The Review and Publication Process

Each year, NAMES publishes 3 "regular" journal issues and one Special Issue.  This page provides detailed information about the review and publication processes for both issue types.

REGULAR ISSUES

Stage One: Preliminary Checks for Formatting, Style, and Content

After submission, all manuscripts are subjected to a preliminary review to determine if all of the requirements outlined in the Submission Checklist and the regulations of the NAMES Style Sheet have been followed.  Submissions that are found to have numerous and/or significant violations will be immediately rejected and not permitted to proceed to blind review.  Repeated failure to adhere to the submission regulations and/or ethics policies of the journal may result in permanent rejection.  Only those manuscripts which pass the preliminary check will be permitted to proceed to Stage Two.

Stage Two: Blind Review

Manuscripts that have cleared the preliminary review will be allowed to enter the blind review process.  During this process, onomastic experts will assess the manuscript for the quality of content and writing as well as adherance to the journal's formatting regulations.  The independent reviewers will then provide detailed written assessments of the manuscript for the author(s).  In addition, reviewers will select one of the following recommendations for the Editor-in-Chief’s deliberation: 1.) the manuscript should be accepted publication essentially as is; 2.) the manuscript should be accepted for publication pending minor revision; 3.) the manuscript should be considered for publication after major review; 4.) the manuscript should be rejected without an invitation for re-submission  because it is unsuitable for NAMES and/or fails to meet the journal’s standards/regulations.

Once the reviews have been received, the Editor-in-Chief reviews the independent assessments of the reviewers.  On the basis of these evaluations, the Editor-in-Chief will take one of the following actions: 1.) accept the manuscript without revision; 2.) accept the manuscript, pending resubmission after minor revision; 3.) invite the author(s) to resubmit the manuscript for another round of blind review after major revision; or 4.) reject the manuscript without an invitation for resubmission because a.) it is outside the aims and scope of NAMES; b.)  it fails to meet the journal's standards or regulations; and/or c.) a violation of the journal's policies or ethics has been registered, investigated, and confirmed.  In the second and third instance---the two most common results of the blind review process---acceptance to Stage Three will be made contingent upon satisfactorily addressing all of the reviewers' concerns.

Stage Three:  Copyediting

Once a manuscript has been accepted for possible publication, it will be copyedited and typeset.  During this process, the author(s) will be sent a set of questions or "queries" from the editorial team. As a general rule, these questions relate to inconsistencies, inaccuracies, ambiguities, as well as formatting and stylistic violations identified in the text.  The authors are required to provide written responses to each of these queries on a signed and dated form to be returned to the Editor-in-Chief by a specified deadline.  Authors are also given an opportunity to request typographical corrections to the pre-print version of the manuscript.  Manuscripts will not be released for publication until both the signed and dated Author Query Form and the Author Typographical Request Form have been provided to the Editor-in-Chief. 

It is important to note that the current computerized submission system does not permit authors to track their manuscripts once they reach this stage.  This means that authors may get the false impression that nothing is happening to their manuscript.  However, nothing could be further from the truth. Once a manuscript reaching the copyediting stage, it is progressively and continually processed by the editorial team in preparation for it being assigned to a specific issue of NAMES.  The selection of an manuscript for a particular issue is based on the date of acceptance, the length of the piece, and the subject-matter of the piece. Where the last criterion is concerned, each regular issue of NAMES is designed to contain  thematic and methodological variety at the same time that it reflects several of the major of branches of onomastic research (e.g., toponymy, anthroponymy, literary onomastics, brand naming, zoonymy, etc.) without significant overlap.

Every effort is made to publish accepted manuscripts in a timely manner without sacrificing personal attention to each author and every manuscript.  Authors whose manuscripts have been accepted for publication are warmly encouraged to contact the Editor-in-Chief with any questions or concerns they may have about the projected timeline of their manuscript.   

SPECIAL ISSUES

The review process for special issues is identical to that of regular issues with two major exceptions.  First, special issues are based on a formal call for papers around a specific theme.  This means that the pool of manscripts selected are separate from the general set of manuscripts submitted to the journal year round.  The second difference is that special issues may include manuscripts that have been specifically solicited by the Editor-in-Chief or by a Guest Editor, upon approval of the Editor-in-Chief.  Nevertheless, a pre-requisite of acceptance in a special issue is the sucessful completion of Stages 1 through 4 described above.