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Page 1 of 2 Academy of Marketing guidelines for best practice for editors, authors and reviewers
(updated September 22nd 2005)
Rationale
As the professional body representing marketing educators, the Academy of Marketing seeks to develop the role of marketing education and training in the UK. Fundamental to this purpose is the requirement to provide excellence in academic journal article publication. The Academy advocates a positive and constructive approach to journal editing and reviewing and in so doing provide support for new and genuinely innovative research alongside traditional and incremental research.
It is vitally important to ensure the integrity and impartiality of the academic reviewing process for all concerned, editors, authors and reviewers. The reputation of a journal and value of any refereed academic publication depends upon the quality of the double (or treble in some cases) blind reviewing process. With this in mind the Academy of Marketing Research Committee (AMRC) has sought to identify best practice for editors, authors and reviewers of academic journals and provide the guidelines outlined below. In addition there are some guidelines for Guest Editors involved in compiling Special Issues, some consideration of how to motivate reviewers to do a difficult and unpaid job. Finally a bibliography is attached for further reading.
Editors’ perspectives
Editors’ overall aims are to:
- enhance standing and progression of the profession
- to provide advice and guidance in assisting fellow academics towards publication
- enhance the integrity and reputation of a journal
- look for papers with topics that fit the focus of a journal
- look for progression of ideas, new developments in research, interesting papers that ‘contribute’ to the domain
Best practice for Editors’ are to:
- oversee a fair and positive/constructive reviewing process
- always try to be impartial
- try to ensure poor papers are not sent out for review
- manage reviewers carefully by:
providing clear direction of what is expected from reviewers,
choosing appropriate reviewers for paper,
encouraging reviewers to provide constructive comments and
return the review within a given time period
In addition editors’ need to:
- motivate reviewers to accept role and do good job
- remove poorly performing reviewers from review board
Authors’ perspectives
Authors’ overall aims are to:
- get published and
- have work acknowledged by research community
Best practice for authors’ are to:
- read journal guidelines before writing a paper,
- select an appropriate journal for your research,
- write paper according to the journal guidelines, aims and objectives
- write to the highest standard, best quality writing, with logical structure and focus
- ensure paper is proof read before sending off
- be patient with reviewing process and respond to all queries from editor and reviewers
- remember that the reviewing process is based on voluntary and part-time activity of both editors and reviewers so authors are getting a ‘free service’
- be aware that the number of paper slots in journals is limited
Reviewers’ perspectives
Reviewers’ overall aims are to:
- enhance standing and progression of the marketing profession
- to provide advice and guidance in assisting fellow academics towards publication
Best practice for reviewers’ are to:
- take a professional approach to the job of reviewing
- provide positive and constructive comments to authors that will allow improvement of their articles
- give direction to authors on how to improve their work (even if recommending rejection)
- provide well written, clear reviews for authors within a reasonable time-scale
Best practice for Guest Editors compiling Special Issues
In addition to the points above for editors, reviewers and authors, there are some specific issues Guest Editors of Special Issues need to address in order to maintain the integrity of the review process. These are as follows:
- if the Guest Editor is planning to include a paper of his/her own they should not manage the review process themselves, but should send it to the Journal’s Editor(s) to manage the review process independently
- for further independence and transparency, a list of the reviewers for the Special Issue should be supplied to the Journal Editor(s) and published in the Special Issue. These reviewers should be different from the list of authors’ included in the Special Issue, otherwise the reviewing process becomes very competitive and inherently unfair.
(these points are taken from the European Journal of Marketing’s ‘Guidelines for Guest Editors’).
Motivating reviewers
What editors’ can do:
- don’t overwork reviewers
- send appropriate papers to reviewers, with papers that will be of interest to reviewer
- choose reviewers who are research active
What authors’ can do:
- ensure paper is well prepared, easy to read, and carefully edited
- state the key value and contribution the paper makes early on to get the reviewer ‘hooked’
- respond positively and thoughtfully to reviewers comments and do not ignore them.
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