“Dear Author”: Risk of Dehumanisation of the Publication Process Through the Prism of Authorship

Authors are, or should be, central figures in academic publishing as members of a social group of specialists. Without authors, journals have no purpose. Societal acceptance of authors is reflected in how they are addressed, typically in communications from journals and editors, such as emails regarding submissions or editorial requests. When this basic level of personalisation is lost, there is reason for concern regarding peer or societal communication. This paper documents actual cases in which the author, rather than being addressed by name, is instead referred to as “Dear Author.” In this age of individualism, the treatment of authors in this manner by editors, journals, or publishers is considered a form of dehumanisation in publishing and a novel, dehumanised form of communication. Many journals are linked to authors via online submission systems where their names and titles are formally registered, so there is no reason to allow such dehumanising treatment of authors to take place. Publishers need to be cognizant of this issue and offer suitable guidance to their journals’ editors and managers, or adjust the coding in their system’s artificial intelligence, to avoid the dehumanisation of authors in email communications with them.