Editorial Oversight
The General Editor(s)
are suggested by the outgoing General Editor, who consults with the Editorial
Board before a choice is made. Typically, new General Editor(s) are chosen from
among current associate editors.
Associate editors are
chosen in consultation between the General Editor(s), other current associate
editors, and the Editorial Board. Names are solicited, and evaluated according
to the journal’s need for an editor who specializes in a particular subfield of
Laboratory Phonology.
Potential guest editors
are asked to contact the General Editor(s) if they are interested in proposing
a Special Collection. Typically, Special Collections are limited to events that
are associated with the Association for Laboratory Phonology. Guest editors
must propose a Special Collection to the General Editor(s), including a short
biographical statement for each of the proposing editors in the submission
(please see the ‘Special Collections’ section for further information on the
application process).
Editorial roles at both
the general and associate level are for a term of three years, which may be
renewed at the discretion of both the General Editor and the Associate Editor.
Associate editors are
responsible for choosing reviewers for a paper assigned to them. The reviewers
are then contacted by the Editorial Assistant and asked whether they can review
the paper.
Guest editors function
as associate editors and interface with the General Editor(s) in the same way
and hold the same responsibilities for their own Special Collection. The
role ceases upon the completion of the Special Collection.
When a new paper is
submitted, the General Editor (or one of the General Editors) reviews it to
determine if it should be sent out to review or not. If it does not meet the
criteria of the journal or is obviously lacking in a fundamental area such as
experimental design or statistical technique, the paper may be desk-rejected.
In that case, the General Editor writes a rejection letter without assigning
the paper to an associate editor or soliciting reviewers. If the paper is
within the purview of the journal, the General Editor(s) sends the abstract to
the associate editors, one of whom then volunteers to shepherd the paper
through the review process.
Once the desired number
of reviewers have agreed to review a paper and have submitted their reviews,
the Associate Editor synthesizes the reviews, provides an editorial decision
(‘accept’, ‘major revisions’, ‘minor revisions’ or ‘reject’) and writes an
editorial letter to be sent to the author(s).
This letter is reviewed
by and may be edited by the General Editor who has been assigned to the paper.
Once consensus between the Associate Editor and the General Editor is reached,
the Editorial Assistant sends the letter to the author(s). This process may be
iterated for one, two, or more rounds until a paper is accepted or rejected.
Laboratory Phonology
cultivates a broad and experienced Editorial Board that contains members from
across different nations, academic institutions, genders, and demographics.
Potential board members are approached by the editorial team while keeping this
diversity in mind.
Members of the editorial
team/board are permitted to submit their own papers to the journal, however
this is subject to the journal’s policy on Editorial Oversight.
Peer Review Process
All submissions are initially assessed by the General Editor, who decides whether or not the article fits the ‘Focus and Scope’ of the journal and is suitable for peer review. If it is, the manuscript is assigned to an Associate Editor, who, in collaboration with the General Editor, invites at least two independent experts to assess the article. Submissions are assessed for whether they address topics of relevance to Laboratory Phonology, are original, are methodologically sound, follow appropriate ethical guidelines, present results clearly, support their conclusions with relevant data, and correctly reference previous relevant work.
Authors
may recommend or ask for the exclusion of specific individuals from the peer
review process. The journal does not, however, guarantee that it will use these
suggestions. All reviewers must be independent of the submission—with
consideration given to the relationship with all contributing authors—and will
be asked to declare all competing interests.
After
the Associate Editor has received all reviews, they will make a final decision
on the manuscript, in collaboration with the General Editor. They will send a
report to the corresponding author, which includes the text of the reviews. If
the final decision is that the article has to be revised, the authors are
invited to submit a revised manuscript by a specified date. The revised submission
is normally considered by the same Associate Editor, and, if it is again sent
out for review, by at least one of the original reviewers who evaluated the
original submission. In most cases, the review process for revised submissions
is otherwise the same as for original submissions.
Laboratory Phonology utilizes a
single-anonymous review process, as author identity is difficult to ensure in a
small and close-knit discipline such as Laboratory Phonology. Authors tend to
put manuscripts on their websites and are likely to have presented the work at conferences
that reviewers attend. Rather than promote a façade of anonymity that we can
almost never ensure, we have opted for a single-anonymous review process. This
means that reviewers know the authors’ identities, but the authors do not have
access to information regarding the reviewers’ identities unless the reviewers
volunteer the information.
