Number of Submissions

In terms of number of submissions, for 2011–12, the UCLA team reports that as with their first (2007–08), submissions spiked in their final year. In fact, that year (July 1, 2011 through June 30, 2012) recorded the second highest total for “new” APSR submissions (761) under the leadership of the UCLA editorial team. When revisions are also factored in, 2011–2012 represents the highest total number of papers handled in any 12-month period (846). Despite that record number, however, and despite the almost inevitable slight uptick in time from receipt to editor assignment, time from receipt to first decision still declined slightly in 2011–12 in comparison to the previous year.

Table 1

Submissions per Year

In the first six months of operations under the UNT editorship (July 2012–January 2013) we received 489 original submissions (or 549 total submissions including revise and resubmits left over from the previous team), or approximately 2.67 original submissions per day. If we extrapolate this out over 365 days, the current rate suggests about 975 submissions for 2012–2013 (although we believe that this rate may ease in the coming months). As of January 1, 2013 we invited 2,530 reviewers, 1,160 of whom accepted, 643 declined. The remaining reviewers were either withdrawn as reviewers, or we are awaiting a response for papers currently under review. Thus 64.3% agreed to review when requested.

Turnaround Times

We continue the trend of reducing the number of days from first receipt of a submission to first decision (table 2). As indicated in table 2, despite the uptick in submissions processed by the UCLA team from 2011–12, turnaround times decreased from 70.9 days on average to 68.9 days. Although the data is somewhat limited in that it only covers half a year and many things can change, during the first six months at the helm, the UNT team has reduced the turnaround time further to an average of 41.9 days. One of our primary goals was to shorten the editorial assistant vetting and co-editor reviewer assignment time. Our editorial assistants have been very diligent in processing manuscripts quickly, and we have endeavored to be as quick as possible in reviewer assignment times. We have also engaged in the practice of directly contacting late reviewers to expedite the review process, although our reviewers have been very prompt in completing their reviews, 34 days on average. Indeed, the lion's share of the credit in reducing turnaround times lies with the efficiency of our editorial assistants and of our reviewers.

Table 2

Elapsed Time (Avg. No. of Days) in Review Process, 2010–2012

Mix of Submissions

In terms of the mix of the submissions (see table 3a) during the period 2011–2012 the distribution of submissions changed only slightly. From 2011 to2012, there was a slight uptick in submissions from the American politics field (from 20% in 2010–2011 to 23% in 2011–2012), but the percentages for the other subfields remained virtually the same.

Table 3a

Distribution of New Papers Submitted, 2011–2012 (%)

Table 3b

Distribution of New Papers Submitted, 2011–2012 (%)

For the six months under the leadership of the UNT team, the percentages are generally consistent with past patterns. Categorized by disciplinary subfield, the papers we received from July 2012 to January 2013 are also reported in table 3a. The distributions are consistent with past distributions in previous APSR reports. The largest proportion of manuscripts continues to be from the comparative politics field (30% in the past six months, compared to same proportions in the previous two years) with a small decline in the proportion manuscripts from American politics (20% in the past six months compared to 23% in the previous year). The biggest increase (and in our view a most encouraging development given our stated goal of number of increasing the diversity of submissions) is the jump in submission from the international relations field, from 17% in 2011–2012 to 20% currently. This is a most encouraging development. Submissions from normative theory, formal theory, methods and race, ethnicity, and politics remain consistent with past submission patterns.

During 2011–2012, in terms of the mix of submissions by approach, the patterns of submissions are also consistent with past patterns. The largest proportion continues to be quantitative (53.0%) and the percentages for the other fields remained consistent when comparing the last year under the UCLA team with previous years. The one exception was the decline in submissions that used interpretive or conceptual approaches, but much of that was due to the addition of another category (qualitative and/or empirical) that was added by the UCLA team in their last year.

For the past six months under the UNT team the mix of submissions is very similar to the past patterns. There has been a slight decline in formal and formal and quantitative approaches, but increases in small N, interpretive/conceptual, and qualitative and/or empirical. Overall, in the past six months, formal, quantitative, and formal and quantitative submissions constitute 68% of all submissions in comparison to the 74% of all submissions in 2011–12 and the average of 72% of all submissions from 2008–12. We take these data as a positive sign in terms of our stated goal of diversifying the pool of submissions sent to the Review.

In addition to traditional indicators of the diversity of submissions that have appeared in past reports, we have also collected data on two other indicators of diversity during the period July 2012–January 2013—gender of first author of the submission and national location of first author of the submission. These data were not collected by previous editorial teams.

