Full window view

American Society of Civil Engineers

EDITORS' AND REVIEWERS' GUIDE
GUIDE TO THE
JOURNALS OF ASCE

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Ethical Standards for Publications of ASCE Journals

INTRODUCTION

The journals of ASCE are the media through which civil engineers exchange technical and professional knowledge. Information published in the journals forms an archival record of the technical advances of the Society and the profession in general.

The Board's Publications Committee sets the policies governing the journals. Responsibility for reviewing manuscripts submitted to ASCE for publication rests with the editors, associate editors, and editorial boards of each journal. The Executive Committee of each division and council is responsible for the contents of its journals.

Papers, technical notes, discussions on papers or technical notes, closures, and errata are published in all of the journals. Editorials, forums, and book reviews are published in many of the journals.

This Editors' and Reviewers' Guide to the Journals of ASCE is designed for editors; associate editors; editorial board and publications committee members; and reviewers. Frequently the word "editor" is used; however, whenever the Society's review policies and procedures are discussed, it should be understood to mean any individual responsible for the review of a paper. All policies and procedures governing papers apply as well to notes.

For information on publishing format and style, and on submission procedures, please consult the ASCE Authors' Guide to Journals, Books, and Reference Publications, which contains information on such items as footnotes, mathematics, figures, tables, references, systems of units, key words, etc. (Copies are obtainable from the Production Department, ASCE, 345 East 47th Street, New York, NY 10017-2398.)

ETHICAL STANDARDS FOR PUBLICATIONS OF ASCE JOURNALS

These standards were developed by a committee of journal editors and approved by the Board Publications Committee in 1992 as policy.

PREFACE

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) serves the civil engineering community and society at large in several ways, including the publications of technical journals that present the results of current engineering and scientific research and practice. Fundamental to that service is the responsibility of editors, authors, and reviewers to maintain high ethical standards relating to the submittal, review, and publication of manuscripts. These ethical standards derive from the ASCE's definition of the scope of the journal and from the community's perception of standards of quality for engineering and scientific works, and its presentation. The ethical standards that follow reflect a conviction that the observance of high ethical standards is so vital to the entire engineering and scientific enterprise that a definition of those standards should be brought to the attention of all concerned.

A. Obligations of Editors

1. The primary responsibility of an ASCE journal editor is to ensure an efficient and fair review process of manuscripts submitted for publication, and to establish and maintain high standards of technical and professional quality. Criteria of quality are: originality of approach, concept and/or application; profundity; and relevance to the civil engineering profession.

2. An editor shall give unbiased consideration to all manuscripts offered for publication, and shall judge each on its own merits without regard to any personal relationship for familiarity with the author(s), or to the race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, professional association, or political philosophy of the author(s).

3. The editor and editorial staff shall disclose no information about a manuscript under consideration to anyone other than those from whom professional advice regarding the publication of the manuscript is sought. The names of reviewers shall not be released by the editors or editorial staff.

4. An editor who authors or co-authors a manuscript submitted for consideration to the journal with which that editor is affiliated, shall not review that work. If after publication, the editor-author's work merits on-going scientific database within the journal, the editor-author shall accept no editorial responsibility in connection therewith.

5. Unpublished information, arguments, or interpretations contained in a submitted manuscript are confidential and shall not be used in the research of an editor or associate editor, or otherwise disseminated except with the consent of the author and with appropriate attribution.

6. If an editor is presented with convincing evidence that the substance, conclusions, references or other material included in a manuscript published in an ASCE journal are erroneous, the editor, after notifying the author(s) and allowing them to respond in writing, shall facilitate immediate publication of an errata. If possible, an editor shall also facilitate publication of appropriate comments and/or papers identifying those errors.

Obligations of Authors

1. An author's central obligation is to present a concise account of the research, work, or project completed, together with an objective discussion of its significance.

2. A submitted manuscript shall contain detail and reference to public sources of information sufficient to permit the author's peers to repeat the work or otherwise verify its accuracy.

