RE: Errors in author's versions

[Cliff Morgan <cmorgan@wiley.co.uk>]

David Goodman wrote: "perhaps all the controversy is obsolete 
about what version to deposit, and all the discussion about 
exactly what name to use for what version."

The published version may well differ considerably from the 
author's accepted manuscript (known in SHERPA/RoMEO terminology 
somewhat counterintuitively as the "post-print"). Sometimes the 
variations are fairly trivial (e.g. conformance to journal house 
style) but they can certainly go as far as substantive editing, 
especially if the author is a non-native speaker. Both Lisa 
Dittrich and Peter Banks have made this point - that you can make 
no general pronouncements about whether subsequent versions 
differ significantly or not: sometimes they do, sometimes they 
don't, depending on the state of the author's manuscript. There's 
no point in saying that the published version *never* differs 
significantly nor that it *always* differs significantly: the 
point is that it *probably* differs in some way, and *may* differ 
profoundly.

I have been a copy-editor; I have trained copy-editors; and I 
have commissioned freelance copy-editors. I have rarely known a 
manuscript to require no copy-editing, even if it's just the 
reference list that needs styling. Many manuscripts have typos or 
grammatical errors, and it is not uncommon to have figures 
mentioned but not included, inconsistencies between reference 
citations in the text and the details in the reference list, etc. 
Increasingly, copy-editors are tagging information within the 
text (such as grant numbers) that can be included in the XML file 
to enrich the metadata.

Any copy-editor will be able to tell you authors' errors that 
they corrected that clearly improved the manuscript and prevented 
embarrassment. (I've had an author write "80 PAs" instead of 
"ATPase", and another refer to the well-known war poet "Winifred 
Owen".) Do you really think that publishers would pay for 
copy-editing if it didn't make any difference? (I know that there 
are some publishers who do not make this investment. Caveat 
lector.)

Identifying versions does matter because versions do vary, and 
using unambiguous terms to identify the different versions is 
useful because it is not always clear what is meant when people 
use terms such as "final edited version", for example.

I am the Chair of the NISO/ALPSP Working Group on Versions of 
Journal Articles (see 
http://www.niso.org/committees/Journal_versioning/JournalVer_comm.html); 
David is a member of the Review Group and he will know that the 
Technical WG has made recommendations on terminology and 
definitions. We are currently reviewing the comments made by the 
Review group.

Other good work in this area is being done by the VERSIONS 
project (see http://www.lse.ac.uk/library/versions/).

There is also a scoping study on repository version 
identification called RIVER - see 
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/RIVER%20Final%20Report.pdf

These projects are clear in their view that identifying versions 
matters - although we may not all agree on the terminology and 
the granularity, we do agree on the principle of differentiation.

The PMC distinctions remain pertinent.

Cliff Morgan
Chair NISO/ALPSP WG on JAV
____________________________

David goodman wrote:

I appreciate Peter's mentioning this, for I have only with 
considerable effort found enough to study.

Given our observations that such author-copy pre- or postprints 
rarely occur (at least in some subjects), perhaps all the 
controversy is obsolete about what version to deposit, and all 
the discussion about exactly what name to use for what version.

Peter, I gather then that you agree that such distinctions as in 
http://www.pubmedcentral.gov/about/authorms.html

"The final manuscript supplied to PMC is the version that the 
journal accepted for publication, including any revisions that 
the author made during the peer review process. The published 
version of the article usually includes additional changes made 
by the journal's editorial staff after acceptance of the author's 
final manuscript. These edits may be limited to matters of style 
and format or they could include more substantive changes made 
with the concurrence of the author."

are no longer pertinent.

It would be very encouraging to see at least one of the OA 
controversial points finally resolved.

Dr. David Goodman
Palmer School of Library and Information Science
Long Island University
dgoodman@liu.edu
dgoodman@princeton.edu