Today’s Inside Higher Ed featured a story about the quarterly journal, The Mariner’s Mirror (published by the British-based Society for Nautical Research), and its honorary editor’s dissatisfaction with the quality of recent submissions to the journal. In an editorial in the November 2009 issue, editor Hugh Murphy lamented, among other things, that

Judging by the many substandard submissions reaching your editor, particularly from British universities, one has to wonder at the level of supervision internally and externally of MA and PhD candidates.

It appears that Murphy’s comments have rankled his peers at British universities, the main source of readership and scholarship for the journal, although none would provide comment on the story. Inside Higher Ed also links to a “subtle response” from the chairman of Mariner Mirror‘s editorial board, Richard Harding.

Moral of the story? I’ll decline to comment on that one.