Author | Xie Haiding is the deputy editor-in-chief of Legal Studies
Author's Note
I believe that most of the days of most people, like mine, are dull. Plain and anxious, it is the norm of my life. When the new year has come, I comfort myself in the new year with the phrase "live a dull day with peace of mind", and I don't know if I can comfort the ordinary and ordinary you who are as ordinary as me. In any case, I wish ordinary ordinary pros and a happy Chinese New Year!
This article is included in Cui Jianmin's "The Saying of the Married Dresser: The Voice of the Editor of the Academic Journal of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences" (Social Science Literature Publishing House, 2022 edition, pp. 139-146).
One
In October 2002, my work was transferred from the research office to the editorial office. Although it is only an adjustment between different departments within the unit, it is considered to have begun a new career. When I came home at the end of the year, my illiterate parents asked me, "What is the editor doing?" What my parents wanted to hear was obviously not the specific work I did, but a professional name that the neighbors could understand as soon as they heard it. At that time, I couldn't answer. To this day, I still don't have answers that satisfy me.
Legal Studies, where I work, is a legal academic journal that is well known in legal circles. Although the magazine is famous, due to the complete lack of understanding of editorial work, when the leader first proposed to let me go to the newsroom, I refused in my heart. At that time, I thought that the scientific research work had just started, but I was called to be an editor, did I think that my scientific research ability was not good? At that time, including me, many people thought that editing was a job with a very low threshold, and the adjustment from scientific research post to editor post meant that scientific research ability was lacking and potential was not large. I remember when Teacher Zhang Zhiming took me to the editorial department on the first day, I saw that everyone was doing their own thing, and no one looked up. The recruits entered the door and were not noticed by anyone, so they thought vaguely that perhaps they had been spied on "scientific research is not good", and the inner embarrassment was added to the layer.
Later, I learned that concentrating on myself is actually the norm for editors. Both doing scientific research and being an editor requires a lot of personal time. However, the timeline of researchers is usually more autonomous, while the schedule of editors is more fixed. We are a bimonthly magazine, compared to monthly, weekly, daily newspapers and the like, the publication cycle has been quite long, but even so, the daily work around the selection and processing of manuscripts, such as reviewing manuscripts, distributing external reviewers, author communication, and editorial proofreading, basically fills the daily time. Especially in the editing and processing processing process, "Legal Studies" requires responsible editors to carry out in-depth processing of manuscripts and verify and revise them word by word. Not to mention that the verification and proofreading of Chinese and foreign citations will consume a lot of time, and it is particularly racking of brains to try to modify various translational expressions, colloquial expressions and expressions with excessively personalized colors as concisely and fluently as possible. In addition to these daily tasks, there are also career-wide things such as participating in editorial training, political study, planning topic selection, and holding conferences and forums. Compared with scientific research, each issue of the magazine is published and distributed at a fixed time, and the manuscript review and editing and proofreading of each link correspond to a basically fixed date, and the specific work of the editor cannot be bypassed, let alone escape, almost the state of "finally busy with this issue, only to wait for the next issue".
For this kind of work rhythm, in the first two years of editing, I felt quite uncomfortable. Those two years were also the last two years of my phD on the job. In addition to being an editor, I also had to write a doctoral dissertation, and regardless of time or energy, editing and scientific research went hand in hand, which was almost impossible for me at that time. After New Year's Day 2004, I decided to apply for a phD postponement. Before submitting the application, my mentor and brothers advised me to persevere. Indeed, in the foreseeable future time period at that time, there can be no more time and better solutions, and you can only give up your doctorate except desperately. After editing the first issue of 2004, I reduced my time to editing in a short period of time, starting every night after dark, and then writing my doctoral dissertation until dawn, and then going out for a run, breakfast, washing, and sleeping for three or four hours. After more than forty days of this, he finally completed the first draft of his doctoral dissertation.
