542240JMTXXX10.1177/1057083714542240Journal of Music Teacher Education 24(1)Killian research-article2014 From the Editor On Appreciation and Successful Publishing Journal of Music Teacher Education 2014, Vol. 24(1) 7 11 National Association for Music Education 2014 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.com/journalspermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1057083714542240 jmte.sagepub.com Janice N. Killian 1 Every 2 years, three editorial review board members of Journal of Music Teacher Education (JMTE) retire after a 6-year term. As a profession, we owe the following reviewers a huge debt of gratitude: Christian Bernhard, State University of New York Fredonia; Daryl Kinney, Ohio State University; and Nathan Kruse, Case Western Reserve University (completing an unexpired term). They have rigorously perused, evaluated, and provided wisdom regarding a myriad of manuscripts. Because the manuscript submission rate for JMTE continues to climb, they have evaluated dozens of complex manuscripts. Thank you from all of us. Our profession is better because of your work. Note the names of the current reviewers on the JMTE masthead; we appreciate their continued efforts. For details about the rigorous reviewer-selection process, see On Gratitude, Service, and Peer Review (Killian, 2012). Advice for Successful Publication Follow Directions The changing of the editorial review board seems to be a good time to consider the process of successful publishing in JMTE. Actually, the entire process can be succinctly summarized in two words: Follow Directions. But allow me to provide a few details. The instructions are printed here for your reference. They are available online at http://www.sagepub.com/journals/journal201903/manuscriptsubmission: All articles must be related to music teacher education. Manuscripts may be of a philosophical, historical, descriptive, experimental, or methodological nature. Two general types of submissions are considered: projects producing new data (research articles) and papers having underpinnings in research, but not resulting in new data, that 1 Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX, USA Corresponding Author: Janice N. Killian, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX 79409-2033, USA. Email: janice.killian@ttu.edu
8 Journal of Music Teacher Education 24(1) expand the knowledge base of the profession (interest articles). All articles should include discussion of implications for teacher-educators. Choose the Appropriate Journal JMTE is strictly a subject-specific journal. We publish only articles related to music educator preparation. If the document does not apply to teacher preparation, send it elsewhere. JMTE reviewers reject excellent manuscripts because they do not apply to music teacher education in an obvious way. Don t assume reviewers will understand how a particular topic might apply; make the transfers obvious. Most successful authors choose to label a section of their article Implications for Teacher Preparation. Follow the Instructions to Contributors Carefully Unique to JMTE is the fact that we publish both research and interest articles. Note, however, that although research articles must produce new data, interest articles do not result in new data but refer to research that expands the knowledge base of the profession. Thus, references are expected for all submissions. Opinion or best practice articles unsupported by references are typically not published. Blind All References Blind peer review is the quality control for publication in our profession. Carefully peruse the manuscript for all identifying names or comments. The editor sees your name and affiliation; reviewers should not. Do not upload anything that will allow reviewers to identify you. Be diligent about this. Effective blinding methods include highlighting in black author and affiliation names in both the body of the paper and the references, or replacing each name with AUTHOR (date) within the manuscript, and also listing AUTHOR (date) but no article title in the references. That information is, of course, made visible in the published article. Submit the Most Carefully Written Manuscript Possible JMTE requires APA manuscript style, including double spacing throughout both the paper and references. Consult the sixth edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, or the Purdue University Writing Lab website https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/. If you choose to use reference-formatting software, please check carefully that indeed the formatting is correct; often it is not. Capitalization and punctuation within references are the most frequent problem areas. Choose Words Wisely. Avoid grammatical and syntactical errors. Consider whether sentences can be written more succinctly and less awkwardly. Do readers need an entire quote or only a portion of it? Sometimes new researchers tend to use more quotations than original words. Use quotations sparingly, synthesizing the information and citing the reference.
