Publishers develop materials for their audiences, and there are a wide variety of publications for all interests. Generally, most people want to know what about events and issues that affect them, and magazines, newspapers and books are developed to help the general public understand these ideas. Some publishers are more careful than others about verifying the information submitted for publication. Authors may be reporters, professionals or others sharing their perspective and insight. Publishers review the material submitted based on the interests of their audience.
The process of publishing in a professional journal is very formal and regimented. The peer review process lends a good deal of credibility to the content of the journal and is why you will find that your professors will require you to use scholarly or academic sources in assignments for their classes. Peer reviewed journals are respected for the screening or validation process that they undergo.
Both general and academic or professional publishing involves the same type of staff, including authors, editors and publishers. However, academic and professional publications recruit professionals for each of these positions.
The first is that of author. This, of course, is the person who has written his/her research and who wishes to publish his/her work. In professional journals, this often person is a faculty member at a university. While this is not required, it is assumed that the author has some expertise in the subject being published. If submitted to an academic/professional publisher, the author anticipates that his/her work will be evaluated by other experts as part of the publishing process. The author is responsible for the content of the article, and makes revisions based on the comments of the editor and reviewers.
The editor of a general publication, such as a magazine or newspaper, reviews the material submitted, and determines if it is appropriate for their publication. An editor is responsible for selecting articles and preparing each issue for publication.
When the editor of a scholarly journal receives an author’s submitted manuscript, a preliminary decision is made whether the content is appropriate for the journal. If deemed relevant, the editor will contact experts in the given field or discipline. These experts may be on the staff of the journal, or they may be faculty at universities who volunteer their services. The editor acts as a neutral “go between” for the author and peer reviewers, and will forward the manuscript to these experts for them to conduct a review of the proposed article.
These reviewers or peers will critique the manuscript and will pass judgement on it. However, they reviewers are not simply checking for spelling and grammatical errors, the focus is on the content and methodology of the research. They will look at whether it does indeed contain new, legitimate work, whether it copies someone else’s work, whether the research was of acceptable quality, etc. They may make suggestions for improvement for the editor to give to the author, they may accept the quality of the work, or they may reject it for being substandard. It is the peer reviewers, then, who will determine whether or not the manuscript will be published. Usually this is done in a blind review, so that the author and reviewers are not known to each other.
If the article is accepted for publication, there is usually no fee paid to the author. The incentive to the author in scholarly publishing is the prestige afforded in being published in a highly respected journal. Often, this is one of the qualities that faculty members are judged on for their job performance at the university.
The incentive to the journal publisher to invest the time to establish the peer review process is the prestige of publishing a high quality journal. These journals are sold by subscription to members of professions and to academic libraries for use by other university faculty and to companies doing their own research. However, there are options for author-funded publications, which require the author to pay a service for the publishing process. These publications are usually not peer-reviewed nor considered high quality publications for their academic value.
Generally, the role of the author is to do the research, compile the article and make revisions to address issues noted by the reviewers. The editor serves the publisher and is responsible for preparing the manuscript for publication, and is the “go between” the author, reviewers and publisher. The publisher is the business official, responsible for the format, frequency, and policies of the journal, in addition to guidelines for advertising, the type of articles and other publication issues. Most publishers require authors to sign over the copyright ownership for the articles, and the publisher accepts responsibility for distribution and monitoring any unfair use of the publication.
