Dehiscence: The Pleasure of Publishing

by Chandan Bandyopadhyay

The editors at Dehiscence had a meeting at the JU campus in late February 2019 wherein we converged in: We have miles to go in search of happiness. Pleasure is not a state to arrive at, but a manner of travelling. The editors at Dehiscence are often asked: Why should I submit my best work to Dehiscence? This is not surprising because it is human nature to be wary of anything new and changing. Another frequent question is ‘Where is the bar for a blog named Dehiscence?’ This question has its origins in our collective experience of trying to publish in journals that become very exclusive in the days when print and distribution costs limited the number of papers and pages that journals could publish. Here we prefer to explain what we think makes a paper suitable for Dehiscence.

For us, the ideal Dehiscence - a blog, presents an accurate narrative that makes other in the field think differently and moves the field forward. Dehiscence should give the reader the pleasure of reading about elegant or intelligent experiments, of learning something new, of being challenged to think about their subject in a new way, or of seeing a particularly stunning image that has meaning because it shows some of the secrets of life.

Our goal is to publish creative works that our readers and editors find authoritative, demonstrative, insightful, enlightening or just nothing but amicable. Of course, pleasure is in the mindset of the beholder, and ideas about what is pleasurable can change over time.

PC: Chandan Bandyopadhyay

Happily, Dehiscence has no restrictions on how many creative works in two dimensional form we can publish, or any strictures on how many we should reject. Consequently, our editorial challenge is to recognize excellent composition and to encourage authors and editors to divest ourselves of the behaviors that have diminished the pleasure of doing art and science and publishing the results. A central feature of Dehiscence is that we are able to publish excellent works, no matter how many figures and findings they contain: we can also embed raw data and movies in articles. We are open to works that challenge received wisdom. We also hope that Dehiscence has the perspective to recognize that authors invest a great deal in their work, and that while editors may be more ‘objective’ than authors, it is the authors who sign the paper and put their reputations on the line, not the editors . Editors can help to ensure that the idea make sense and that the work presented is intense. However, it is authors who provide creativity, imagination and years of hard work. As editors we should remember that we have an obligation to authors and readers to publish work that pushes forward, and that those authors who entrust their best works to Dehiscence honors us by so doing.

We are thankful to the phenomenal opportunities offered by the digital technologies of today and tomorrow.