Questions about the review process or the role of the journal editor? Post them as comments here.
We invite and encourage current and former journal editors to respond.
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Welcome to Political Science Journal Monitor
Are there things you wish you had known before submitting a manuscript or subscribing to a scholarly journal?
Political scientists have started this blog as an outlet for fellow scholars to share their experiences as journal contributors or readers. We invite comments of a negative, positive, or neutral nature regarding the manuscript review and publication process at particular scholarly journals of interest to political scientists. We also welcome comments from political scientists regarding their level of satisfaction with the content of the scholarly journals they read.
This blog aims to improve political scientists' experience with academic journals. In the short term, postings may provide useful guidance to scholars about the type of experience they might expect with particular journals.
Scholars may, for example, decide to avoid submission to journals with reputations for extraordinarly slow decision-making, lengthy waits to publication, or seemingly arbitrary rejection of manuscripts, in favor of journals that provide superior service to authors.
Potential readers and subscribers may also improve their awareness of which journals are publishing cutting-edge content in their subfield, and which journals are stagnating.
Over the long run, postings to this blog might promote more consistent adherence to an ethical code among scholarly journals serving political science, an improved review and publication experience, and a superior product for journal readership. Editors and publishers reading this blog can learn where they are succeeding, where they need to improve, and how.
Please note: Venting about negative experiences with particular journals is most welcome, but please keep expletives and other harsh language to a minimum, and remember that we are all professionals, aiming to assist each other.
A proposed code of editorial ethics follows below; please comment: good idea? bad idea?
Proposed Code of Editorial and Journal Ethics for Political Science
An academic journal in political science should be independent from any particular school of thought, political party, political ideology, religious orientation, creed, or other belief system.
Editors have the responsibility to promote self-correction in science and participate in efforts to improve the practice of scientific investigation by publishing corrections, retractions, and critiques of published articles; and by taking responsibility for improving the level of scientific investigation and writing in the larger community of potential authors and readers.
Within the guidelines indicated here, editors should have full authority over the editorial content of the journal, generally referred to as “editorial independence.”
Editors should establish procedures that guard against the influence of commercial and personal self-interest on editorial decisions.
Authors do not exist to “serve” journals. Authors and editors both have an obligation to readers, through a mutual agreement of trust and commitment to quality.
The social contract between an author and editor is an organizational one which does not change with the person occupying the editorship. Thus, a new editor is bound by the manuscript decisions of her predecessor, and cannot change the standards retroactively or rescind acceptances by the previous editor.
An editorial board should include leaders in the field, reflect gender, race, and partisan diversity and have representatives from a variety of subfields within the journal’s area of specialization.
The editor has the ethical responsibility to choose good reviewers for manuscripts, people who are relatively objective, know the field well, and turn in reviews on time. The board's membership should change often enough to prevent the board becoming a clique, at least every five years.
Editors should establish appropriate programs to monitor journal performance. The editor has the responsibility to collect statistics on manuscript submissions, review times, acceptance rates, and the length of the backlog of manuscripts awaiting publication, and report to the editorial board on these matters on an annual basis.
Reviewers for a journal have the ethical responsibility to turn down review requests in a timely manner, within 10 days of receiving the request, and if they agree to review a manuscript, return it within eight weeks of the request, unless they make other arrangements with the editor.
Editors have the responsibility to read all articles that are approved by two reviewers, all articles for which there is a split vote, and at least scan articles that are rejected by two or more reviewers, exercising their own judgment appropriately.
Offers by the editor to revise-and-resubmit a paper should be given in good faith, with the expectation and stipulation that if the authors respond to any queries or objections the reviewers have raised, doing their best to address any conflicting advice, the paper will be acceptable for publication. Multiple rounds of revision (more than one) may be required to perfect the paper, at the discretion of the editor. However, if the editor has serious doubts about whether a paper is capable of being revised, the ethical responsibility is to save the authors time and effort by rejecting the paper after it is initially reviewed.
Editorial board members are entitled to a free subscription to the journal during their time of service.
Some of these guidelines were borrowed directly or adapted from:
Patricia H. Werhane. “Editing an Academic Journal.” Perspectives on the Professions 14:1: (1994). Website: http://ethics.iit.edu/perspective/pers14_1aug94_4.html
WAME, World Association of Medical Editors. Website: http://www.wame.org/ethics3.htm
Political scientists have started this blog as an outlet for fellow scholars to share their experiences as journal contributors or readers. We invite comments of a negative, positive, or neutral nature regarding the manuscript review and publication process at particular scholarly journals of interest to political scientists. We also welcome comments from political scientists regarding their level of satisfaction with the content of the scholarly journals they read.
