Writing for the Journal of Petroleum, Chemical Industry, Chemistry Education, Medicine, Drug Abuse, and Archaeology

Just let me learn a new research field, and fire up the time machine, and I'll see what I can do

Keith S. Taber

An invitation from a petroleum journal where the editorial board are said to like my work, asking me to send them a unpublished medical article – preferably a couple of weeks before they wrote to me.

Dear Michael

Thank you for your kind message from the journal 'Petroleum and Chemical Industry International' (email, 23rd November, 2021).

It is always good to know people are noticing my work, and I was of course pleased to learn you had found my article 'Comment on "Increasing chemistry students' knowledge, confidence, and conceptual understanding of pH using a collaborative computer pH simulation"…'.

Given the title of the journal, I could be forgiven for being somewhat surprised that an article critiquing claims in an educational research study would attract your attention. So, to be told that the editorial board members of Petroleum and Chemical Industry International are "really impressed with [my] articles" is just incredible!

You ask me if I can send you some 'type of medical and clinical article'. I do not really think my work could strictly be described in those terms. Indeed, I initially wondered if my research might even fall outside the scope of Petroleum and Chemical Industry International: yet I see the journal has published some quite diverse material, including the wonderfully titled 'An attempt to Characterize Street Pharmaceutical Teachers Abusing Drugs and Aspect of Allergy Among Adult Men Attending Long Distance Institutions in Pune, India'.1 Moreover, I see an editorial for the journal published a few month ago focused on the conjecture that around the year 1100 CE the Yoruba of west Africa may have used glass beads as a form of currency.2

Is it fair then to assume that the journal has a fairly flexible approach to defining its scope, and that a submission that was outside of the 'medical and clinical' categories might still be considered for publication?

If that is so, I wonder what is currently a typical timescale for publication, should a submission be deemed suitable. Would a submission by your suggested deadline of 8th November, for example, have a reasonable chance of being published by, say, mid October?

Yours…

The journal homepage of Petroleum and Chemical Industry International offers a helpful tutorial for any potential contributors explaining what petroleum is and what it is used for
Notes:

1

A research article in Petroleum and Chemical Industry International

2

An editorial in Petroleum and Chemical Industry International