Once a paper is assigned to an associate
editor, they are responsible for suggesting the names of at least five
reviewers for each paper. These names are sent to the General Editor, who then
approves or disapproves of the names, and makes alternative suggestions if
necessary.
Authors
are allowed to suggest potential reviewers for their paper, but this does not
mean that their suggested reviewers are guaranteed to be chosen. If reviewers
are suggested, the general and associate editors consider whether they are
appropriate or whether they potentially have a close relationship with the
author.
Peer
reviewers are supplied with non-anonymized abstracts, manuscripts, figures, and
an author cover letter (if submitted). They also have access to supplementary
material if it is submitted.
Reviewers
are asked to provide constructive and formative feedback, even if an article is
not deemed suitable for publication in the journal. They are asked to finish
their assessments within four weeks.
Reviewers
are asked to provide comments on whether the submitted article:
It
is important to ensure that reports made by peer reviewers are helpful to the
author. Editors will assess whether the peer review reports they receive can
provide an adequate base on which to make their decisions. The publisher, the Open
Library of Humanities (OLH) has a comprehensive ‘Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement’
that contains more detail of best practice for peer reviewers, under the
section ‘Responsibilities of Reviewers’.
Peer
review reports for Laboratory Phonology can give one of the
following recommendations: ‘Reject’ the article, request ‘Minor Revisions’ or
‘Major Revisions’ to be made to the article, or to ‘Accept Without Revisions’.
In the case of each review recommendation, the rationale of the decision should
be noted clearly, with examples to show, for instance, fundamental problems
that cannot be resolved through major revisions, suggested minor adjustments to
parts of the author’s argument, or further relevant research that the author
should engage with and cite.
While Laboratory
Phonology editors can amend the peer review report’s text to remove
identifying information, the recommendation provided by the peer reviewer (such
as ‘Accept Without Revisions’, ‘Minor Revisions’, ‘Reject’, and so on) cannot
be altered once it has been logged on the Laboratory Phonology’s journal
system. For example, a recommendation of ‘Minor Revisions’ given by a peer
reviewer cannot be changed by any journal editors and will remain permanently
recorded on Laboratory Phonology’s journal management system,
Janeway. If a peer review report is inadequate, the Laboratory
Phonology editorial team will approach another peer reviewer and
request a separate and additional review of the article.
According to its peer
review policy, Laboratory Phonology does not publish peer
review reports alongside articles, or the names of the peer reviewers who have
undertaken review of the article. Anonymised peer review data is held securely
and privately in the journal’s publishing platform for the author to access
whenever they choose to.
Special
Collections/Issues
Laboratory Phonology
publishes Special Collections in rare instances, primarily when these are
connected to the Association for Laboratory Phonology. These collections are
proposed by guest editors.
Potential guest
editors are asked to complete and submit a proposal to the journal’s General
Editor(s) that contains the following information:
The General Editor(s)
then assess the proposal and provide ‘approval’, ‘rejection’, or (most likely)
suggested revisions. The journal’s General Editors oversee the process for the
Special Collection issue. Associate Editors are not involved in the Special
Collection proposal process, nor are they assigned any of the submitted papers.
Two separate Associate
Editors are chosen to select manuscripts, as well as peer reviewers. Please
contact the General Editor(s) if you would like more information.
Please see the section
‘Editorial Oversight’ for more information on the role and remit of guest
editors.
Organization and
Governance
Laboratory Phonology is owned and managed by the Association for Laboratory
Phonology, a non-profit organization. Its main activities are
organizing a biennial conference, publishing the journal Laboratory
Phonology, and promoting the scientific study of the phonologies of diverse
languages, especially through the use of quantitative and laboratory methods to
the development of phonological theory. The Association formally came into
being in 2010, and the first volume of the Association’s journal Laboratory
Phonology appeared that same year. It is funded by membership
subscriptions. The Laboratory Phonology research tradition continues to focus
on broadening the range of data and the range of phenomena that are taken to be
relevant to an understanding of phonology and its place in language.
