News from the National Office

Suggested Guidelines for the Handling of
Manuscripts by the Editors of Philosophy Journals

The following is an excerpt taken from Nancy Simco's "On Avoiding Rejection by Journals." Guidebook for Publishing Philosophy. Ed. Eric Hoffman. Bowling Green, OH: Philosophy Documentation Center, 1997. pp. 19-22.

In 1974, in an effort to help both authors and editorial personnel, the Association of Philosophy Journal Editors adopted a set of guidelines for the handling of manuscripts. The Guidelines were also endorsed by the American Philosophical Association. However, since neither of these bodies have legislative authority over journals, they serve as recommendations rather than mandatory policy. Journals do operate at least in the spirit of these guidelines, but only minor revisions have been made in them over the past twenty years and some particular points need to be up-dated given changes in the mechanics of journal publishing.

Suggested Guidelines for the Handling of Manuscripts by the Editors of Philosophy Journals

The following guidelines are given with the recognition that Association cannot, and has no wish to, legislate for its members. They are designed merely to facilitate and clarify the processing of manuscripts and to communicate general policy. It is understood that variations from these guidelines may be necessitated by a variety of editorial conditions. When so necessitated, differing editorial practices are within the spirit of the guidelines, though editors are urged to announce or communicate their special policies.

Philosophy journals exist to serve the community of philosophers and to promote and further philosophical inquiry. The following professional guidelines regarding the processing of manuscripts are designed to facilitate these goals.

Special directions for the preparation of manuscripts shall be publicly announced by journals which have them
Journals shall notify authors by return mail of the receipt of manuscripts and where possible indicate the approximate time needed for evaluation procedures.
Unless authors are notified to the contrary, such evaluation procedures will normally not extend beyond four months from the date of receipt. After this period of time authors are encouraged to inquire concerning the status of their manuscripts.
Authors of accepted manuscripts shall be notified in the letter of acceptance of the approximate date of the publication of their manuscript.
If articles are held for two months or more, letters of rejection shall normally include one of the following: a) the comments of the referees, b) a brief summary of the referee's comments, or c) the editor's reasons for rejecting the paper. The signed comments of a referee may be forwarded to the author only with the referee's explicit permission. Editors shall not be expected to reply to further inquiries about their evaluations.
Editors shall not suggest other specific journals to authors.
Authors have full responsibility for the proper preparation of manuscripts. When the manuscript is not properly prepared, services performed for them by editorial offices, as well as author changes in proof, are properly chargeable to them.
Changes in manuscripts by an editor other than those necessary for the style of the journal (footnotes, spelling, layout, etc.) shall be made only with the approval of the author.
Authors shall normally review their articles in proof before printing.
Authors shall submit the same manuscript to only one journal at a time.
Authors have responsibility for arranging (through envelopes, return postage, etc.) for return of their manuscripts.
A letter of acceptance from an editor is normally an agreement to publish the article in the journal.

The items in the Guidelines were intended to be straightforward, but some of them deserve comment. Number 3 encourages authors to inquire about the status of manuscripts after four months. Many authors are convinced that such inquiries will prejudice editors against their work. Editors say emphatically that it does not. What produces this apparent discrepancy? One can only guess, but busy editors' abrupt demeanor in response to telephone inquiries has frequently been cited! I believe that editors do genuinely encourage inquiries, after a reasonable amount of time. Weekly calls from an anxious author may not really prejudice the decision, but the editor is not likely to be pleased to see more submissions from this author. E-mail is quickly becoming the choice medium for inquiries. For both authors and editors, e-mail accomplishes the purpose without being as time consuming as letters back and forth by regular or "snail" mail, or as a game of "telephone tag."

There are some pitfalls in Guideline 5. The widest procedural variation among journals probably occurs with respect to how they handle referee's comments. Similar to several items mentioned earlier, the most reliable guide on what to expect is the author's most recent experience with that journal (as well as the recent experience of one's professors and colleagues). Some journals never try to explain why papers are rejected while some try to give a thorough explanation on every occasion. The reason there is so much variation is that providing authors with good explanations, which are accurate, fair, and not misleading, is by far the most time consuming task editors face. Some would rather offer no explanation at all than one which will be useless or harmful.

There is significant disagreement among editors regarding whether it is ever appropriate to reveal a referee's identity. The reasons for not revealing the identity of the reviewer when the report is negative seem obvious, but problems also arise when the report is positive. The most extreme case may have occurred when the author of a rejected paper tried to get the favorable referee to join in a lawsuit against the editor! A more common problem is authors contacting favorable referees to read more of their work or help them find publishers. Even if the referee is disposed toward offering this kind of help, it can easily create unfair demands on the referee's time.

There is also disagreement about whether editors should "be expected to reply to further inquiries about their evaluations." Many editors want to know when authors believe something has gone wrong with the evaluation of their work. A large part of the editor's job is to make the review process as fair, intelligent, and humane as possible. But if the editor does not know the process is failing, it won't be fixed. Editors need to continually and open-mindedly scrutinize their own review processes, but this does not mean they should see them as having failed each time they are questioned. Editors will sometimes re-enter a paper whose author has questioned the process, or its results, so it is reasonable to ask for this treatment. At the same time, it should be recognized that given the large number of submissions to most journals, editors may be forced to avoid engaging in this practice.

Guideline 6 has raised a considerable amount of curiosity. The reason the APJE adopted it was that some authors mistakenly took the advice of the editor of journal X to send a paper to journal Y as a commitment on the part of the editor of journal Y. There is also a danger of an author taking a suggestion that a paper be sent to a specific journal as amounting to a recommendation to that journal to publish the paper. These kinds of situations have caused friction between authors and editors and between editors and editors. The unique submission policy, Guideline 10, is common practice in philosophy, but not in other disciplines. This policy is designed to avoid the abuse of journal personnel, especially reviewers. Disciplines which allow multiple, simultaneous submissions are generally those in which reviewers are paid for their time. Since reviewers' time is professional service in our discipline, it is a very precious commodity. Without people willing to donate this service there would be no journals--or, at least, very few. If two or three referees have given careful consideration to a paper, and the editor then receives a letter saying that the paper is being published by another journal, its author should probably not send any more papers to that editor.

Guideline 11 is clearly a case in which this document is out of date. Journals no longer return manuscripts because word processing and photocopying facilities have made this practice unnecessary.