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My name is Marcel van Aken
I'm a Professor in Developmental Psychology at Utrecht University, in the Netherlands
and I've been a member of ISSBD since, I think the mid-1980s, somewhere
And for four years I've been the Editor of the IJBD
which is the flagship journal of the International Society (ISSBD)
The basic aim is to publish papers on all kinds of developmental aspects all over the lifespan
Most of our papers are longitudinal studies, report on longitudinal studies
Not always, we also have crossectional data and so on
but always the focus is on the development, especially over the entire lifespan
so not only childhood, not only adolescence, but also adulthood and older age
and that broad focus is the focus of the journal
and the development can be behavioral development
but we also sometimes have papers that have more to do with biological or cognitive development
but always with a clear behavioral aspect in it
We would accept pure qualitative papers
The focus of the journal is not on a specific methodology
although most of our papers are quantitative analysis
but in principle there would be nothing against a qualitative paper
I think I would even prefer more mixed methods papers
the combination of qualitative and quantitative research
these papers would be very welcome for the journal
And for the other papers, we do have a special section on Methods and Measures
So if someone has a paper that is really specific about a certain kind of method, or certain instrument or approach
we have special section for that, and we are very interested in those kinds of papers
in the meanwhile this section is very relevant for the journal itself
We also publish review papers
So if someone writes a paper with a more integrative view on the field, for example
we publish those
we published, for example, a very nice paper on adoption studies last year
and that already is one of the most frequently cited papers from the journal
and sometimes we are interested in special issues or special sections
so if people have an idea that they would combine a number of papers
for example, a number of papers that were presented on a workshop or a symposium
we would be interested in publishing them as a set
That is also another possibility
We have several instructions on our website
so an author should surely look at the website to see what a manuscript looks like
we now have a word limit of 6000 words
we are not that strict about it
so if it is 7000 words we also accept it
but at least they should look at the website for specific requirements for the journal
If an author has a little bit of doubt about whether it would fit in the journal
he or she can also write to me and, for example, send a manuscript along
so that I can have a first check of whether it would fit in the journal
or he can send an abstract or some ideas, and then I can comment on it
and then I can say that this could potentially be interesting for the journal
or I can already say: O.K., so it fits on this topic
which is not what we will publish
but if someone has ideas or wants to talk about specific ideas with me
they're always welcome to e-mail me and we can talk about it
After you submit your paper the first step
is that I and one of my associate editors look at the paper to see whether we think it has a good chance of getting published
Sometimes we receive papers that are
on a given topic that we think: This is not the topic that we want to have
or they are simply not good enough, not of high enough quality
and we don't want to send them out for review because we almost already know how the review process is going to end
and this is also not good for the reviewers because they get to review papers of which they say:
O.K., you could have known from the start that this was not going to work
so we call that an early reject
and in that case the author, within one or two weeks, gets a mail from me
saying that we are not going to take this paper and review because
and I give several reasons why I think this paper will not make it
if we decide at that point that it could be a possible paper for IJBD
then we send it for review, to three or four reviewers most of the time
and we try to get the reviews back within two months
and that usually works, most of the time
so then, if that's the case, if we send it out for review
the author receives a decision letter within three months
and the decision letter, it almost never is immediately positive
sometimes the decision letter is: O.K., reviewers have looked at it, but there are so many problems with this manuscript
that we cannot publish it
and then we give a list of all the problems
so that the author can use it to improve the manuscript
and most of the time an authors gets a message saying:
It's not good enough in the present version, but the reviewers have made a lot of remarks
and if you follow the remarks and try to change the manuscript
then we can look at it again and it will have a higher chance of getting accepted
The issue of language is very important.
We try, in making decisions on the papers,
we try not to let language interfere,
so we will never reject a paper because the English is not correct
Having said that, it's always good for an author to have a check of the English of the manuscript
because the difficulty is that, if the English is not correct
then sometimes for a reviewer it's a little bit difficult to judge the merits of an article
So an author should always make sure that the English is as good as possible
but still, if it's not optimal English
we do give advice on that
So we could say: We are willing to accept the article
but you really should have someone to look at your English
We do not offer that ourselves
So we don't have a service to improve the English
but we can point people to certain other people who could help with that
But this is not a service that the journal offers
but as I said, it's not a really critical issue
A paper will never get rejected only because of the language
Well, one thing you have to realize: this is part of the process
Even for very famous authors, papers get rejected
Everyone has to live with the experience that you submit a manuscript
which you think this was very good
and then you get reviews, and they think it's not good enough
That's part of the life of a scientist, so to say
and the other thing authors have to remember is that reviewers take their work seriously
It's not that they want to trash the work of an author
Every reviewer is very serious doing his job
and every reviewer is doing his best to look as seriously as possible at the manuscript
and this also means that, if you have a manuscript and it's rejected
and it has three or four reviews
you should really carefully look at the reviews
and see how you can use then to improve your manuscript
maybe not for this journal, but for another journal or another time
So, it happens that manuscripts get rejected
and the best thing you can do is to learn from it
Handling revisions, as I said, you have to remember that if you get the decision of revise and resubmit
That is actually quite good.
It means that the reviewers and I see possibility in your manuscript
only not the way it is now, but we do see possibility
otherwise we would not have suggested the revise and resubmit
What an author should do is really carefully look at the reviews
and revise the manuscript according to all of these comments
and if there's a comment and you think: oh no, this is not correct
I'm not going to do that
that's possible, but then you have to write a cover letter
so you submit a revised manuscript
and you include also a cover letter
in which you really say from all the comments that were made by the reviewers
And you say: So Reviewer 1 said this and this
and we solved it by
and then you tell me what you have changed because of the comment of the reviewer
And if there's a comment with which you don't agree
you would say: Reviewer 2 says this and this
then you can say, but we do not agree because of that and that
and you can try to defend yourself
and then this manuscript and the cover letter go back to the reviewers
and they then advise me
and they say: now we are convinced
or they say: No, the author did not do a good job
in revising the manuscript, and then it can be possibly rejected
As I said, it's a process that works best if all the authors take their job seriously
and submit only the manuscripts of which they think - this is good work
it needs to be submitted
The editor takes his job seriously, and looks seriously at all the manuscripts that are submitted
because I have to realize that, even if I think that this manuscript is not so good
the author really thinks it's good enough to be submitted
and the reviewers have to be serious about their job
And if everyone takes their job seriously, it's just a matter of time
and then the manuscripts will be accepted