Two
The rhythm of editing work can be adapted over time and gradually becomes a habit. More challenging is dealing with a wide variety of authors. The vast majority of the authors who submitted to us were professional researchers in universities and scientific research institutions, followed by some doctoral and master students, and a small number of public officials engaged in legislation, justice, and administration. No matter how big the disparities in the selection of topics, arguments, lengths, specifications, etc., they almost have one thing in common: they feel that their manuscripts are of the highest quality, or at least very well written.
Thinking that my paper is well written is normal for the vast majority of authors, including myself. After all, what the reader understands is only part of what the text expresses, and what the text expresses is only part of the author's thinking. The reader's impression of the paper is the part he has understood; the author's impression of his paper is the sum of all the parts of his relevant thinking. Coupled with the fact that there are always differences between readers and authors in terms of relevant knowledge reserves, it is not surprising that there are differences in cognitive judgments about a particular paper. However, once you have the idea of writing well, some authors will have difficulty listening to different opinions.
Over the years of editing work, I have been able to communicate well with most of the authors, and they have shown the rigor of their research work, their devotion to scholarship, and their respect for editorial work. There are also a very small number of authors, and although their approach is understandable to some extent, it is indeed easy to bring different degrees of trouble to editors.
A well-known scholar once submitted us a manuscript. Considering many factors such as the selection of the topic of the paper, the logic of the argument, and the standardization of the citation, I believe that the manuscript is very certainly not suitable for publication in this journal, so the manuscript was not sent to an anonymous expert to review, and the manuscript was directly rejected. After the rejection notice was issued, the author called me one night. The next day continued, without answering the phone, I kept calling, and I couldn't hang up the phone.
In fact, this author is a very cute and respectable jurist, and in addition to the above-mentioned episodes, we have generally maintained a mutually respectful relationship. In contrast, the practice of having authors is more likely to directly affect the specific editing work. There was once a leader of a substantive department who, after encountering rejection, successively dredged up relations through the hospital, the institute and other channels. This practice not only delayed the time of many people, but also made me "offend" many people who did not need to "offend" because of this article, and I was very uneasy.
"Offending" more people may cause some people to talk behind their backs. Once, at an academic conference, during lunch, I overheard someone at the table mentioning my name and saying a lot of dirty words. Listening carefully, it is probably that this young man once submitted "Legal Studies" and spent a lot of energy to support a lot of relationships, but he could not even see my face, thinking that I was too arrogant.
The authors of academic journals are also the main readers of the journals, both the producers of papers and the main consumers, and the editors are a group that editors do not want to offend and cannot afford to offend. Ideally, authors and editors trust each other and work closely together. Only by trusting each other can we work closely together, reduce the cost of communication, and prosper scholarship together. However, in the current academic environment, academic journals are very scarce resources, and the distribution of journal resources in terms of discipline, region, author group, etc. is not balanced, and it is difficult for journal selection standards to be clear and specific, even if we often say that academic standards, there is also a strong subjectivity. In this way, it is easy to understand that there is a distrust of the journal and its editors by authors. In the process of competing with each other's journal resources, a small number of editors failed to adhere to the selection criteria set by the journal, and a small number of authors tried to find a way and pull a relationship, which also complicated the relationship between authors and editors, and it was difficult to establish universal trust between each other.
To establish mutual trust between authors and editors, I think that the subjective aspect is based on the fact that everyone should work together "for the sake of scholarship" and take scholarship as their inner belief; the basis of the objective aspect is to establish a manuscript selection system that is as transparent and open as possible, so that scarce journal resources can be distributed under the sun. However, these two aspects are not the problems of individual editors or authors, and involve the improvement of the overall academic environment, which is not easy to solve in the short term.
Three
After doing editing work for a long time, I often encounter acquaintances, friends, or "help" from acquaintances and friends: help to make suggestions for papers. The words I often hear are: Knowing that your journal is demanding, I am not going to submit articles to your journal, but I just want you to help you propose some suggestions for revision and improvement. Or, be invited to give a lecture or symposium on "How to Write a Good Academic Paper." The words are very polite, and they show respect and trust in themselves. However, after being an editor for a long time, talking about other people's papers outside of work, and how to write a good paper, "pointing out the mystery", really belongs to the last thing in my heart.
