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  • The Editor’s DepartmentAnnual Report
  • Brian D. Joseph

Every year, in conjunction with the annual meeting of the Linguistic Society of America in January, the editor is asked to prepare for the LSA Executive Committee a report on the past year, covering activities and issues pertaining to the running of the journal, highlighting any new developments of note, and addressing any matters deemed important by either the Executive Committee or the editor himself. As is now the custom, appearing here in place of my more usual editorial comments in this section of the journal is my third ‘State of the Journal’ report, in which I sum up the events of my third year on the job. What is printed here is essentially the form in which the report was submitted to the Executive Committee in January, though with a footnoted informational update, the correction of errors, some embellishment and elaboration where appropriate, and some minor editorial and typographical adjustments.

Brian D. Joseph
Columbus, Ohio
March 10, 2005

The Editor’s Report

Preamble

I am now at the end of my third year at the helm of Language and the mantle of the editorship fits quite comfortably now; whatever high points and low points I—and the journal—have experienced in the past year and in the previous two years have all given me greater confidence in my decisions and a better sense both of what needs to be done and what needs not to be done. The routines that have been established for processing papers and producing issues of the journal are moving along like a proverbial well-oiled machine for the most part, though I am the first to admit that there is always room for improvement.

In what follows, I survey the Language-related events of the past year, ever cognizant of how important a task the publication of the journal is. At the same time, I also appreciate how downright interesting it is to work on the journal, and consider myself to be truly privileged to be associated with it.

Language: A numerical overview

I start with Language-by-the-numbers, a statistical summary of volume 80 with a bit of commentary. As is the norm for Language, four issues appeared; I am pleased to be able to report that all four issues appeared on time, being posted electronically with Project Muse and being mailed out to subscribers by approximately the middle of the month in which they were designated to appear (March, June, September, and December). The production cycle that we developed last year, whereby we begin production (via the copyediting process) four months in advance of the target date for mailing an issue, has enabled us to keep to our timetable, aided by some streamlining we have effected in our copyediting and proofing procedures. There is a continuing steady stream of fine papers (see below for details) so that even as the December 2004 (volume 80.4) issue is close to coming out as I write this report, we have all the papers for the March 2005 issue (volume 81.1) in production, and the June 2005 issue is already almost full. Any new acceptances at this point will most likely be designated for the September 2005 issue. This steady flow of papers and our ability to adhere to our production cycle should keep the journal on time for the years to come. [End Page 547]

These four issues contained 934 pages, with 584 pages devoted to 18 articles, 15 to 1 review article, 34 to 4 discussion notes, 27 to 3 obituaries, 71 to 22 reviews, 121 to 173 book notices, and 82 to other material (letters: 15 pages for 11 letters; Editor’s Department columns: 24 pages for 4 pieces, including the annual Editor’s Report; Recent Publications lists: 19 pages; index: 23 pages; slippage: 1 page). In many ways, these figures are quite comparable to those of the previous year in terms of the distribution of types of items published, but overall the volume was longer—by choice, partly to catch up on a large number of reviews and book notices that needed to be included but also reflecting the...

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