The primary governing
body of the Association for Laboratory Phonology is the 11-member Executive
Council, which consists of three appointed Councilors (who serve ex officio for
their roles as the Chief Editor of the Association journal or as a representative
from the organizing committee for either the previous or the upcoming LabPhon
meeting), four Councilors who are elected to serve in a particular office (the
President, the Vice-President/President-Elect, the Secretary, and the
Treasurer), and four elected Councilors-at-Large. Eight Councilors (four
Officers and four Councilors at-large) are elected by the membership of the
Association and three ex-officio Councilors are appointed by the Executive
Council. The ex-officio Councilors are the General Editor or one of the
co-General Editors of the Association's journal, one representative from the
organizing committee of the Association's most recent past biennial conference
on Laboratory Phonology, and one representative from the organizing committee
of the Association's upcoming (or currently occurring) conference on Laboratory
Phonology. The appointment of the Editor-in-Chief or designated
co-Editor-in-Chief and two Councilors representing the organizing committee for
the Association's biennial conference are confirmed by a majority vote of the
Executive Council. The General Editor or designated co-General Editors and two
Councilors representing the organizing committee for the Association's biennial
conference may be removed from office, with or without cause, by a two-thirds
vote of the entire Executive Council.
The journal also has a
14-member Editorial Board which is separate from the Councilors of the
Association for Laboratory Phonology. The members of the journal’s Editorial
Board have three-year terms and can either rotate off or be reappointed if the
General Editor(s) ask an Editorial Board member to stay for another term. They
are selected in consultation with the Executive Council of the Association for
Laboratory Phonology, which is asked to suggest names. The General Editor(s)
decide from among these names and may invite colleagues to be a member of the
Editorial Board.
Laboratory Phonology
is a member of the Free Journal Network as well as the Directory
of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). The open access nature of
publication in Laboratory Phonology is made possible by the generous support of
the Linguistics in Open Access Foundation (LingOA), with long-term funding
provided by OLH’s Library Partnership Subsidy model.
From September 7,
2021, onwards, the journal Laboratory Phonology has been published by the OLH
through the Janeway platform as a fully open access journal. The journal only
appears in an online format. From 2016 – 2021, the journal Laboratory Phonology
was published by Ubiquity Press, supported by a grant from the Association of
Dutch Universities (VSNU). Volumes 1 (2010) – 6 (2015) of Laboratory Phonology
were published by Mouton de Gruyter in print and online format. Articles from
the first six volumes are now freely available from Mouton De Gruyter's website.
Preprint Policy
The journal is happy
to accept submissions of papers loaded onto preprint servers or personal
websites, presented at conferences, or presented on other informal
communication channels. These formats will not be deemed prior to publication.
Authors must retain copyright to such postings. Authors are encouraged to link
any prior posting of their paper to the final published version within the
journal, if it is editorially accepted.
ORCID
The journal strongly
recommends that all authors submitting a paper register an account with Open
Researcher and Contributor Identifier (ORCID). Registration
provides a unique and persistent digital identifier for the account that
enables accurate attribution and improves the discoverability of published
papers, ensuring that the correct author receives the correct credit for their
work. As the ORCID remains the same throughout the lifetime of the account, changes
of name, affiliation, or research area do not effect the
discoverability of an author's past work and aid correspondence with
colleagues.
The journal encourages
all corresponding authors to include an ORCID within their submitting author
data whilst co-authors are recommended to include one. ORCID numbers should be
added to the author data upon submission and will be published alongside the
submitted paper, should it be accepted.
Advertising and Direct
Marketing
Laboratory Phonology does not permit any advertising on the
journal’s website and will never consider requests of any kind from other
parties wishing to advertise in the journal or on its webpages.
This journal does not
engage in any direct marketing practices.
The publisher, OLH,
employs a Marketing Officer who undertakes general marketing activities for the
publisher including the promotion of its journals. The Marketing Officer does
not, however, engage in direct marketing for any OLH journals and this does not
affect the editorial decisions of OLH journals in any way.
Other Revenue
This journal is funded
by OLH’s Library Partnership Subsidy
Model and is also funded by the membership dues of the Association for Laboratory
Phonology.
Conduct and Expected
Behaviour
The journal does not tolerate abusive behaviour or correspondence toward its staff, academic editors, authors, or reviewers. Any person engaged with the journal who resorts to abusive behaviour or correspondence will have their contribution immediately withdrawn and future engagement with the journal will be at the discretion of the Editor and/or publisher.