3. An autho shall cite and give appropriate attribute to those publications influential in determining the nature of the reported work sufficient to guide the reader quickly to earlier work essential to an understanding of the present work. Information obtained by an author privately, from conversation, correspondence, or discussion with third parties, shall not be used or reported in the author's work without explicit permission from the persons from whom the information was obtained. Information obtained in the course of confidential services, such as refereeing manuscripts or grant applications, shall be treated in the same confidential manner.

4. The submitted manuscript shall not contain plagiarized material or falsified research data.

5. Fragmentation of research papers shall be avoided. An engineer or scientist who had done extensive work on a system or group of related systems shall organize publication so that each paper gives a complete account of a particular aspect of the general study.

6. It is inappropriate for an author to submit for review more than one paper describing essentially the same research or project to more than one journal of primary publication.

7. Scholarly criticism of a published paper may sometimes be justified; however, personal criticism is never appropriate.

8. To protect the integrity of authorship, only persons who have significantly contributed to the research or project and paper preparation shall be listed as co-authors. The corresponding author attests to the fact that any others named as co-authors have seen the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication. Deceased persons who meet the criterion for co-authorship shall be included, with a footnote reporting date of death. No fictitious name shall be given as an author or co-author. An author who submits a manuscript for publication accepts responsibility for having properly included all, and only, qualified co-authors.

9. It is inappropriate to submit manuscripts with an obvious commercial intent.

10. It is inappropriate for an author either to write or co-author a discussion of his or her own paper, except in the case of a rebuttal or closure to criticism or discussion offered by others.

Obligations of Reviewers of Manuscripts

1. Because qualified manuscript review is essential to the publication proces, all engineers and scientists have an obligation to do their fair share of reviews.

2. If a reviewer feels inadequately qualified or lacks the time to fairly judge the work reported, the reviewer shall return the manuscript promptly to the editor.

3. A reviewer shall objectively judge the quality of a manuscript on its own merit and shall respect the intellectual independence of the author(s). Personal criticism is never appropriate.

4. A reviewer shall avoid conflicts of interest and/or the appearance thereof. If a manuscript submitted for review presents a potential conflict of interest or the reviewer has a personal bias, the reviewer shall return the manuscript promptly without review, and so advise the editor.

5. Unpublished information, arguments or interpretations contained in a submitted manuscript are confidential and shall not be used in the research of a reviewer, or otherwise disseminated except with the consent of the author and with appropriate attribution.

6. If a reviewer receives for review a manuscript authored or co-authored by a person with whom the reviewer has a personal or professional relationship, the existence of this relationship shall be promptly brought to the attention of the editor.

7. A reviewer shall treat a manuscript received for review as a confidential document and shall neither disclose or discuss it with others, except, as necessary, to persons from whom specific advice may be sought; in that event, the identities of those consulted shall be disclosed to the editor.

8. Reviewers shall explain and support judgments adequately so that the editor and author(s) may understand the basis for their comments. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument has been previously reported shall be accompanied by the relevant citation.

9. A reviewer shall call to the editor's attention any substantial similarity between the manuscript under consideration and any published paper or any manuscript submitted concurrently to another journal.

10. A reviewer shall not use or disclose unpublished information, arguments or interpretations contained in a manuscript under consideration, except with the consent of the author and with appropriate attribution.

11. If a reviewer has convincing evidence that a manuscript contains plagiarized material or falsified research data, the reviewer shall notify the editor, and send the evidence to the Manager, Journals, for investigation by the ASCE Professional Conduct Committee.

THE ASCE JOURNAL EDITOR

The journal editor's main responsibility is to estabish and maintain the highest possible standards of technical and professional quality of all contributions, in accordance with the Obligations of Editors in the Ethical Standards, reproduced above. Journal editors should be experienced and knowledgeable professionals in the fields of research or practice they represent. Because publication is of great importance to authors, referees, and members, firmness and tact in deaing with editorial problems are highly desirable.

An involvement in civil engineering and the work of the society is indispensable.

A journal editor is encouraged to work directly with the author whenever possible (see Direct Submission of Papers).

The editor is encouraged to edit papers wheneverit is necessary or helpful.

Specific Responsibilities

1. Call and chair periodic meetings of the Publications Committee or Editorial Board.

2. Periodically report to Division or Council Executive Committee as part of routine consultation and work with this committee.

