Editor's Foreword

Expediting Manuscript Reviews and Larr Acceptance Rates

This is the second annual report to provide comparative data about LARR manuscript submission and acceptance rates, the average time taken in review, and the disciplinary areas and countries represented in research submissions during the calendar year 2003 (see LARR 38, no. 2, for the previous year's report). In this foreword I also report on how that distribution of submissions actually translates into published articles and research notes, in this case drawing upon two years of published material, 2003 and 2004 (i.e., six issues including the present one). I also provide additional data about books received and review essays solicited, as a supplement to Associate Editor Henry Dietz's foreword in the previous issue (vol. 39, no.2).

Manuscript Review and Publication Time

LARR remains firmly committed to ensuring that all work submitted is reviewed as constructively as possible and that reviews be completed in a timely manner. We are also determined to avoid a significant backlog or queue of papers that would further delay publication of an accepted manuscript. The in-press time thereafter is straightforward, providing few opportunities for time savings: Once a manuscript is accepted, copyediting, communicating with authors on edits, reviewing proofs, scheduling production and distribution, and so on require a minimum of nine months.

Since LARR transferred to the University of Texas at Austin in 2002, the editors have made it a high priority to notify authors about decisions on their manuscripts expeditiously. In order to achieve this, papers undergo an initial internal review by an expert in the field. When it is decided not to proceed with an external review of the manuscript, the paper is rejected at that stage. Only slightly less than half of all manuscripts received actually go out for external review, and this preliminary decision reflects a good-faith judgment by the editor about the paper's appropriateness for LARR, the anticipated level of interest in the subject matter for a multi- and inter-disciplinary audience, the quality of the reported research, and a prima facie assessment that it has at least a reasonable chance of receiving a positive reading by three or four anonymous reviewers. At this stage the benefit of the doubt always goes to the author, our maxim being: "if in doubt, send it out." Although we appreciate that a quick rejection is both disappointing and frustrating for authors, since little detailed feedback is offered, we believe that the process—a longstanding LARR tradition—is defensible so long as it is expeditious. Readers should know that in 2003 the average turnaround for rejections at this stage was thirteen days—well inside the one-month target that we set ourselves when LARR moved to the University of Texas at Austin.

In 2003, 47 percent of submissions went out for full external review by three referees—"double blinded" of course (we strive to ensure that neither reviewers nor authors know each other's identity)—and the average time taken was eighty-seven days(i.e., slightly less than three months) from first receipt of the manuscript to a decision letter being sent to the author. Outside of the medical and biological sciences, a turnaround time of less than three months is considered exceptionally fast. And while reviewers are asked to return their reports within one month, the process is often considerably longer given the time it takes to contact potential reviewers, send them the manuscript, and so on. Prospective authors can help at this stage by ensuring that, when requested to do so, they send LARR the electronic copy of their paper, properly "blinded" (see "Submission Information" at http://larr.lanic.utexas.edu). Unfortunately, not all reviewers are able to get back to us inside one month, and we rarely make a decision until we have at least three reports in hand, copies of which are sent to the author. LARR also sends reviewers a copy of the decision letter, together with copies of the individual reviewers' evaluations (with all identifying remarks...