This book serves as a guide for scholarly journal editors.

Along with the infamous “Reviewer 2,” journal editors are a leading cause of angst among scholars. When editors are bad at their jobs, careers are damaged, reputations of journals suffer, and the overall scholarship within a field is weakened. Yet, despite their importance to the practice of academia, most editors do not receive any formal training on the editing process. Even well-published authors face a steep learning curve when navigating all of the moving parts of a scholarly journal and providing quality feedback to authors.

This book is intended to be a guide for scholarly journal editors. It walks current and prospective editors through the various steps of the editing process, including establishing an editorial vision, creating editorial teams/boards, interpreting reviewers’ comments and writing decision letters, and publicizing published articles and improving journal metrics. A secondary goal of the book is to provide authors with a peek inside the process of journal editing. By better understanding the decisions that editors make, authors can make more informed choices about which journals they should submit their work, as well as improve their chances for publication.

Foreword by Sue Starfield

Acknowledgements

Preface

Chapter One: Why Would Anyone Want to Be a Journal Editor?

Chapter Two: Getting Started: Developing the Structure of the Journal

Chapter Three: To Review or Not to Review: Desk Rejects and Assigning Reviewers

Chapter Four: The Buck Stops Here: Making Editorial Decisions

Chapter Five: Marketing Articles and Making an Impact

Afterword

Bibliography

Appendix A

Appendix B

Appendix C

Appendix D

About the Author