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EDITOR’S MESSAGE
Time Flies When There is no Downtime
This is the last issue for volume 78, which translates that Ihave a full year as Editor-in-Chief (EIC) under my belt.Certainly for me this year has been one of learning abouteditorial processes both at the Journal and in the largerpublishing scene. It has also been about getting a better graspon the issues surrounding journal quality, and balancing afull-time position with the immediacy of Journal requests in adigital age. I recently re-read the Perspectives of Editors-in-Chief of The Wildlife Society published in 2012 as part of theSociety’s 75th Anniversary (Brennan et al. 2012). ThisEditor’s message is about comparing my initial experiences tothe Perspectives of past Editors in planning what lies ahead.First, I cannot imagine doing this job as John Gill and
Editors did prior to 1978 without a team of Associate Editors(AE). Editors like Paul Krausman had 7 AEs in 1989, GuyBaldassarre had 14 AEs in 1999 (including me), MichaelChamberlain in 2009 had 40, and we currently have 40. Therecent increase in AEs was, in part, a response to the decisionto merge the Journal and Bulletin in 2006; however, I wouldargue it also reflects the broadening of topics submitted tothe Journal, which Bill Block quantified in his Perspectives.Certainly I continue to marvel at the amount of time eachAE invests in their duties and it is not commiserate with therecognition we give them.I also cannot imagine how any EIC could exist without
electronic submission, digital cataloguing, and email attach-ments, even though I vaguely remember this from the late1990s. The digital era has increased efficiency and cut backon editorial assistants but also increased authors’ impatiencefor fast turnaround. There is no downtime in this positionand I could not imagine stepping up to the Editorship with abacklog of 100 papers as Lenny Brennan did to be EIC of theJournal in 2001. In fact, we are experiencing quite theopposite. Prior to discontinuing the Bulletin in 2007, boththe Journal (since 1937) and Bulletin (since 1979) produced 4issues a year; in 2006, this increased to 6 Journal issues and in2007, Journal issues increased to 8 issues annually. We nowjointly produce 12 issues a year. With the reestablishment ofthe Bulletin, there has been the expected decline in thearticles submitted for publication in the Journal. The benefitis that for the most part, manuscripts are sent to the publisherwithin a few days of receiving the final edits from the authors,and published in the next issue, rather than spending time inEarly View prior to publication. As I have already tried toconvince you (Merrill 2014), this is a good time to submitmanuscripts to the Journal.
Other issues I have experienced have been around for sometime. These range from the gray areas of dual publication andself-plagiarism, judging the value of publishing casehistories, novelty versus replication, philosophies in statisti-cal approaches and their consistency, including effect sizes,context for small sample sizes, and seeing through thelanguage barrier to the value of a study. Foremost has beencommunicating effectively the information to managers. Iagree with Michael Chamberlain who commented in hisPerspective that wildlifers are a passionate group but oftenhave a difficult time conveying the relevance of their work toothers, particularly in writing, but it is important that we doit for our profession. I have followed in the tradition of pastEditors requiring a concise but “meaty” ManagementImplications section that provides this guidance.Other issues (both old and new), I had not previously
wrapped my head around. This gave me the opportunity todive into the issues. I have provided these as part of thelong-standing trail of Editors’ messages that I now seecollectively reflect the evolving views or upcomingchallenges for The Wildlife Society. These have focusedon the value of null results, issues related to data archivingand reuse, the tragedy of reviewer commons, and what’s ina title. I did not think anybody read these Editor’smessages, until an author just prior to publication wantedto change their title.So what lies ahead for next year? In 2014, we have
published 5 commentaries, 4 reviews, 126 original researcharticles, 9 research notes, and thanks to Stephen Webb 15book reviews. Keeping up the quality and diversity ofmanuscripts will continue to be the major focus. I have afew more topics for the Editor’s message that I plan toaddress. But in the short stint every Editor has the hope tohave some influence on the field. Invited Reviews is astrategic way to do this and I now focus on providing theseon topics that I think are current, needed, and will make asplash.
—Evelyn MerrillEditor-in-Chief
LITERATURE CITEDBrennan, L. A., J.Wallace, and T. E. Boal. 2012. Perspectives of Editors-in-Chief of The Wildlife Society journals. Wildlife Society Bulletin 36:623–630.
Merrill, E. 2014. Why publish in the Journal of Wildlife Management?Journal of Wildlife Management 78:181–182.
The Journal of Wildlife Management 78(8):1321; 2014; DOI: 10.1002/jwmg.795
Merrill � Editor’s Message 1321