This blog aims to improve political scientists' experience with academic journals. In the short term, postings may provide useful guidance to scholars about the type of experience they might expect with particular journals.
Scholars may, for example, decide to avoid submission to journals with reputations for extraordinarly slow decision-making, lengthy waits to publication, or seemingly arbitrary rejection of manuscripts, in favor of journals that provide superior service to authors.
Potential readers and subscribers may also improve their awareness of which journals are publishing cutting-edge content in their subfield, and which journals are stagnating.
Over the long run, postings to this blog might promote more consistent adherence to an ethical code among scholarly journals serving political science, an improved review and publication experience, and a superior product for journal readership. Editors and publishers reading this blog can learn where they are succeeding, where they need to improve, and how.
Please note: Venting about negative experiences with particular journals is most welcome, but please keep expletives and other harsh language to a minimum, and remember that we are all professionals, aiming to assist each other.
A proposed code of editorial ethics follows below; please comment: good idea? bad idea?
Proposed Code of Editorial and Journal Ethics for Political Science
An academic journal in political science should be independent from any particular school of thought, political party, political ideology, religious orientation, creed, or other belief system.
Editors have the responsibility to promote self-correction in science and participate in efforts to improve the practice of scientific investigation by publishing corrections, retractions, and critiques of published articles; and by taking responsibility for improving the level of scientific investigation and writing in the larger community of potential authors and readers.
Within the guidelines indicated here, editors should have full authority over the editorial content of the journal, generally referred to as “editorial independence.”
Editors should establish procedures that guard against the influence of commercial and personal self-interest on editorial decisions.
Authors do not exist to “serve” journals. Authors and editors both have an obligation to readers, through a mutual agreement of trust and commitment to quality.
The social contract between an author and editor is an organizational one which does not change with the person occupying the editorship. Thus, a new editor is bound by the manuscript decisions of her predecessor, and cannot change the standards retroactively or rescind acceptances by the previous editor.
An editorial board should include leaders in the field, reflect gender, race, and partisan diversity and have representatives from a variety of subfields within the journal’s area of specialization.
The editor has the ethical responsibility to choose good reviewers for manuscripts, people who are relatively objective, know the field well, and turn in reviews on time. The board's membership should change often enough to prevent the board becoming a clique, at least every five years.
Editors should establish appropriate programs to monitor journal performance. The editor has the responsibility to collect statistics on manuscript submissions, review times, acceptance rates, and the length of the backlog of manuscripts awaiting publication, and report to the editorial board on these matters on an annual basis.
Reviewers for a journal have the ethical responsibility to turn down review requests in a timely manner, within 10 days of receiving the request, and if they agree to review a manuscript, return it within eight weeks of the request, unless they make other arrangements with the editor.
Editors have the responsibility to read all articles that are approved by two reviewers, all articles for which there is a split vote, and at least scan articles that are rejected by two or more reviewers, exercising their own judgment appropriately.
Offers by the editor to revise-and-resubmit a paper should be given in good faith, with the expectation and stipulation that if the authors respond to any queries or objections the reviewers have raised, doing their best to address any conflicting advice, the paper will be acceptable for publication. Multiple rounds of revision (more than one) may be required to perfect the paper, at the discretion of the editor. However, if the editor has serious doubts about whether a paper is capable of being revised, the ethical responsibility is to save the authors time and effort by rejecting the paper after it is initially reviewed.
Editorial board members are entitled to a free subscription to the journal during their time of service.
Some of these guidelines were borrowed directly or adapted from:
Patricia H. Werhane. “Editing an Academic Journal.” Perspectives on the Professions 14:1: (1994). Website: http://ethics.iit.edu/perspective/pers14_1aug94_4.html
WAME, World Association of Medical Editors. Website: http://www.wame.org/ethics3.htm
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Warner Music Taps Indie Success
Here's an interesting excerpt from an article on MSNBC:
The Warner aspect is informative. But the thing that grabs me the most is this:
If you still feel shame about being "indie" instead of being "signed" ... well, just stop it already!
For more info on the Alternative Distribution Alliance, visit www.ada-music.com.
-Bob
Alternative Distribution Alliance (ADA) is a part of a multipronged strategy to revitalize Warner Music, which, like the rest of the industry, fell on hard times in recent years as sales of high-priced CDs softened and Internet piracy accelerated. Through ADA, Warner Music wants to dominate indie music, the industry's fastest-growing segment, by signing deals with scores of small local and regional labels and getting retailers to stock the distinctive music of the fiercely independent acts.