3. Make every possible effort to see that reviews are performed within ninety days.

4. Monitor the statistics available for the journal (on such items as approval rate; increase or decrease in the papers under review; backlog; and the overdue review rate), which can be obtained from the Manager, Journals. When submissions seem low, actively seek new papers and encourage associate editors and editorial board members to do so, as well.

5. Maintain a database or file of referees with their expertise, availability, and, if possible, review records.

6. Perform detailed journal processing procedures:
   1. Record receipt of manuscripts for review.
      
   2. Select at least two referees for each manuscript (or, if the editor has associate editors or editorial board members who oversee the review, then that individual should follow this procedure). Some divisions select three reviewers; then, in the event there's one negative and one positive review, the necessary tie-breaking review has been done.
      
   3. Monitor individual responsible for the review of papers to see that ASCE policies and procedures are followed.
      
   4. Take appropriate action to obtain prompt reviews; ASCE's goal is to have reveiws performed in ninety days.
      
   5. Recommend corrections to obvious format problems, particularly poor figures and in accordance with the ASCE Authors' Guide to Journals, Books, and Reference Publications.
      
   6. Edit or make editing suggestions on material under review, when necessary.

   7. Help to insure the smooth transition between editors. Long before an editor terminates an editorship, another editor should be selected. Ideally, an editor has been an associate editor or member of the editorial board or publications committee. Incoming and outgoing editors should arrange for the smooth transition of information and records.

   8. Optional duties
      1. Solicit review (state-of-the-art) and other papers.
         
      2. Write editorials and/or obtain guest editorials.
         
      3. Extend the range of the journal to new areas emerging in the discipline.
         
      4. Develop ways to keep the journal vital, lively, and useful to subscribers.
         
      5. Evaluate the appropriateness of book reviews and forums for the journal.
         
      6. Develop ways to attract practice papers.

   STANDARDS OF ACCEPTANCE FOR PAPERS AND NOTES

   The ASCE Publications Committee has adopted the following guidelines regarding the type and quality of material published in the Society's journals.

   To be acceptable for publication in the journals, a manuscript must be of value and interest to civil engineers. It must be an original review of past practice, present information of current interest, or probe new fields of civil engineering activity. It should be a thought-provoking study that contributes to the planning, analysis, design, construction, management, or maintenance of civil engineering works. A manuscript should contribute to the advancement of the profession in the forum provided by the journals for the exchange of experiences by engineers for their common advantage. It should include a practical applications section whenever possible; theoretical manuscripts should indicate areas of additional research to implement technology transfer. Practical papers are strongly encouraged.

   Technical notes provide a way of publishing: (1) original, practica information; (2) preliminary or partial results of research; (3) concisely presented research results; and (4) innovative techniques to accomplish design objectives.

   The paper or note must be consistent with the purpose of the Society, as set forth in its constitution; with established fact; and with the Ethical Standards for Publication of ASCE Journals. It must not contain purely speculative matter, although it can use scientific evidence to challange current concepts or propose new ideas that will encourage progress and discussion.

   The manuscript must be free of evident commercialism or private interest, but must neither obscure proper names when they are required for an understanding of the subject matter nor contain material that can be used to imply ASCE endorsement of products, services, and so on. The manuscript must also be free of personalities, either complimentary or derogatory. The material must not be readily available elsewhere, i.e., it should not have been published previously by other professional or technical societies, federal agencies, or commercial publishers. Papers based on material available elsewhere may be published by ASCE provided that the new paper has been rewritten to significantly revise, update, or condense it into a more concise and readable form, or otherwise make it obviously and significantly more useful to the profession than the original paper. If a previously published manuscript is considered a highly significant advance in the field and its distribution has been very limited, the editor may request that the technical division or council Executive Committee waive the polity against dual publication.

   ASCE POLICY GOVERNING PEER REVIEW

   1. To be accepted or rejected for publication, a paper must receive two positive or two negative reviews. The journal editor may be a reviewer.

   2. If the editor receives one positive and one negative review, a third, tie-breaking review, must be obtained.

   3. A resubmitted paper must go through a full round of reviews. A resubmitted paper is one that has been previously declined by ASCE and the author has revised it and is submitting it for another round of reviews. The editor may send the paper back to the original reviewers or select new reviewers. To have a paper reviewed for a second time, the author should have revised it along the lines recommended by the reviewers.