Thus far, 373 of 487 manuscript first authors (76%) during this period were men, and 114 were women (24%) (two manuscripts could not be determined in terms of gender). Although we believe that this is progress, this is still lower than the estimated 32% of the APSA membership that is comprised of women. Further, approximately 34% of first authors of submitted manuscripts during the six months under the UNT editorial team were based in non-US institutions, an encouraging sign. We are hopeful to improve the diversity of submissions on all dimensions and will continue to monitor trends in terms of gender and international authorship.

Outcomes

Table 4 reports the outcome of the first round of the review process both for the year 2011–2012 and the past six-month period (as well as previous years for comparative perspective). For the past year under the leadership of the UCLA team the proportion of summary rejects and inappropriate submissions (both without review), the proportion of rejects after reviews, conditional accepts, and accepts after first round, were very consistent with percentages reported in the previous years.

Table 4

Outcome of First Round of the Review Process (%)

Continuing the practice of our predecessors we have made use of summary rejection to relieve “reviewer fatigue” and to remove from consideration submissions that would most surely not survive the usual review process. Over the first six months, we made 396 decisions. In comparison with period 2011–2012 we have increased the percentage of summary rejects in the first six months under the UNT editorial team to nearly 24% of the total (up from 20% previously). However, our proportion of reject after reviews is lower than the previous years (although comparable to 2009–2010), and the percentage invited to revise and resubmit is higher than in previous years (although comparable to 2009–2010). These differences are largely due, in our view, to our higher summary reject rate and our decision as an editorial team to avoid inviting “de novo” resubmissions (or “reject and resubmit”) which was a practice of previous editorial teams. Rather, we either reject or invite to revise and resubmit (and not “reject and resubmit”). This is consistent with the practice of other major journals, and we believe that avoiding granting de novo resubmissions is generally a wise practice that we will continue.

Tables 5a and 5b report outcomes by accepted manuscripts by field and approach. In these tables we only report the data for 2011–2012 for the distribution of accepted manuscripts and not for the period July 2012–January 2013 because it is entirely too early to report on accepted manuscripts, simply because we have not accepted that many. We will have a better picture on progress on outcomes for our next annual report in 2014.

Table 5a

Distribution of Papers Accepted-by FIELD, 2011–2012 (%)

Table 5b

Distribution of Papers Accepted-by APPROACH, 2011–2012 (%)

As in previous years, almost all of the papers accepted in 2011–2012 (85%) had been initially submitted in a prior year. Hence it is more accurate to compare a given year's acceptances with the prior year's submissions. Papers accepted by field showed a fairly large decline in “American” (from 29% to 21%) and international relations (from 12% to 7%). On the other hand, acceptances rose in comparative (from 25% to 33%) and methods (from 0% to 5%). Normative theory and race, ethnicity, and politics were almost unchanged during this period.

As indicated in table 5b, the percentage of formal, quantitative, and formal and quantitative acceptances continued to decline slightly but, taken together, continued to constitute three-quarters of all papers accepted from 2011 to 2012.

Visibility

Thanks largely to the efforts of the UCLA team, the Review remains the top-ranked journal in political science with a Thompson-Reuters Impact Factor (IF) score in 2011 of 3.05, making it again the top-ranked journal in political science The Review's five-year impact factor, at 3.759 in 2011, is fourth behind Political Analysis (5.402), Public Opinion Quarterly (4.02), and American Journal of Political Science (3.941), which is a slight decline from past years where the Review ranked second only to Political Analysis. We believe, however that this is largely a temporary blip and that the Review will recover its position soon.

Future Plans

In our continuing effort to connect with various constituencies in our discipline (to increase the diversity of submissions) we will continue the outreach efforts that we began during this past transition year. Over the past year, fifteen (15) conferences and professional meetings that host a great many political scientists have been attended by at least one of the co-editors. We have addressed either the leadership of these organizations, the organized sections, or the caucus group of political scientists have been attended by at least one of the co-editors. We discussed our strategic goals and welcomed their suggestions and input. These meetings included many that one or more of the editors normally attend, so that we will likely continue our outreach efforts over the course of tenure as APSR editors. In 2013, we are scheduled to make additional outreach visits to a number of national and international conferences, workshops, and meetings to further broaden our outreach efforts.

Finally, as follow up to the last annual report, it is worth noting that we will continue the management model pioneered successfully by the UCLA team, namely (a) multiple editors are necessary to handle both the volume and the variety of submissions. (b) With modern technology, the multiple editors need not be from the same institution (but it certainly helps). (c) A lead editor is needed to provide coherence and continuity. (d) The co-editor model, in which the entire group considers papers before their final acceptance, pays large benefits in quality and readability of the pieces that appear in the Review.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to serve the association and our discipline, and we remain grateful for the trust and support of our colleagues. We welcome your comments and any suggestions as we proceed.