Warner Music and ADA don't own the labels, and merely earn a fee for distributing their records. Yet when Warner's market share is calculated, ADA's overall sales are counted as if the acts belonged to Warner. In addition to the moves at ADA, Warner Music established a so-called incubator system to offer limited financial backing to small entrepreneurial labels with promising acts that can be "upstreamed" -- signed later to Warner Music-owned labels, if they hit big.
The Warner aspect is informative. But the thing that grabs me the most is this:
"indie music, the industry's fastest-growing segment"
If you still feel shame about being "indie" instead of being "signed" ... well, just stop it already!
For more info on the Alternative Distribution Alliance, visit www.ada-music.com.
-Bob
Sunday, May 21, 2006
I Want My Bob TV
This just in ... My first-ever music video is available for your viewing and listening pleasure.
I say "viewing pleasure" with hesitation, because I cringe every time I see myself in this. Hopefully, your response won't be so unnerving.
My longtime pal Lee Mueller produced this video for a film editing class he took this past semester. It's to an original song I wrote and recorded last year called "Sin Is On Your Face." The girl in the video is our theatre friend Liz Landeau.
Enjoy. And thanks to Lee and Liz for their generous work on this!
You can also view the file at Google Video.
I say "viewing pleasure" with hesitation, because I cringe every time I see myself in this. Hopefully, your response won't be so unnerving.
My longtime pal Lee Mueller produced this video for a film editing class he took this past semester. It's to an original song I wrote and recorded last year called "Sin Is On Your Face." The girl in the video is our theatre friend Liz Landeau.
Enjoy. And thanks to Lee and Liz for their generous work on this!
You can also view the file at Google Video.
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
Express Yourself
As a followup to Monday's post on Empowered Fans, here's one way I'm empowering my fans to express themselves ...
Check out these audio testimonials:
From Jason Fladlien, www.straihtwikidcrew.com
From Sylvia Young, www.totalkaosent.com
-Bob
Check out these audio testimonials:
From Jason Fladlien, www.straihtwikidcrew.com
From Sylvia Young, www.totalkaosent.com
-Bob
Monday, May 8, 2006
Beastie Boys & Empowered Fans
In my recent post called The Hunted Become the Hunters I discussed the growing empowerment of music fans and consumers in general. Another offshoot of this evolution is the blurring of lines between people who produce creative content and those who consume it.
Case in point: Here's what Beastie Boy Adam Yauch told Wired magazine in an article last month ...
To make their new concert movie, the Beastie Boys distributed Hi8 videocams to 50 fans at a show in New York City -- and asked them to record everything they saw. Yauch then combined his favorite bits from the 100-plus hours of footage into a feature film.
In this new era, artists aren't the only ones who do the creating while fans passively sit by and wait to be fed the latest music. Now everyone has an opportunity to express themselves. Use this to your advantage. Ask your fans to produce videos, artwork, T-shirt designs, even alternate versions of your recorded music.
Get fans involved and allow them to be co-creators in your success story.
-Bob
Case in point: Here's what Beastie Boy Adam Yauch told Wired magazine in an article last month ...
One night, I was prowling around on our web site's message board and found a phonecam video clip that someone had taken at one of our shows. It was really grainy and shaky, but I loved how it was shot from eye level and showed a personal take on what was happening onstage. I thought it would be cool to apply that approach to a full-length concert film, so that it actually feels like you're watching a concert and not some big, overblown MTV video.
To make their new concert movie, the Beastie Boys distributed Hi8 videocams to 50 fans at a show in New York City -- and asked them to record everything they saw. Yauch then combined his favorite bits from the 100-plus hours of footage into a feature film.
In this new era, artists aren't the only ones who do the creating while fans passively sit by and wait to be fed the latest music. Now everyone has an opportunity to express themselves. Use this to your advantage. Ask your fans to produce videos, artwork, T-shirt designs, even alternate versions of your recorded music.
Get fans involved and allow them to be co-creators in your success story.
-Bob
Monday, May 1, 2006
MC Lars Taps Into iGeneration
Have you heard of MC Lars and his rap-inspired tunes aimed at the "iGeneration"?Check out the tracks "Download This Song" and "iGeneration" on his MySpace page to see what I mean.
Lars is a good example of someone who is doing two smart things, marketing-wise:
- Tapping into (and rapping about) a current event or trend -- in this case, the realities of the digital generation, with a big dose of flipping off the traditional corporate music industry.
- Creating a new musical category Lars calls "post-punk laptop rap."
What event or trend does your music tap into? And what new category can you create and establish yourself as the preeminent artist in?
-Bob
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