Although I am relatively familiar with academic writing norms and academic appreciation methods due to professional reasons, this does not mean that editors have high academic ability. Editors have a relatively familiar academic field, and beyond this field, they are laymen. Even in their familiar field, editors usually have a deeper understanding and more accurate grasp than authors who specialize in specific problems. As for what is a good paper, there is no very specific standard, and the standard of "good" is different in different fields and different types of articles. Most importantly, editors cannot peddle their own personal criteria of judgment to authors as universal criteria. After all academic journals adopt the two-way anonymous external review system, "talking nonsense" about specific papers may not only not help the author, but will bring unnecessary trouble to the author.
However, within the scope of their work, editors should adhere to the judgment of academic standardization, academic innovation, and academic rigor. Rejection outside of work is based on the recognition of one's own limitations; insistence within work is based on the requirements of the editor's duties. Insisting on one's own judgment may miss a good manuscript and choose a manuscript that is not good enough because of its own knowledge limitations, but this is the price that the journal must pay, and through the external review system and the continuous efforts of the editors themselves, this cost can also be limited to a smaller scope. If editors often abandon their own judgment, it is easy to make factors other than academic standards play a decisive role in the selection of manuscripts.
Of course, some invitations and requests for help may not really come from trust in the ability of the editor, but may be mainly because the editor is considered to have the power to select manuscripts in the journal. In fact, like the Legal Studies I worked in, individual editors, including editors-in-chief, do not have the power to directly decide on the use of manuscripts. The three-instance trial system we implement is the first instance, the second instance and the final trial, all of which only have the right of veto, but no right to decide. While decentralized power remains power, it is not decisive and belongs to the cage of the review system.
Four
Many people think that the editing work is nothing more than reading the manuscript and editing the manuscript, although it requires standardization, meticulousness and patience, but it should be easier after familiarization. From the actual feeling, this is almost half right: to cope with the basic manuscript editing work, it is almost the same to be standardized, meticulous and patient, and to really do a good job as an editor, these are just the beginning. Although reviewing and editing manuscripts is the core work of editors, it is equally important in the entire process of journal operation, before there is topic selection planning, and then there is academic dissemination.
Topic selection planning is one of the important ways to give play to the academic leadership function of journals. Topic selection and planning needs to be based on the positioning and purpose of the journal, pay attention to the overall situation of international and domestic development, study the development trend of disciplines and industries, sort out the theoretical development context and practical problems to be solved in related fields, and combine the theoretical and practical hot spots in a specific period of time. In addition to having a clear awareness of the positioning of their own journals, a clear overall sense of the knowledge of the discipline, and a daily wide range of attention to major events in the domestic, international and especially in the industry, each topic planning also needs to focus on homework, including the problems and angles of theoretical breakthroughs that may exist in the topic itself, as well as who may be interested in the topic and who may make breakthrough results. In August 2011, my colleagues and I tried to set up the "Legal Studies Youth Public Law Forum". The forum is positioned as a public law academic exchange platform for young scholars in China, and its main purpose is to guide young scholars to continuously reflect and innovate in the selection of topics, methods, materials and ideas of public law research, and promote the development of Chinese public law research in a rigorous, pragmatic, in-depth and academic direction. Since 2011, the Youth Public Law Forum has successively organized essays and discussions on topics such as "Development of Public Law and Research and Innovation of Public Law", "Reflection on the Rule of Law: Systems, Practices and Discourses", "Methods of Rights and Rights as Methods", "The Rule of Law of State Governance", "Urban Governance from the Perspective of Rule of Law", and "Marxist Jurisprudence: Classics and Interpretations". Since 2014, the Editorial Department has officially established the "Legal Studies Forum", and so far organized "Urbanization and the Rule of Law: Legal Governance of Urbanization", "Governing the Country According to Law and Deepening the Reform of the Judicial System", "Forward-looking, Local and Systematic Codification of the Civil Code", "Criminal Rule of Law System and Criminal Law Amendment", "Legal Mechanism for the Use and Protection of Personal Information", "Financial Stability and Development and Rule of Law Guarantee in the New Era", "Government, Market and Law: The Rule of Law of the Business Environment", "Intellectual Property Law under innovation-driven and international games". and more than ten selected topics for essays and discussions.
