1. Journal Review Constraints and Publication Success: The Camel Going Through the Eye of a Needle* Andreas I. Nicolaou AAA IS Section Mid-Year Meeting January 2008 * Phrase borrowed from C. Saunders MISQ editorial

2. Some Findings from MISQ Senior Scholars Survey (MISQ Sept. 07) - Improving Review/Editorial Processes Among others, Broaden editorial mission to include papers focusing on topics currently going to journals in related cognate fields – JIS New Editors Challenge. Limit comments by reviewers to a maximum of page length – MISQ scholars said 4 pages, so this gives an idea of whether our reviews are in fact too lengthy. Limit number of reviewers to a maximum of two – this assumes we have two high quality reviews on each manuscript. Past JIS Editor has increased first round review response time to avg 60 days- believed to have increased review quality. 2

3. Author Responsibilities Before Each Submission: Vetting the paper at workshops & conferences Peer reviewed Professional edit Do not assume problems will not surface during the review process; critically assess problems and address before submitting. Excellent read is Bob Zmuds editorials on what should appear in a manuscript (MISQ June/Sept 95)

4. The Essentials What editors/reviewers look for in a manuscript: new, true, and interesting (Saunders editorial). Conjunctive condition. Aristotle ( Rhetorics ): The modes of persuasion should be complementary to syllogisms derived from observation (or demonstrate by logical reasoning). True persuasion must avoid non-essentials which in Aristotles view, distract from the scientific method and harm the communication of valid conclusions.

5. Review/Publication Funnel System Journal review process is a funnel system (Lee et al., MISQ Sept 2007). Downside: Earlier points on improvement of review process increase throughput rate; however, capacity is fixed (within a range, as known), thus fixed number of papers that can be published. Upside: Once you reach a critical point, authors can in fact manage the review process – how? See earlier discussion of Completeness of Author Response to Review Team Comments.