Editor Interview: Hispanic Review

Ibero-American culture

We do not publish fiction, art, or interviews. We publish research articles on literary and cultural topics, and hence, my favorite writers in the context of the journal are probably not famous, big-name authors, since we don't publish those. I could offer the names of researchers whose articles we have published and I have truly enjoyed reading, but I doubt that most people reading this interview would recognize them.

I could mention the fact that we cater to a general academic audience, not specializing in one Hispanic region or time period, but there are other journals that also do that. I'd like to think that what sets us apart from many other journals is our response time. We are a small office, with only three part-time staff members (General Editor, Managing Editor and Book Review Editor) to handle the day-to-day work of the journal, but I try very hard to respond to every new submission within about two weeks. I don't always make it -- exam season (I'm also an instructor at the university), galley-proofing time for upcoming issues, and especially now with the Covid-19 crisis, shifting all my teaching online, all are competing demands on my time -- but every submission eventually gets a personal acknowledgment, and usually in two weeks or less. If it takes me longer, I would ask that authors be patient and understand that I'm wearing many hats, but they WILL hear from me.

Make sure that your work makes some novel contribution to your field. If our readers wanted to read a rehash of everyone else's work, they would go to an encyclopedia.
Have a specific thesis or research question, and make sure you keep it as your prime focus. Even if you have novel perspectives to offer, if you take forever to get around to them, winding through all manner of digressions, your readers will lose interest long before they find your gems of wisdom.
Make your work as clean as possible before you send it to us. It is very hard to find a diamond in the rough when it is SO rough that the reader is not sure they understand what the author is trying to get across. If you are writing in your nonnative language, find a native speaker to read it for you, and ask them to be BRUTAL in correcting your language. We send nearly all submissions out to external readers who volunteer their time, and there are many readers who will not bother to wade through a poorly written paper.

The ideal submission is an interesting essay with a novel thesis, written in an engaging style, and not exceeding about 30 pages double-spaced. Oh, and of course, written about some topic related to the literatures or other cultural manifestations of the Iberian Peninsula or Latin America (including Hispanics in the United States).

Probably the most common submission error I see is manuscripts not prepared for blind review: they include their names, institutions, or even just acknowledgments that could potentially identify them. The incidence of this has dropped since we started using Scholastica to handle our submissions process, but authors must still be careful -- particularly if they cite their own previous work -- to write in such a way that will not lead evaluators to possibly figure out their identity. Self-referencing can always be edited back in if the paper is accepted for publication.
After that is probably length limits. We do not accept essays under 5,000 words or about 14-15 pages, because in our experience such a short length does not allow for a fully developed, fleshed-out argument. We MAY agree to evaluate papers up to about 10,500 words, because there is always the possibility that it can be edited down closer to our limit (9,500 words or about 30 double-spaced pages). However, if a submission is 11,000 words or over, it will be rejected without consideration. In my experience as an editor, it is very hard to reduce a research paper by 1,500 words without losing important content.

We do not impose limitations on our authors, so other than knowing the author's name, institutional affiliation, and status (student, lecturer, assistant professor, etc.), we really don't need much information. Cover letters are not necessary, especially now with Scholastica. Their submission form gives us all the pertinent information we need.

This actually depends on whom on our editorial board a given submission is assigned to. Some of the board members read all the way through, as evidenced by their comments upon recommending whether to send it out to an external reader. Others -- usually the older, more experienced board members -- only read the first several pages and then just skim the rest. With this in mind, it behooves authors to make their case well early on in their essay.

Although most articles are vetted by a member of our editorial board, authors should be aware that probably more than 95% of all submissions are sent to at least 2 external readers for blind evaluation. Most readers recommend significant changes that require revisions. When we receive the revisions, we send the article back to one of the readers for their evaluation of the changes. This is usually the stage at which we either accept it or reject it.

When I receive submissions, the first thing I do is check them to make sure they have been prepared blind and that they meet our length limits. If they do not meet the limits, I send a rejection notice to the author. If they pass, I acknowledge receipt to the author and ask them to confirm that it is an original, unpublished piece. Then I skim the first few pages to gauge writing style, look for a thesis, and get a feel for the overall paper. I also check the bibliography to see how up-to-date the references might be. Then I pass the submission on to our General Editor along with my impressions, who will either recommend that an Editorial Board member do an initial evaluation of it, or suggest external readers to invite to evaluate it. If he does not have specific people in mind, then we take some more time to find appropriate external evaluators.
All of this can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, depending on the workloads of the various people involved. New submissions are only sent to the General Editor every 10 days. Board members are asked to send me their impressions within 2-4 weeks. External readers are given a month to prepare their evaluations, but it can sometimes take awhile to find two evaluators willing to read the article. If authors are looking for a time frame for the decision process, I usually estimate about four months from receipt to the evaluator's first opinion (which is very often revise and resubmit). The revision process then adds another 2-3 months to the process.

Once we accept a piece for publication, we ask the author to do one more round of revisions, following our style guide for such things as overall formatting, page layout, and the format of the bibliography (MLA style), and of course, for one last chance to correct any errors. When they send me their final version, I send foreign-language pieces out to native-speaking copy-editors of those languages, and I copy-edit the English-language pieces myself. We will make sure the bibliography is formatted correctly and correct any typos or obvious grammatical errors. We might suggest alternatives or changes for stylistic issues, but authors always get a chance to look over our changes and suggestions to approve or reject them. The only changes that are made regardless of author opinions are the formatting changes to the bibliography.

No.