins in a paper that promises to deliver a demonstrable value-added contribution to our readers. Our staff will take care of the line editing. But at the margin, subjective reactions to a paper can and do bear upon the ultimate assessment of a manuscript. What we're talking about here has much in c o m m o n with a first impression at a job interview. We all k n o w the decision whether or not to hire someone shouldn't hinge on such "irrelevant" considerations as punctuality, dress, posture, eye contact, and handshake. We also k n o w that, in fact, such things do count toward winnowing out the pack of applicants. Give yourself every chance of getting a fair reading from me. ~3
Business Horizons / March-April 1999