Annual Report 1997

Editor: Richard L. Simpson
Book Review Editor: Peter S. Bearman
Managing and Advertising Editor: Paul Mihas
Assistant to the Editors: Margaret P. Gibbs

The journal remains a leading international forum. It is a frequently cited source in scholarly works. We have paid subscribers in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and about 80 foreign countries. In addition, we give exchange subscriptions or free subscriptions to libraries and research centers in about two dozen foreign countries that lack hard currency or, in some cases, much currency of any kind. In calendar 1997 we published 51 articles, and 148 pages of book reviews and "take note" items, for a total of 1,470 pages. Our 97 authors, not including book reviewers, were affiliated with 47 academic and nonacademic institutions. Our paid circulation remained stable at a bit above 4,000. New manuscript submissions increased 8%, to 330. Median manuscript processing time was about 78 days. The acceptance rate was 10%. Our relations with the Southern Sociological Society, whose Publications Committee is advisory to the journal and whose members receive cut-rate subscriptions, remained pleasant and productive. Subscription prices must go up slightly for Volume 77 (l998-99), as previously agreed with SSS.

Production and Prices

In an effort to keep up with the latest in desktop publishing, we have switched to a new layout program and are now using electronic imaging for physically producing the journal. The new cover is one result of the technical changes in production.

The financial picture has remained fairly satisfactory. As stated in last year's Annual Report, subscription prices must be increased for Volume 77 (September 1998 through June 1999) for all categories of subscribers. The increase will be $2 for regular and joint SSS members, and $1 for student SSS members, to $18 and $12 respectively. These increases are in accordance with an understanding endorsed by the SSS executive Committee in 1992, ". . .that the Executive Committee take into account in its forward planning a $2/$1. . .increase for regular/student members every other year" (The Southern Sociologist 24:1, Spring-Summer 1992, pp. 10-11). The low SSS member prices are made possible by a substantial subsidy of the journal by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the UNC Press.

Papers and Authors

In calendar 1997 we published 51 articles for a total of 1, 322 pages, two fewer pages than in the preceding year. Our authors numbered 97. (Only 93 people were authors. The 97 include two very productive authors twice and one thrice.). Of the articles, 37% had single authors, 39% two authors, 20% three authors, and 4% (two articles) four authors. The authors were affiliated with 42 U. S. universities, colleges, and institutes and 5 foreign universities. Appendix A lists institutions and the numbers of authors affiliated with them. Many instances of multiple authors from an institution represent coauthorship of a single article.

Manuscript Processing

Table 1 shows processing times for differing decisions on manuscripts received and acted upon in 1997. The careful student of the subject will want to read the second footnote of the table, which explains what the numbers refer to. The median processing time was about 78 days -- down from 86 days the previous year. We expect further improvement in 1998. Eleven weeks is too long, though it is shorter than most processing times of American Sociological Association journals in recent years.

We received 330 manuscripts in 1997, not including resubmissions of revisions. This number was up 8% from the 306 submitted in 1996, and 26% from the 261 submitted in 1995, following nearly a decade of remarkable stability. We are now getting about 85% as many submissions as the American Sociological Review, the flagship journal of the discipline.

We can get an approximate acceptance rate by observing that we accepted 33 papers during 1997 while receiving 330 new submissions. It is only approximate because some of the acceptances were of papers first submitted before 1997 and the eventual fates of 32 late 1997 submissions and earlier ones that got revise-and-resubmit decisions were still unknown when those figures were compiled in February 1998. The approximate acceptance rate was 10% -- abnormally low, and likely to rise a bit in 1998.

As this is written in March 1998, the backlog beyond the June issue now in production will fill the September issue (whose production will start in April) and part of the December issue. This backlog cannot shrink much without becoming dangerously small. The average time elapsed from receipt to publication of the final versions of articles, in which most authors make small revisions following acceptance, will be 7.1 months for Volume 76 (1997-98). With a five-month production and mailing schedule, that is about as short as it can be.

Book Reviews

Social Forces continues to receive over 500 books each year for review. In 1997 we reviewed roughly 16% of the books we received. In response to our sense that reviewers needed more space than previously allocated, we have tried to increase the average length of each review from 600 to 800 words or more. This increase in average book review length has led to a slight increase in the number of pages devoted to book reviews (147 versus 125 in 1996) and a decrease in the number of books reviewed. The "Take Note""section is likely to be discontinued as the number of Take Note reviews written by UNC-CH faculty has decreased significantly over the past 5 years. (See Table 2.)

Personnel

For the 1997-98 academic year, David Cunningham and Marianne Cutler joined the staff as associate editors. They succeeded Jeremy K. Marmer and Raymond R. Swisher, whose terms had expired. These associate editors are UNC-Chapel Hill graduate students elected by the sociology faculty each Spring. Their main tasks are to assist the editors by recommending possible book reviewers and article manuscript referees.

In the Summer of 1997, we were pleased to welcome six new non-Chapel Hill Editorial Board members for three-year terms: Richard D. Alba, SUNY-Albany; Alan Booth, Penn State; Maureen T. Hallinan, Notre Dame; Suzanne Model, Massachusetts-Amherst; Barbara J. Risman, North Carolina State; Darren E. Sherkat, Vanderbilt. We give our deep thanks to board members who completed their terms in 1997: Sherry Cable, Tennessee-Knoxville; Marie Cornwall, Brigham Young; Thomas W. Pullum, Texas-Austin; J. Jill Suitor, Louisiana State; Frank Trovato, Alberta; Dale W. Wimberley, Virginia Tech. Two new Chapel Hill faculty members joined the board: Lisa A. Keister, Charles Kurzman.

Editorial Board members for 1997-98, besides those at Chapel Hill, are listed on page 8 together with the years when their terms expire. Nine of the 18 are SSS members.

We also thank the SSS Publications Committee for its wise counsel and continuing spirit of cooperation. Its 1997-98 members are Ann R. Tickamyer (chair), Michael Hughes, George Ritzer, Beth Rushing and Maxine S. Thompson, and (ex-officio) James D. Jones, Martin L. Levin, George S. Rent, Richard L. Simpson

Editorial Board, 1997-98 (other than those at UNC-Chapel Hill)