Killian 9 Avoid Anthropomorphisms, or Personifications. Research doesn t demonstrate; researchers do. Avoid the phrase researchers did a study that found. Simply say researchers found. And by the way, the study didn t find. Researchers found. Again, these seem to be phrases overused by new researchers. See Sims (2011) for a list of the most common writing problems encountered in Journal of Research in Music Education submissions. Why Does Such Careful Writing Matter? Like performance adjudicators, reviewers who find errors early in the paper tend to form a judgment about quality at that time. Do careless errors indicate careless research? If small errors appear early on, the author forms the impression that this paper is not well written and perhaps not worthy of publication. So submit a very clean version; do not expect reviewers to edit the paper. Frequently papers that require editing are rejected. Follow Length Guidelines. JMTE submission information states, All articles should be double-spaced, and not exceed twenty pages in length. Length includes the body of the paper and the double-spaced references. In practice, JMTE has been a bit more lenient on the issue of length, but we generally hold authors to approximately 20 pages. Choose words wisely and succinctly whether the paper is of a quantitative or qualitative nature. JMTE regularly publishes more qualitative studies than any other music education journal (Killian, Liu, & Reid, 2013), so JMTE has a growing body of well-written qualitative studies within page guidelines to use as models. As authors make their final revisions, consider the distinction between rich description and excessive chattiness. Use Supplementary Material. Note that authors may include further germane information as online supplementary material, for example, the actual survey, videos or audios with permission to make public, or interview scripts. These will then be linked to the published paper and interested readers can access the additional information. Supplemental materials do not count toward page length. Why Does the Number of Pages Matter for an Online Journal? There are at least two reasons: (a) Sage limits the number of pages per volume, as negotiated between Sage and NAfME based on production costs, salaries, and library charges. So there is not unlimited space, even in an online journal. To date, however, there has been unlimited storage space for supplemental files. (b) If JMTE were to publish longer articles, fewer articles per issue could appear. Thus, deserving authors would have to wait longer for publication. Respect Ethical Standards and Human Subjects As stated in the Manuscript Submission information, Articles should be unique and not published elsewhere. It is considered unethical to send articles for consideration to multiple journals at the same time. A statement, when applicable, regarding appropriate protection of the rights of human subjects via the university institutional review board should be included within the manuscript or in the cover letter to the editor. The
10 Journal of Music Teacher Education 24(1) ethical standards established by all NAfME journals, including JMTE, are available at http://musiced.nafme.org/resources/periodicals/journal-of-music-teacher-education/ code-of-ethics/. Recover From Rejection; Submit Elsewhere Rejection during the peer review process is common. The JMTE acceptance rate is approximately 33%, meaning that roughly two thirds of all submitted manuscripts are rejected. A rejection letter should not discourage new researchers. A rejection letter means you should make revisions based on reviewer comments and submit the manuscript to another journal with a higher acceptance rate or one more appropriate to the topic. Frankly, those who say they have never been rejected have either submitted very few manuscripts or are not telling the truth. Revise When Given the Opportunity Extremely few manuscripts are accepted on the first review. I can name two in my decades of publication experience. The far more common result is revise. New researchers should avoid thinking that revise means reject. On the contrary, you should congratulate yourself on receiving a revision letter. Revision is a good thing, and reviewer comments (sometimes very extensive) can be extremely helpful. A reasonable attitude might be If I didn t write it clearly enough for the reviewers to understand, then I need to rewrite. Unfortunately, some early-career researchers never resubmit a revision and thus miss a publication opportunity. I urge those of us involved in teacher preparation to prepare our graduate students to expect to revise each manuscript. Respond to Every Reviewer Comment Revise the manuscript based on reviewer comments. Then write a response to every reviewer statement. Authors might respectfully disagree with a reviewer and state why they chose to do so, but it is extremely unwise to selectively ignore any comments. Reviewers who are ignored will tend, rightfully in my opinion, to reject the revision. And yes, it is possible to be rejected even after revision. Most successful authors simply copy the reviewer comments and insert their own response after every individual comment. Expect these comments to be of any length, often several pages long. Respect the time and expertise the reviewers provide; view reviewer feedback as a growth opportunity. Wendy Sims (2012), editor of Journal of Research in Music Education, provides valuable advice about responding to reviewers. It is not uncommon to have multiple revisions, although after three revisions, a rejection letter frequently will be sent. I rely on the reviewers to assist with such decisions. Editor Decisions Occasionally reviewers agree; however, more typically, reviewers do not (reject, revise, revise) or even have diverse evaluations (revise, accept as is, reject). So editor
Killian 11 decisions do occur. Personally one of the greatest challenges I face as the JMTE editor is to discriminate between a manuscript that is written extremely well but doesn t have much impact potential, and research that is wonderfully creative but is not written with much sophistication (and thus the research design quality might be questionable as well). Ideally, a study is well written, has a clear and appropriate design, and is on a topic with the potential of adding to the knowledge base of our profession. Anticipate That the Process Will Take Time The editor has a window of time in which to review manuscripts for appropriateness before sending them to be reviewed. The JMTE reviewers are wonderfully prompt and usually return manuscripts in about 30 days. Then the editor has another window of time to send the results to the author who has up to 3 months to revise, before the entire process begins again. So it is difficult to predict the length of time leading to publication. Most manuscripts are accepted in about 90 to 180 days depending on the number of revisions. Publication occurs up to a year or more later. Once a manuscript is accepted, it will appear on OnlineFirst in which Sage makes accepted manuscripts available full text prior to publication. See http://jmt.sagepub. com/content/early/recent. I would urge anyone interested in music teacher preparation to register for the free e-mail updates Sage provides each time a new OnlineFirst article or Table of Contents appears. Best wishes on continued publication success in JMTE. References Killian, J. N. (2012). On gratitude, service, and peer review. Journal of Music Teacher Education, 22, 7 10. Killian, J. N., Liu, J., & Reid, J. (2013). Journal of Music Teacher Education: A content analysis of articles 1991-2011. Journal of Music Teacher Education, 22, 85 99. Sims, W. (2011). Forum. Journal of Research in Music Education, 59, 3 5. Sims, W. (2012). Forum. Journal of Research in Music Education, 60, 3 5.