Abstract
The previous editorial appeared in volume 12 issue 2 (April 2012). This one covers similar ground: impact and submissions, changes to the editorial board, rewards for referees, special issues, analysis of papers and advice for authors, book reviews and one new topic, the change of editors.
Impact
The Thomson Reuters Citation Report for 2011 gives Qualitative Research (QR) an Impact Factor of 1.426, placing the journal 25th out of 137 for Sociology and 14th out of 89 for Social Sciences. These are improvements on the 2010 figures. The editorial board and the referees have done the work that produces these gratifying readings.
Submissions
The number of submissions increased again from ‘194’ (in the period, August 2010 to end of June 2011) to ‘224’ (in the period, July 2011 to August 2012). It was necessary to raise the quality levels further, that is, to reject a higher percentage of the submissions. The rejection rate was 82.2 percent, comprising papers rejected without refereeing (out of scope) and after refereeing.
There were three special issues in 2012:
Forthcoming Special Issues
In volume 13, there is only one Special Issue, edited by Phillip Vannini and Heather Mosher on Public Ethnography. This leaves more room for individual papers and book reviews. The published papers in the three responsive issues came from the following territories:
The submissions between August 2011 and July 2012 came from the following regions:
As QR has remained with six issues per volume, despite the increase in submissions, the proportion of papers being rejected in the editorial office (that is without blind peer review) and after blind peer review has risen, as the following table shows clearly:
Analysis of papers and advice for authors
In 2011–2012, we rejected 107 submissions without sending them out to referees. There are five reasons for this. First, the time of referees is precious, and we do not want to ask anyone to referee a paper unless we think that their time would be productively spent. Second, papers are submitted that report findings. QR does not publish findings, except insofar as they illuminate methodological argument. A good many papers are only reports of findings and are therefore ‘out of scope’. Third, papers come from only one discipline, and make no concessions to readers of QR in other disciplines. Fourth, papers are from one country and make no concessions to readers in any other country. Fifth, papers are not discussing the frontiers of method debates and literatures but only repeating already familiar points.
Conversely, papers that go out to referees are written for readers in a range of disciplines from a range of countries, and are advancing a debate about their topic, be it grounded theory (GT), focus groups, multimodal ethnography or elite interviewing. In many areas, advancing the debate is not easy because there are already many papers on them.
Changes to the Editorial Board
During 2012, the following people have left the Board: Sarah Pink and Jonathan Potter. We would like to thank Sarah and Jonathan, who have served for a long period on the QR board. New board members are David Calvey, Manchester Metropolitan University; Tim Rapley, Newcastle University; Bogusia Temple, University of Central Lancashire; Martin Tolich, University of Otago; Max Travers, University of Tasmania and Andrew Gitlin, University of Georgia.
Refereeing
The latest list of those who have refereed papers since 2010 appeared in volume 12.6. The list is published every 2 years to protect the anonymity of referees. We are keen to recruit more referees for our growing number of submissions, so if you have colleagues, especially early career colleagues, who could enrol on the referees’ database at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/qrj, please encourage them to do so.
Rewards for reviewers: Sage rewards reviewers by providing 1 month’s free access to Sage Content, and a 25 percent book discount on Sage titles ordered online. Details of how to register for online access and order books at discount are given on completion of a review.
Book reviews
As QR is unusual in having a strong book review section, we are pleased that in volume 12, there were 31 reviews, including a symposium, and review essays and articles. We are always glad to hear from people who would like to review books:
QR editorship
We have announced our retirement as editors of QR, effective on 31 December 2014. Sage is currently choosing a new team to take over from 1 January 2015.