Editor's Foreword

This is the second issue of LARR to appear under the masthead of the University of Texas at Austin. The editors are pleased to have received such a favorable response to the new cover design adopted in volume 38 onwards, along with positive comments about, and support for, the changes that we are putting into effect in the short and medium term. These changes, together with a new Web site that heralded the new design, may be viewed at http://larr.lanic.utexas.edu/. The Web site provides full details about such items as editorial policies, the submission of manuscripts, how to access LARR-On-Line, and subscription information.

The objective of this brief foreword is two-fold: first, to describe our efforts to substantially speed up the review process and to expedite publication of research in LARR; and second, to offer feedback about the Editors' first year's experience regarding the pattern of submissions and the acceptance rates for manuscripts. In reporting on these two areas, we hope to encourage more submissions in the future.

Manuscript Review and Publication Time

Of major concern to all scholars is the time it takes to receive a decision on a manuscript and the time period between submission of the definitive version of an accepted article and its publication. Horror stories abound, and while no one expects the rapid publication turnaround that is often associated with scientific and medical journals, most of us have suffered at one time or another from excessive delays—sometimes interminably so—with journals in which we have sought to place our research. It often seems that some journals have become overly complacent about the speed with which they review and process articles, and come close to abusing the time-honored requirements that authors not simultaneously submit their work to more than one journal and not to have published it elsewhere. These two requirements are central to a journal's successful functioning, but in demanding exclusive access to a manuscript for a period of time (which is in effect what editors do), it is incumbent upon us, as editors, to ensure that the process be expeditious and fair; also, that we provide helpful feedback to the scholars whose work we are evaluating for publication.

The editors of LARR at UT-Austin are fully committed to taking responsibility and ensuring that the journal continue to publish top-quality scholarship, and that we do so more rapidly than in the past. At LARR, the aim is to avoid having a significant backlog or queue of papers that further delays publication of an accepted manuscript. The in-press time thereafter is straightforward, providing few opportunities for time savings: once a manuscript is accepted, production (copyediting, communicating with authors over edits, proofs, and printing) requires a minimum of nine months. Not offering authors the opportunity to check their copyedited manuscripts would be, in the view of the Editors, a retrograde step and one that we are unwilling to take in order to achieve what would only be a modest reduction of around eight to ten weeks.

Since taking over the reins in 2002, we have made it LARR's policy to notify authors of a final decision within three to four months of manuscript receipt, and to expedite the review process such that it is often much faster. In order to achieve this, papers undergo an initial internal review by an expert in the field, and where it is decided not to proceed with an external review of the manuscript, the paper is then rejected at that stage. Although painful, the process is at least swift: authors can expect to hear within one month that their paper has not been accepted and that they can seek to place it elsewhere. Only 40 percent of submissions get to the second stage of a full external review by three referees. It is arguable that in the past LARR has been guilty of over-reviewing, sometimes soliciting as many as four...