Writing an article is such a personal endeavour: a struggle with questions, structure and individual sentences. And when that struggle seems to be over and the article appears ready for sharing, it can be submitted to ScholarOne, a ‘journals workflow management software’ that EJIL and many other journals use. That hugely personal product is thus fed to a seemingly impersonal beast.
But ScholarOne is only the interface: behind that interface are, at EJIL, three terrific scholars who, through their intellectual and practical contributions, ensure that an article is shepherded through the editorial process. These scholars are EJIL’s Associate Editors, currently Dr Wanshu Cong, Dr Ana Luisa Bernardino and Dr Francisco Quintana, who joined the team in July 2021, March 2022 and August 2023, respectively.
The choice of phrase ‘shepherding articles through the editorial process’ is by no means casual. The Associate Editors guide manuscripts along each step of the process, from the initial submission, through the various stages of review, to the final decision. When an article is submitted, the Associate Editors read it and prepare an initial report on the article for our monthly editorial meeting. In that meeting, each article is discussed by the responsible Associate Editor and at least one of the two Editors-in-Chief, who also read the articles and the reports before the meeting. After the meeting, the Associate Editors communicate the outcomes of the meeting to the authors. These outcomes range from desk rejects to external peer review, with several options in between. Sometimes the editorial team writes to the author that there is a promising idea in the article, but that the article would need to be reframed for that idea to come out, inviting the author to submit a new article. In other cases, the editorial team sends the author suggestions to strengthen the article before it goes to peer review. The Associate Editors also invite peer reviewers, send peer reviewers friendly reminders, and respond to questions from authors about where their article is in the process. When peer review reports come in, the Associate Editors organize the files for discussion at the next editorial meeting. After the meeting, the Associate Editors send the peer review reports to the authors, often with suggestions from the editorial team when the reviews are contradictory or seemingly impossible to implement. Regularly, authors are asked for a ‘roadmap’ of planned revisions, to avoid authors spending months and months on revisions that do not address the key concerns. The roadmap is then discussed in the editorial meeting, after which the Associate Editors communicate the green light or suggestions for additional or different changes so that the article will have a greater chance of getting through peer review in the next round. The Associate Editors read the revised articles, send them to peer review, and again prepare the files for the next editorial meeting. All revised articles are discussed thoroughly, in this round, by both Editors-in-Chief and the responsible Associate Editor.
In sum, behind the sterile and possibly intimidating interface of ScholarOne are three Scholars who carefully read all the submissions, think with the authors, communicate with peer reviewers and authors, and make sure that each and every submission is read and commented on by the Editors-in-Chief and shepherded through the whole editorial process.
Our former Associate Editors are: Orfeas Chasapis Tassinis (2021-2023), Michal Saliternik (2019-2021), Justus Vasel (2018-2020), Guy Fiti Sinclair (2013-2017), Karine Caunes (2011-2012), Emily Kidd White (2009-2010), Eugene Rusyn (2009) and Anne Becker (2008-2009).
All Associate Editors have made both intellectual and, equally importantly, hugely practical contributions to EJIL.
