A number of student-edited law reviews and journals have recently signed a joint letter announcing that they will no longer make "exploding offers" to authors. They explain that the practice of requiring authors to accept an offer of publication within days, hours, or even minutes, has had a "corrosive effect" on the article selection process and has "inevitably favored established authors, popular topics, and broad claims at the expense of originality and merit."

The signers of the joint letter commit to giving authors at least seven days to consider an offer of publication. They expect the seven-day offer window to reduce the stress of the article selection process for authors.They also believe the seven-day offer window will allow article selection committees to engage in a more deliberative process before extending offers of publication: 

Student editors… will be able to engage more deeply with the articles we review. We will have the time to consult scholars regularly regarding an article’s significance and novelty. As a result, all of us will be able to publish more of the stellar pieces that, under the current system, slip through the cracks.

Read the whole letter here. Hat tip to The Chronicle. [JML]