   4. A rereview paper is one that has received two positive reviews and been tentatively accepted with the condition that revisions must be made and that the revised manuscript must go back to the editor (or someone the editor selects) for final review.

      A manuscript under rereview may be accepted if a single review with positive results is performed by the editor or by one of the previous reviewers. If this single review is negative, two positive reviews from additional reviewers are required to finally accept the paper or note.

      A manuscript under rereview may be declined if the author did not revise the manuscript as required by the reviewers, if new material was introduced which is considered to be of unacceptable quality, or if additional errors are found. It is important that the editor treat the author fairly when it is found necessary to decline a rereview paper.

      If a reviewer checks the rereview category, he must be willing to actually perform the rereview.

   5. A manuscript may be declined for review, if the editor considers it outside the scope of the journal, substandard in its use of English, or the content at a technical level inappropriate for the readership of the journal. The manuscript should be returned to Headquarters, with a covering letter stating the reasons for the rejection.

   6. Technical notes require the same number of reviews for acceptance or rejection as do papers. The same policies governing papers apply to notes.

   7. All committee reports are to be reviewed by the executive committee of a division or council and the committee is to be listed as the author.

   8. Multiple submissions (i.e., papers that are submitted to an ASCE journal and to another journal at the same time) are not reviewed for publication in an ASCE journal. A paper cannot be submitted to more than one ASCE journal at the same time.

   9. Reviewers are anonymous to authors; it is therefore best, whenever possible, to avoid handwritten reviews, which can sometimes reveal the reviewer's identity. Reviews with the reviewer's names on them should be sent to ASCE; it is the responsibility of ASCE staff to delete these names from the copies of the reviews sent to the author.

   10. The journal, and committee, to which a paper is submitted is the choice of the author. If the editor feels the paper is inappropriate for the editor's journal, it should be returned to ASCE, with advice on the appropriate division or council to review it. ASCE will contact the author to get his approval for the transfer of the manuscript.

   11. To accept or decline a discussion or closure, one review is required by the editor or someone he designates to review discussions. It does not need to be sent to an individual reviewer unless the discussion reviewer feels an outside review, for particular expertise, is necessary.

   12. The content of editorials and forums is the responsibility of the Editor, unless the editor delegates it to someone else.

   CATEGORIES OF ACCEPTANCE AND DECLINE

   1. Accept in present form.

   2. Accept, author should consider suggested revisions.

   3. Tentatively accept, revision required.

      Review may or may not be required.

   4. Decline, encourage revision and resubmittal.

   5. Decline as paper, consider resubmittal as technical note.

   6. Decline

   TIME PERIOD FOR REVIEWS

   ASCE's goal is to have reviews performed within a maximum of 90 days. This period begins from the day a paper or note reaches ASCE and ends the day the review decision is mailed from ASCE to the author. A list of overdue papers are mailed to the editors every month. A paper appears on this list when it has been with the editor for review or rereview over ninety days. Editors and reviewers are asked to do all that they can to insure prompt reviews.

   Day1 - Day 5:	manuscript received at and mailed from ASCE headquarters
   Day 5 - Day 10:	in transit to editor
   Day 10 - Day 25:	editor selects reviewer and mails manuscript
   Day 25 - Day 30	in transit to reviewer
   Day 30 - Day 58	review takes place
   Day 58 - Day 63:	in transit to editor
   Day 63 - Day 80:	editor decides on disposition, writes summary, and mails to ASCE
   Day 80 - Day 85:	in transit to ASCE headquarters
   Day 85 - Day 90	ASCE headquarters receives paper and mails decision to author.

   APPEAL OF A REVIEW DECISION

   If an author is dissatisfied with the review of his paper, he may have it reviewed a second time by the same division or committee; however a new group of reviewers must be used. If the paper is declined a second time and the author is still dissatisfied with the decision, the author has the right to appeal the decision next to the Executive Committee of the division and then, if the review decision is upheld, to the Board's Publications Committee. The decision of the Publications Committee is the final one and marks the end of the appeal process.

