What happened to Matters?

A few years ago, a journal launched called Matters. The interesting thing about this journal was that it was devoted to single observations. Science magazine saw fit to write about Matters, so it’s not like it was hidden in a dark hole under the stairs somewhere.

The journal homepage is now offline.

The journal’s Twitter account hasn’t sent tweeted since 2019. The person behind the journal, Lawrence Rajendran, is still active on Twitter, however.

Worst of all, I can’t find articles published in Matters using the DOI. They seem to have completely vanished into the ether. (There was a cool one about hermit crabs.)

I’d noticed that Matters vanished a while ago, but couldn’t tell you when. But I was reminded because I learned of MicroPublication Biology. It seems to be trying the exact same thing Matters did: offer per reviewed publication for single short papers that don’t fit into some larger narrative.

I’m skeptical of MicroPublication Biology because nobody’s name appears anywhere in the journal’s website that I can find. Who is the editor? Are there associate editors? 

But I’m also skeptical because, well, we had Matters. And it tanked. It would be nice to know the full backstory of the journal, but even without that, I think it’s fair to say Matters didn’t take the academic publishing world by storm. It may be that this is a service that people say they want, but when push comes to shove, their actions don’t back up their words. Maybe researcher would rather publish “complete stories” – with all the ambiguity and frustration of what that phrase means.

External links

Got just a single observation? New journal will publish it

Matters description on PubLons