Abstract
This special issue contains representative manuscripts from international authors reporting the results of research conducted in 11 countries or regions. Some of the results are generalizable to particular cultures or groups. Although the International Association of Marriage and Family Counselors, the sponsor of The Family Journal, endeavors to encourage scholars and readers across the globe, many international manuscripts are not accepted for publication. There are challenges faced by authors in the submission, review, and revision process. This overview converges on the need for a mentor for other voices to provide resources and support needed to increase the acceptance rate of international manuscripts.
The Family Journal: Counseling and Therapy for Couples and Families is the official journal of the International Association of Marriage and Family Counselors (IAMFC). The stated purpose of the journal is to advance theory, research, and practice of counseling with couples and families from a family systems perspective. IAMFC is a division of the American Counseling Association, the major association representing professional counselors, counselor educators, and supervisors in the United States. Manuscripts are submitted to The Family Journal (TFJ) by scholars and clinicians from many disciplines including counseling, marriage and family therapy, psychology, medicine, and allied health professions. Articles frequently published in TFJ over 28 years were submitted by professors in academic institutions, although the primary readers of the journal were practicing clinicians who are members of IAMFC. Increasingly, manuscripts submitted for publication originate from international scholars. These manuscripts represent challenges throughout the review, revision, and publication process. TFJ needs an editorial board member or associate who is equipped to serve as a mentor to international authors in order to facilitate the publication process.
There were few international manuscripts published in the first 12 years of the journal. Southern (2006) conducted a content analysis of the first 52 issues of TFJ, examining 1,073 articles, book reviews, and features, to determine publishing characteristics and trends. International articles were subsumed in the “multicultural” category, which was the eighth-ranked theme in the journal. While practice-oriented articles comprised 51.7% of all published articles, research manuscripts were increasingly submitted and accepted for publication (p. 121). The trend toward publishing research accelerated as Kay Nelson and Stephen Southern collaborated with Sage to ensure that the journal retained its status as a peer-reviewed, scientific periodical. The editorial office received increasing numbers of quantitative and qualitative research manuscripts, although only a small subset of the editorial board was willing to review research studies.
IAMFC has simultaneously been involved in study tours, outreach, and diplomacy around the globe. IAMFC leaders encouraged travel and exchange with the United Kingdom, Turkey, China, Singapore, Nicaragua, Panama, South Africa, and other nations. Counselor education programs were successful in attracting international students to the United States to advance globally the marriage and family counseling profession. IAMFC members presented at international conferences. The increasing outreach of IAMFC to realize its mission as an international association significantly stimulated the volume of international manuscripts. Yet, few are published in TFJ. IAMFC members and leaders and TFJ editorial board members and reviewers faced challenges in promoting international publication in the journal.
Prior to moving to the ScholarOne platform at the request of Sage, the editorial board processed manuscripts by email through its own cumbersome electronic database. It was always difficult to process research submissions due to the scarcity of reviewers who identified interests and competencies in quantitative research methods. Research reviewers were overloaded or the flow of manuscripts was slowed in order to review, revise, and accept manuscripts for publication. The trend toward qualitative research improved the disposition and time in review of manuscripts. However, the majority of international manuscripts reported the results of quantitative research. Nevertheless, the slow process of reviewing manuscripts through email (and in the first 12 years of the journal, postal mail exchanges) afforded opportunities for substantial revision and editing of manuscripts throughout the publication process. Reviewers and editorial assistants provided extensive edits and comments such that arguably they could be considered “coauthors” in some cases. With the adoption of the ScholarOne platform, international submissions markedly increased, while opportunities to edit and rewrite have declined.
Some members of the editorial board are unable or unwilling to accept to review the increasing numbers of international manuscripts. The time in review significantly expanded. It is not uncommon to go through 5–10 board members to secure a minimum number of reviews for submitted manuscripts. Editorial board members were frustrated to review manuscripts that did not conform to APA publication guidelines. The problems or topics of research addressed issues particular to the culture in the country of origin, posing problems with generalizability. Some international manuscripts appeared to be political, biased, or oppressive given social justice norms, values, and aspirations in the United States and Western countries. Most international manuscripts lacked the clinical relevance and recommendations for counselors that represented the practice-oriented emphasis of TFJ. Additional challenges associated with international article publication include ongoing limitations of final copy editing by Sage and periodic complaints by IAMFC members regarding English language writing style and grammar (cf. American Psychological Association, 2020, pp. 111–127). In recent months, problems in the review process resulted in the majority of international manuscripts being rejected, redirected, or unsubmitted by the editor without editorial board review.
Desk editing is a common practice in scientific journals used to improve the flow in the review process and the overall quality of published manuscripts (Teixeira et al., 2018). As many as 50% of articles are desk rejected in medical and scientific journals, raising ethical questions related to conflicts of interest and contributing to concerns regarding the accuracy (or bias) implicit in systematic reviews and meta-analyses of published articles (Topper & Boehr, 2018). There are some consensus-based standards for desk rejecting or unsubmitting manuscripts, which are listed in Table 1.
Standards for Desk Rejection of Submitted Manuscripts.