   At each stage in the appeal process, the author must request the appeal in writing, and send the request to headquarters. Headquarters will direct this appeal to the appropriate level of review.

   REVIEW MATERIAL

   To Editor

   The following material is sent to the editor for the review of a technical paper or note: four copies of the manuscript; a copy of the author's letter (the number of journal pages of the paper or note is written in the upper right-hand corner); review forms when the division uses the standard ones (three individual and one summary); and a copy of our acknowledgement letter.

   (Handwritten manuscripts are not accepted for review and are returned to the author for typing.)

   To Author

   Copies of all reviews (with reviewers' names deleted), manuscripts marked by the reviewers (if there are any), and a letter indicating the category of the decision are sent to the author. All marked copies of the manuscript should be coded with the same code used on the individual reviewer's form, such as A, B, 1, 2, etc., so that the author will be able to tell which form and manuscript to together when reviewers' names are deleted from the reviews. Also included in the material to the authors are editorial checklists and a copyright transfer form.

   PARTS OF A JOURNAL (Other than Papers and Notes)

   Editorials

   The contents of the editorials is the responsibility of the editor. Opinions, current subjects of interest, new and innovative ideas, and informative (and even controversial) topics are appropriate. Caution should be taken, however, that editorial do not consist of technical material which should go through formal review as a paper or note.

   Forums

   In addition to editorials, some journals publish forums, which provide a compendium of thoughts, reviews, and information from a variety of sources.

   Discussions and Closures

   A discussion is subject to rejection if it contains matter readily found elsewhere, advocates special interests, is carelessly prepared, controverts established fact, is purely speculative, introduces personalities, or is foreign to the purposes of the society. All discussions should be written in the third person and the discusser should use the term "the writer" when referring to himself or herself.

   Discussions are open for five months after the paper is published. When the discussion period is closed and all approved discussions have been revised (if any require revision), they are sent to the author with a request to write a closure. Closures are important because they can provide clarification of and conclusion to the points raised in the discussions. Discussions and the closure - if one is written - are published together.

   Book Reviews

   Divisions which believe their journals should contain book reviews, predominantly because there is not an existing publication that contains such reviews of important published material, have the option of publishing a book review section.

   There should be a book review editor for this section, who would either be the editor of the journal or someone on the publications committee or editorial board designated by the editor for this position. The book review editor's name should be clearly listed on the title page of the journal. The book review section should be the last section in the journal, following the discussions and closures.

   The book review editor should screen the books for review and select the reviewer for each book he felt should be reviewed. Only those books felt important in either theory, practice, or both to the field covered by the journal should be reviewed. A review should contain information of value to readers; it should not be reviewed. A review should contain information of value to readers; it should not be just an evaluation but contain significant ideas or facts. The book review editor should peruse the reviews to be certain they are not unduly harsh, or possibly even slanderous, and are not flippant (this criteria is similar to that used for discussions).

   A review that is totally negative should not be published since it would be a waste of costly journal space. Each review published should have the reviewer's name on it. The business, agency, or institution that the reviewer is affiliated with should also be listed with the reviewer's name; this will give the reader an opportunity to evaluate the reviewer's perspective. Each book review should be a maximum of one journal page. Each book should be reviewed by one reviewer only.

   Eratta

   If an error serious enough to impair understanding or to mislead readers appears in pring, the author prepares and sends ASCE and errata. It is published in the earliest available issue.

   DIRECT SUBMISSION OF PAPERS

   Increasingly, journal editors are receiving direct submissions from authors and communicating the review decisions directly to the author. When the author sends four copies of the manuscript directly to the editor for review, a fifth copy, along with a copy of the covering letter to the editor, should be sent to ASCE headquarters. If the author has overlooked this, the editor should send this material to Headquarters so that the journal's database, which tracks submissions, is kept up to date. In those journals that have a system of communicating review decisions directly to the author, the editor should send copies of the reviews and covering letter to Headquarters.

   Whenever financial help is provided by the Society for secretarial assistance to an editor, it is expected that the editor will receive direct submission from authors and communicate review decisions directly to the author.

   

   Comments and Suggestions

   Return to ASCE Contents Page