Journal of Translation volume 2:1

Editor’s Foreword

by Catherine Rountree

“The wheels grind very slowly, but very fine.”

The original plan for the Journal of Translation was a three times a year publication. But we are finding that the wheels of a peer-reviewed journal for high quality academic articles “grind very slowly and very fine.”

In the first place, articles often move very slowly through the process. The authors and reviewers are very busy people and it sometimes takes a long time for them to fit an article revision or review into their full schedules. Then the copy editors need several weeks to carefully edit the articles, corresponding with the authors. The result is that articles submitted take weeks and sometimes months to complete the editing-reviewing process. Because of this, we have already changed the schedule from three times a year to twice a year.

In the second place, the “fine grinding” of the wheels means that very few articles make it through the process without revisions and polishing. Some authors may get discouraged and feel like “giving up” on articles or setting them aside for that elusive “more convenient time,” but then other translators would probably never get the benefit of their insights.

Although we have only three articles ready for this issue, we think you will find the articles interesting and insightful.