publishing: new irritations about late reviews

Music: Tendersticks: self-titled (1995)

Aside from the recent inability of my professional organization to keep reprint fees in check, the frustrations and irritations of publishing one's academic work continue to mount. I've detailed the trials and tribulations of the blind review process ad nauseum on Rosechron, mostly as way to vent frustration, but also to give budding scholars a sense of what they're in for---and also to offer encouragement. Just knowing that someone else has endured what you are enduring and that he or she thinks it sucks too, I hope, is helpful. If you try to publish, you will get rejected. In fact, odds are your manuscript at some point will be lost or forgotten (I've three good stories about this malady, in particular).

Folks frequently tease me about my publication record because I've been successful, but I try to remind them all those successes have come with setbacks, frustrations, and very bad (and sometimes unjust) reviews. I've been successful because I've been tenacious and can generally take criticism well at this point. I've also been successful because I've learned a lot from rejections and very kind, very generous reviewers who took the time to show me the ropes. Thank Goddess for the generous reviewers who have taken the time to outline what it takes to produce scholarship (something that, frankly, no grad program can really prepare you for; rejection is part of the learning process). Learning not to equate your worth as a scholar with any one essay you write is not easy, but you just gotta. Things get rejected. And sometimes not everything you put on paper---however long you've crafted it---is worth reading. I've got a huge file in my office to prove it. If you're productive, you're going to produce waste with the gold.

At this point in my scholarly career, however, I've moved "to the other side." I now review far more essays for publication than I submit---on average, I'd say, anywhere from five to ten a year (and sadly, most of them I reject). From the perspective of a reviewer, I've learned a lot about the review process. At some point I hope to share what I've learned that would be helpful to authors (e.g., proofread), but for this post I want to underscore the most pressing problem of publication for my field of communication studies: timely reviews.

I think it's fair to say, based on my experience in the past four years, that it takes on average two years to see an essay to publication. I am not, nor have ever been, an editor, but I'm willing to put all my chips on one color, and that color is that reviewers take too long to review. This is particularly problematic because of one simple fact: the tenure clock for most institutions has not changed for decades (five to six years). I don't think, given current economic pressures, we're going to be able to alter it. Newer generations of scholars are going to be pushed to publish more in less time. This is a real pickle for the humanities.

I currently review for seven journals, give or take a journal or two (for example, I'm a masthead reviewer for Rhetoric Review, and have not reviewed anything for Enos in over two years, while I am not on the masthead at CSMC, but have reviewed twice in the past semester). All of the editors of these journals ask for my review within six weeks (a few ask for four weeks). I have a handful of exceptions, but for the most part I get my reviews back within two or three weeks. In part, I hate having something to do looming over me---so I want to get it done (I'm very bad with deadlines---or very good---cause they drive me crazy). But part of the reason I hurry with my reviews is that I tend to review younger scholars---folks like me who are working on tenure, or just starting out.

Sadly, my attitude toward the reviewing timeframe is not shared by many. Of my last three publications, two were delayed for years because of no-show reviewers, or because reviewers refused to get their reviews back to editors in a timely manner.

Now, one would hope that editorial teams are scolding reviewers for their tardiness---but I am cynical. I know at least one editor---Marty Medhurst---runs a pretty tight ship and sits on reviewers for being tardy. But Marty is the only one I'm familiar with at the moment . . . .

Hence the exigency of this post. For some years I've been working on an admittedly "weird" essay that dabbles in interdisciplinarty, with a sprinkle of Derrida and cognitive brain research. It's a strange beast of an essay, to be sure. The journal to which it was originally submitted took one whole year to review it. When I got the reviews back, it was a "revise and resubmit," but then the editor stepped down and I knew if I sent it back I would basically be going through a whole new editorial team (that is, I knew any revisions would be moot, since the new team would want to send it to new reviewers). So, I pulled the essay, revised, and sent to a new journal almost fourteen weeks ago.

A few days ago I figured it was time to ask the journal "where we are in the process?" After all, as a reviewer I'm told six weeks is the maximum to take for a review, and I usually get my reviews into editors in three weeks or less. I sent this quick note:

Dear Mr.______:

The last week of March I submitted the essay "___________." The essay has been in review for thirteen weeks, going on fourteen. I'm writing to ask about where we are in the process.

Sincerely,

Josh Gunn

I was both annoyed and amused by the response I received today by the editorial assistant. In part, I think the response is a "form" letter, but one can't be sure:

Josh Gunn,

Considering the demands of peer review and the responsibilities of our reviewers, it is difficult to estimate a time frame. The editorial team, Dr. ______, the reviewers and I, try our best to expedite the process. Your manuscript is currently under review and we expect a response soon. You will be informed of the next steps when the manuscript returns from peer review.

Thank you for your correspondence. We look forward to the reviewer's response. If you have any other questions, do not hesitate to contact us.

Sincerley [sic],

Editorial Assistant

As we all know, it's very difficult to discern tone in emails, and in messages like the above it's very easy to project unintended meanings. This assistant is trying to nice, meeting me halfway, but clear to stop-short of an apologetic tone. Even so, I read the first sentence a number of times, and I confess I'm at a loss to discern what it means: "Considering the demands of peer review and the responsibilities of our reviewers, it is difficult to estimate a time frame." Seriously: what does this mean?

Given the facts (14 weeks in review), I think the most straightforward interpretation is simply that the reviewers are late in reviewing the manuscript. I cannot imagine an editor telling reviewers, "you have five months to review this manuscript"---that would be absurd. So it stands to reason such a message tacitly acknowledges something. But, you know, what is that something?

Well, for one thing, the sentence asking me to "consider the demands of review" and the "responsibilities of our reviewers" positions me as someone who is not a reviewer, or who does not regularly review for scholarly publication. I often consider the demands of review---those demands are timeliness and not holding up some assistant professor who is trying to keep his or her job. I routinely decline invitations to review manuscripts when I know I cannot get the essay back in three or four weeks time. I'm also quite familiar with the responsibilities of reviewers: I have to balance service obligations at school, teaching, my own research, and domestic life stuff with my reviewing duties. The "image of thought" deployed in the first sentence is, of course, one of hierarchy; it presumes I do not understand what it is to be a scholar who reviews for journals on a regular basis.

I can easily forgive such assumptions. What I cannot forgive, and what irritates me to no end, is that other reviewers do not respect what I do: timeliness. We're all effing busy. I can throw a rock in my department office and I'll hit a person who is up to his or her eyeballs in "busy." We need some sort of discipline-wide talking-to about the importance of fair and timely blind review. We need to educate folks that, if they agree to review an article, that agreement entails timeliness. If we cannot agree to be timely for each other, then as a field we're shooting ourselves in the feet. If there's one thing worse than rejection, it's waiting a year for it.