A Living Glossary of Essential Acronyms, Terms, and Expressions Used for Scientific Publishing

Since our respective tenures as Raelyn Cole Editorial (RCE) Fellows with the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO), we have been deeply immersed in the world of scientific publishing. During this time, we have observed that a lack of knowledge of the publishing process usually leads to a lack of engagement, and those with little to no understanding of the different components and inner workings of scientific publishing are invariably those who benefit the least from it. While conducting a survey on ASLO member opinions of and behaviors toward Open Access publishing, for example, EKP and RMF-S uncovered that almost half of the participants had no understanding of Transformational Agreements (also known as Read and Publish Agreements; unpublished data). This is to their disadvantage; if they are unaware that these agreements often allow authors to publish content as Open Access without having to directly pay for it, how would they know to enquire if they have access to one and how to use it? Similarly to other spheres of work, scientific publishing is a world filled with jargon and acronyms. We have become familiar with them along the way, but many who are less familiar with this world may struggle to understand or recognize publishing terms and processes when they first encounter them—and to benefit from this knowledge. One of the main expectations of RCE Fellows is that we share what we learn with our peers to increase understanding of scientific writing and publishing, especially amongst students and early career researchers or professionals (broadly referred to as ECRs). This informal sharing of lessons learnt and overall demystifying work is the Fellows' and ASLO's way to counter the frequent absence of formal training on these skills (a problem highlighted recently by Rico et al. 2026, for example). To help others navigate the publishing world, and to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Fellowship, we have created a living glossary of scientific publishing acronyms and other keywords and expressions (Franco-Santos et al. 2026a). If you wish to know more about a particular topic, follow the hyperlinks provided for several of the entries in the document and the references in these resources, and enjoy the rabbit hole! Disclaimer—we are ASLO members and fans and, as such, some resources will be biased toward the society's scientific publishing activities. The full glossary is a free-to-access file; anyone can suggest edits or new words, which we will review and potentially include in the document. Contributors will be named should they wish to be known. Below you can find a selection of terms we find most relevant as of the glossary's launch on 16 May 2026 (Fig. 1). To provide further resources and insight into the world of academic publishing, the glossary includes a table (at the end of the document) with relevant references to publications and gray literature on broad thematic areas within scientific publishing. These are articles and pieces we have read during the Fellowship and after, as we continued our editorial journey, or were suggested to us by other experts in the field. If you want to suggest publications to be included, please email us (addresses provided in author list) the file or information and let us know if you wish to be acknowledged for it. Together, we hope that these resources are useful for ECRs (and those at later career stages) learning about scientific publishing. While our terms as RCE Fellows have concluded, the desire to help other professionals navigate the occluded publishing world—to which we have gained unique insight through this program—has remained! We hope that you will find these and other resources developed by the RCE Fellows (bundled in this virtual issue in Limnology Mike Pace, Dave Hambright, and Krista Longnecker (current ASLO journal editors); Kelsey Poulson-Ellestad, Scott Hotaling, Bridget Deemer, Rosie Gradoville, Frank Akamagwuna, and Jessie Turner (past and current RCE Fellows); Teresa Curto, Mik Bauer/Bostrom team, and Brittany Schieler/Communications team (ASLO's Executive Director, Business Manager, and Director of Communications and Programs, respectively); and Fiona Sarne, Katie Dickinson, Katie Simmons, Kathryn Corcoran, Grannie Caffrey, and Maggie Donneley (past and current Wiley team working with the ASLO publications). We also thank the Bulletin reviewers and individuals who reviewed the Glossary content (Pat Hannah) and contributed articles to our reference list (Bridget Deemer, Jessie Turner, Jim Cloern, Krista Longnecker).