THIRTY YEARS OF CHANGE IN THE PUBLICATION PROCESS

Abstract

This essay considers changes in the publication process in sociology journals over the last thirty years. Decisions of accept or conditional accept on the first submission have almost disappeared, and the use of revise and resubmit decisions has expanded to cover a wide range of papers. Other important changes have been an increase in the typical number of reviewers and a less active role for editors. The changes have resulted in an improvement of the quality of published papers, but have also had some negative consequences. One is a slowdown in the process. Another is a dominance of one kind of publication — the full-scale research paper — and a decline of other types, including comments, research notes, and essays. The paper concludes by discussing some changes that might encourage a wider variety of publication types and facilitate commentary and debate on published papers