The issues included in Table 1 guide editors of scientific journals in making decisions regarding the course of the review process. While there is controversy regarding whether the conflict of interest or bias of the editor may systematically block publication, especially in resistance to new ideas, there is a general agreement that it is desirable for desk editing to speed up processing and release authors to submit to other journals (Teixeira et al., 2018).
Desk editing at TFJ involves primarily unsubmitting manuscripts with recommendations to follow APA publication guidelines or to include recommendations for clinicians to address the problems identified in the primary research manuscripts of international authors. While it is desirable to tolerate variability in command of English writing style and grammar, in order to secure editorial board perspectives on the content of studies, final copy editing can affect the perceived quality of the published manuscripts. Given the scope of online publishing in all disciplines, some publishers have been implementing additional checks to safeguard or improve the review process. By virtue of editing a journal for Taylor & Francis, the current TFJ editor learned of a series of checks they planned to avoid hoax publications and plagiarism. Manuscripts, verified to be original and not fraudulently submitted, then move through the editorial review process. It is unlikely that hoax manuscripts burden TFJ, but preprocessing of manuscripts would in general be desirable.
There is some increasing concern that submitted manuscripts may reflect intentional or unintended bias. Publication of such manuscripts could lead to discrimination or stigmatization, which is contrary to the social justice aims of the profession and the journal. Occasionally, international authors use language that appears to be offensive or result in inferior stereotypes of selected populations based on minority status, such as members of certain racial, ethnic, regional, or tribal groups. Similarly, treatment of gender roles, courtship, sexuality, marriage, divorce, and other family issues may seem inappropriate or biased given the prevalent social justice standards and aspirational values of marriage and family counselors in America and other Western industrialized nations.
International manuscripts reflect the cultures from which their research and practice emerge. In fact, the manuscripts may explore the transitions in marital and family roles and institutions within traditional and emerging perspectives of their cultures. Therefore, TFJ has published international articles that may challenge Western standards and ideals. As the Black Lives Matter Movement reveals, American culture is no paragon of virtue. Therefore, we cannot assert superiority in standards or the right to become cultural arbiter. Nevertheless, with the adoption of the APA seventh edition style, some international manuscripts may not satisfy sufficiently bias-free language guidelines (American Psychological Association, 2020, pp. 131–149), adding to the challenges of supporting international scholarship in TFJ.
In preparing for this special issue, the editor reviewed the last 36 months of article publication in the journal. There were 313 manuscripts submitted between September 5, 2017, and September 4, 2020, with 113 international manuscripts (36.1% of total) uploaded to the ScholarOne platform. The origins of submitted manuscripts spanned 36 countries that are listed in Table 2.
Origins of Submissions by Country/Region in Alphabetical Order.
Note. The majority of manuscripts were submitted from the United States (N = 200; 63.9%) during September 2017–2020. The remaining submissions were from 36 other countries.
The countries listed in Table 2 span the globe and evidence the potential for TFJ to embrace fully an international audience. However, challenges in meeting current consensus-based publication standards resulted in a small group of accepted manuscripts.
Most of the manuscripts were unsubmitted (returned for major revision prior to processing and review), redirected (topic/content not suitable for TFJ readership and mission), or immediately rejected. Forty-four manuscripts completed the editorial board review process, and 14 (31.8%) were accepted for online publication in TFJ. This special issue contains many of these manuscripts. Several manuscripts were accepted recently and will be included in a future issue of the journal.
In order to continue progress in acceptance of international manuscripts, enhanced mentoring is needed. Ideally, an editorial board member would serve as an associate editor to recommend resources and provide consultation. Lim et al. (2019) described the benefits of using in-house and external editorial services to improve acceptance rates among manuscripts generated in a large teaching hospital. It is also important to correspond with international authors to understand nuanced concepts and figures of speech that arise from translation of native language into English. Sage Author Services offers English Language Editing and revision needed to meet publication standards. The services are provided for a fee by subject matter experts. The services may be accessed at the following site: https://languageservices.sagepub.com/en/services/editing.html
Transition to the guidelines of the seventh edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (American Psychological Association, 2020) is proving difficult for all authors. Loretta Bradley and colleagues have offered support for use of the seventh edition APA style manual (e.g., Bradley et al., 2020). Overholser (2011) provided recommendations for improving professional writing and revision, which have been used by some international students and scholars.
The good news is we offer in this special issue a group of articles from online first publication that is representative of the breadth of topics and diversity in international authorship. Some of the research reports present results that are generalizable across cultures, while other articles describe concerns in family relations that are culture-specific. The authors conducted studies in their home countries or regions. Some authors were based in other national universities or international organizations. We hope that the manuscripts presented in alphabetical order of the countries from which the research arose will be interesting to the general readership and encouraging to international authors.
We are initiating a call for an associate editor for international articles to improve the review process, recommend resources, and provide consultation and encouragement. We would like to build on the successes of the past and reengage with authors. As international submissions increase, we hope to be able to publish more articles consistent with the mission of IAMFC. If you have editorial experience with a peer-reviewed, professional journal, please contact the editor. The ideal candidate would have experience with international graduate education and be bilingual with English and Spanish, French, or Mandarin language skills. Please contact Stephen Southern at
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.