Editorship
Since October 2019, Louise McNally and I have been editors-in-chief of Semantics and Pragmatics, a journal of the Linguistic Society of America and the only one of the four main semantics journals to be Diamond Open Access.
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Louise and I strive to sustain the successes achieved by the founding editors, David Beaver and Kai von Fintel, maintaining the exceptional standards set by them for the quality and timeliness of the editorial process.
Here is the tweet of Kai's on the occasion of the transition of the role of editors in chief from him and David to Louise and me.
When you submit a paper to us, one of the associate editors shown below, or Louise or I, signs on to shepherd it, soliciting reviewers, reading it carefully, and eventually – preferably within sixty days – writing a thorough and constructive letter of decision to you, informed by the reviews and approved by the whole editorial team.
There are two key words here, sixty and informed. Sixty: It is our ambition that you should not have to wait for a decision for more than that number of days. Informed: It is likewise our policy to form a well-considered and comprehensive opinion of your submission and to communicate this opinion to you in a clear and helpful way.
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In other words, we are hands-on and do not hide behind reviewers and publishers' officers; a letter like this will not be coming from us:
Your Submission XXXX-X-00-00000
Dear ****,
We have received reports from two advisors on your manuscript XXXX-X-00-00000 "******".
With regret, I must inform you that, based on the advice received, the Editors have decided that your manuscript cannot be accepted for publication in ****. The comments of reviewer #1 have been pasted in below. Reviewer #2 sent both a long list of comments and an annotated version of your manuscript. We hope you'll find those comments and reactions helpful.
I would like to thank you very much for forwarding your manuscript to us for consideration and wish you every success in finding an alternative place of publication.
With kind regards,
