Journals, do your own formatting

The idiosyncratic formats required by individual journals make submitting a manuscript a major time sink (see Q. Guo Nature 540, 525; 2016). This is invariably amplified by another wave of amendments after acceptance. Authors are becoming, in effect, desktop publishers.

In the 'good old days', one placed a manuscript in an envelope, found a postage stamp somewhere in the desk drawer and located a post box. If the paper was accepted, a few queries from the subeditor would need attention, and a perfectly decent product would emerge. Journal staff took responsibility for the full production process.

At a time when other pressures on researchers are inexorably increasing, I suggest that journals should take back the formatting baton. This seems more than justified in view of the burgeoning publication charges many of them impose.