Academic communication is a natural extension of the function of academic publication, and to a certain extent, it is also the purpose of academic publication. For large publishing institutions, the editorial board is often only responsible for the publication of content, and the subsequent dissemination is the responsibility of specialized departments. For the general journal editorial department, content publishing and dissemination are integrated, and the journal is edited and printed, in fact, only half of the work is completed. Affected by the non-market-oriented operation system, domestic academic journals have only paid attention to content publishing in the past, and the most important thing in terms of dissemination is to pay attention to the distribution of paper journals. In recent years, with the development of electronic and digital communication technology, academic communication methods such as WeChat public accounts, journal paper databases, journal open access websites, and electronic journals have gradually been used. In 2014, Legal Studies also began to build its own independent website, realizing open access to the papers of this journal, and opening a WeChat public account to timely release dynamic information related to this journal. In fact, from the perspective of communication science, these current communication methods only reflect "the natural extension of academic publication". Truly active academic communication with independent value needs to type the content of academic works, the value of academic works, and the audience of academic works, establish different communication mechanisms and channels, and adopt different communication methods in a targeted manner. For example, academic papers with decision-making reference value can rewrite the most core decision-making thinking in the paper into concise and clear reports and submit them to the relevant decision-making departments; academic papers with the value of knowledge popularization or concept renewal can be rewritten into easy-to-understand public reports and knowledge communications, which are disseminated through the mass media; academic papers with theoretical breakthroughs can organize continuous discussions by authors and experts in the same field. Academic communication is not only an extension of academic publication, it has independent value, but the current journal editorial department system is difficult to cope with the requirements of academic communication, and can only be the editor's personal effort.
Five
Unlike full-time researchers who present their own work in their work, the results of editorial work are difficult to see. With the exception of each issue of the journal, the editorial effort seems to be in a "white busy" state. In the evaluation system of quantitative assessment, many editorial work is "not work", such as academic communication. Moreover, the number of edited papers and the number of edited words as an indicator cannot really measure the workload of editing, and the workload of different journals, different editors, and different papers in terms of review, revision and editing varies greatly. The frequency of citations of editing results, reprinting awards or not as evaluation indicators may not be able to reflect the actual effect of editing - the premise of them as indicators for measuring the effect of editing is that academic citations as a whole are standardized, and reprinting and awarding are based on academic quality as the first, but the latter are controversial in practice. Since the results of editing are not easy to see, editing work becomes a real conscience work. If you value those reviews and how much of the visible results you see, you won't have sustained motivation to invest in editing.
The most basic editing work arrangement is like the hands of a clock "circle by circle" passing through, just like the cycle of spring, summer, autumn and winter. The tone of the editing work is bland, although there is a moment of lightness and pleasure when compiling a manuscript, but it is far less exciting and wonderful than when after painstaking research and staying up late to knock on the last punctuation. In recent years, when the editorial department is recruiting, I will tell the candidates that the editor needs a certain degree of "not seeking progress" and "not thinking of making progress", needs a calm psychological attitude, and if there are too many academic ambitions, it is not easy to do a good job as an editor. The constant pursuit of progress can undoubtedly lead us to progress, but the overflowing unwillingness is also the root cause of our pain or going the wrong way. Willing to do a good job, willing to be an ordinary ordinary person, and live a dull life with peace of mind, this may be one of the basic qualities that editors must have.
It has always been said that editing is similar to a tailor. In fact, editors are also similar to farmers who work silently year after year, workers who stay on the production line day after day. The next time I go home and tell my parents that my son's job is similar to their farming, I hope they won't be too disappointed.
-END-
Responsible Editor | Wu Shan
Auditor | Zhang Wenshuo
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