Editing Academic journal (section)

==History==
[[File:Philosophical_Transactions_-_Volume_001.djvu|thumb|right|page=60|[[Adrien Auzout]]'s "A TABLE of the Apertures of Object-Glasses" from [[:s:Philosophical Transactions/Volume 1/Number 4#56|a 1665 article]] in ''[[Philosophical Transactions]]'', showing a [[Table (information)|table]]]]

In the 17th century, scientists wrote letters to each other, and included scientific ideas with them.  Then, in the mid-17th century, scientists began to hold meetings and share their scientific ideas.  Eventually, they led to starting organizations, such as the [[Royal Society]] (1660) and the [[French Academy of Sciences]] (1666).<ref name=":32">{{Cite web |last=Swoger |first=Bonnie |date=July 27, 2012 |title=The (mostly true) origins of the scientific journal |url=https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/information-culture/the-mostly-true-origins-of-the-scientific-journal/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160727041115/https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/information-culture/the-mostly-true-origins-of-the-scientific-journal/ |archive-date=July 27, 2016 |access-date=January 25, 2023 |website=Scientific American}}</ref>

The idea of a published journal with the purpose of "[letting] people know what is happening in the [[Republic of Letters]]" was first conceived by [[François Eudes de Mézeray]] in 1663. A publication titled {{Lang|fr|Journal littéraire général}} was supposed to be published to fulfill that goal, but never was. [[Renaissance humanism|Humanist scholar]] [[Denis de Sallo]] (under the [[pseudonym]] "Sieur de Hédouville") and printer Jean Cusson took Mazerai's idea, and obtained a [[royal privilege]] from King [[Louis XIV]] on 8 August 1664 to establish the {{Lang|fr|[[Journal des sçavans]]}}. The journal's first issue was published on 5 January 1665. It was aimed at [[Intellectual#"Man of letters"|people of letters]], and had four main objectives:<ref name="JDS-history">{{Cite book |last=Cocheris |first=Hippolyte |date=1860  |url=http://archive.org/details/indexjournaldess181658acaduoft |title=Table méthodique et analytique des articles du Journal des Savants depuis sa réorganization en 1816 jusqu'en 1858 inclusivement |location=Paris |publisher=A. Durand |pages=1–2}}</ref>

# review newly published major European books,
# publish the [[obituary|obituaries]] of famous people, 
# report on discoveries in [[arts]] and [[science]], and
# report on the [[proceedings]] and [[censure]]s of both [[secular]] and [[ecclesiastical court]]s, as well as those of universities both in France and outside.

Soon after, the [[Royal Society]] established ''[[Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society]]'' in March 1665, and the {{lang|fr|[[Académie des Sciences]]}} established the ''{{lang|fr|[[Mémoires de l'Académie des Sciences]]}}'' in 1666, which focused on scientific communications.<ref>{{cite web |title=History of Philosophical Transactions – The Secret History of the Scientific Journal |url=https://arts.st-andrews.ac.uk/philosophicaltransactions/brief-history-of-phil-trans/ |publisher=University of St Andrews |access-date=2018-06-18 |archive-date=2019-05-17 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190517055533/https://arts.st-andrews.ac.uk/philosophicaltransactions/brief-history-of-phil-trans/ |url-status=live }}</ref> By the end of the 18th century, nearly 500 such periodicals had been published,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kronick |first1=David A. |title=A history of scientific and technical periodicals:the origins and development of the scientific and technological press, 1665–1790 |date=1962 |publisher=The Scarecrow Press |location=New York |chapter=Original Publication: The Substantive Journal |chapter-url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.31210000062164;view=1up;seq=76 |access-date=2018-06-18 |archive-date=2021-02-26 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210226102156/https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.31210000062164;view=1up;seq=76 |url-status=live }}</ref> the vast majority coming from [[Germany]] (304 periodicals), [[France]] (53), and [[England]] (34). Several of those publications, in particular the German journals, tended to be short-lived (under five years). A.J. Meadows has estimated the proliferation of journals to reach 10,000 journals in 1950, and 71,000 in 1987. Michael Mabe wrote that the estimates will vary depending on the definition of what exactly counts as a scholarly publication, but that the growth rate has been "remarkably consistent over time", with an average rate of 3.46% per year from 1800 to 2003.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Mabe |first1=Michael |date=1 July 2003 |title=The growth and number of journals |journal=Serials: The Journal for the Serials Community |volume=16 |issue=2 |pages=191–197 |doi=10.1629/16191 |issn=1475-3308 |doi-access=free |s2cid=904752}}</ref>

In 1733, ''Medical Essays and Observations'' was established by the [[Medical Society of Edinburgh]] as the first fully [[peer-review]]ed journal.<ref name="Mudrak"/> Peer review was introduced as an attempt to increase the quality and pertinence of submissions.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Preface |journal=Medical Essays and Observations |date=1737 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BLRTGMkfZIMC&pg=PR5 |edition= 2nd |pages=v–xvi |publisher=Philosophical Society of Edinburgh}}</ref> Other important events in the history of academic journals include the establishment of ''[[Nature (journal)|Nature]]'' (1869) and ''[[Science (journal)|Science]]'' (1880), the establishment of ''[[Postmodern Culture]]'' in 1990 as the first [[online journal|online-only journal]], the foundation of [[arXiv]] in 1991 for the dissemination of [[preprint]]s to be discussed prior to publication in a journal, and the establishment of ''[[PLOS One]]'' in 2006 as the first [[megajournal]].<ref name="Mudrak"/>

[[Peer review]] did not begin until the 1970s, and was seen as a way of enabling researchers who were not as well-known to have their papers published in journals that were more prestigious. Though it was originally done by mailing copies of papers to reviewers, it is now done online.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Peer Review – A Historical Perspective : Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard |url=https://mitcommlab.mit.edu/broad/commkit/peer-review-a-historical-perspective/ |access-date=2023-01-26 |website=mitcommlab.mit.edu |language=en-US}}</ref>