Getting published in Nonprofit journals: An Editor’s Perspective (Part 3)
April 26, 2022 Author: Susan Phillips, Editor-in-Chief, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly
Conclusion: In sum, give the submission your best shot in the first place. Be audacious in thinking about theory and phenomena in new ways. Be able to explain why the topic matters and the gaps in the research and how you fill these by having immersed yourself in the literature. Collect the best data you can for the research questions and present the evidence and analytical steps in a logical, transparent manner. Be explicit about the limitations. Then, use the feedback from the review process constructively.
My admonition to all scholars is that we have a responsibility to participate in the review process as referees: to get our own work published we rely on our peers who volunteer to review, and we need to reciprocate. For emerging scholars, a good way of apprenticing the publication craft is to volunteer to review – just let journal editors know you are interested. When you are invited to review, please respond to the invitation, even if you can’t undertake the assessment at this time because a non-response causes delays for authors. If you cannot provide a review at the time – and at times, we all need to decline – please suggest another expert in the field as an alternative. If you have provided a review on the first round, I urge you to follow the process through (unless somehow you vigorously disagree with the fundamentals of the paper). When a reviewer drops out on subsequent rounds, the editor likely needs to find a replacement, which not only causes delays for the authors but disrupts the continuity of the process if the substitute takes the revisions in entirely new directions at a late stage.
Finally, Canadian scholarship in this field needs to be expanded, further diversified, and deepened. Only about 3 percent of the submissions to NVSQ are from Canadian scholars, fewer than from Spain, Australia or China. The creation of ANSER-ARES and ANSERJ are important vehicles for developing our collective scholarship, and we need to nurture them, and build upon them.
Questions and submissions should be sent to: anser.ares@gmail.com
Association for Nonprofit and Social Economy Research (ANSER) — Association de recherche sur les organismes sans but lucratif et de l’économie sociale (ARES) is a Canadian association, and registered charity, focused on research that pertains broadly to nonprofit organizations and the social economy.
http://www.anser-ares.ca/home/ Twitter: @ANSERARES LinkedIn: ANSER-ARES Facebook: ANSER-ARES
Past blogs:
Getting published in Nonprofit Journals: An Editor’s Perspective (Part 2) – April 18, 2022
Getting Published in Nonprofit Journals: An Editor’s Perspective (Part 1) – April 11, 2022