Report of the Managing Editor, The American Political Science Review, 1971–1972

Extract

In my last report I described some attempts at innovation in the management and format of the Review; this year I can report that we have settled into our routines. The increased readability and literacy which some readers have noticed in the Review I attribute primarily to the alert and sensitive manuscript editing of Dr. Ellen Siegelman, a remarkable person who combines wide learning in the social sciences with an unusual feel for language. Jeanne Dritz, our hawkeyed proofreader, is responsible for a Review increasingly free from typographical error. The energy and imagination of Professor Philip Siegelman, our book editor, has in my opinion brought the book review section to a new level of usefulness to the profession. The work of these gifted professionals has not only lifted the quality of the Review but also the spirits of the managing editor. Barbara Hight, Norma Jean Minor, Lenny Cooper and, for a time, Margaret Carlson, performed the mundane tasks that kept the machinery going: placing the calls and opening the mail, unwrapping the books and sending out reminders, snipping authors' names off manuscripts and balancing our bank account, collating galleys and bringing back coffee.

The sum total of these routine tasks is, I suppose, what producing a scholarly journal is all about. An editorial office cannot write a scholarly journal — scholars do that. It is our job to see that what scholars do write and send to us is evaluated fairly — and so far as we can extort cooperation from our referees, promptly — presented attractively and with fidelity and delivered seasonably into the hands of readers.