WikiJournal of Humanities/Editorial guidelines/Message templates

WikiJournal of Humanities
Open access • Publication charge free • Public peer review • Wikipedia-integrated

This is a collection of message templates to act as a guide for ways to make contact and followup with potential authors and peer reviewers.

These are guidelines only, and messages should be tailored to the recipient where possible. For example, non-Wikipedians will need the readership size of Wikipedia emphasised, especially for the topic discussed (e.g. via pageview stats).

Emails to authors

Article submission invitation

Dear [RECIPIENT NAME],

We would like to commission you to write a review article on [TOPIC] to also be adapted to become the Wikipedia page. This topic is [currently absent from the encyclopedia / mentioned in a 'stub' article in the encyclopedia / covered in the encyclopedia but in need of a significant update/overhaul].

The WikiJournal of Humanities is a Wikipedia-integrated academic journal. It is also open-access with no publication charges of any kind. It couples the rigour of academic peer review with the extreme reach of the encyclopedia. It is therefore an excellent way to achieve public engagement, outreach and impact public understanding important topics (articles often get >100,000 views per year).

Peer-reviewed articles are dual-published both as standard academic PDFs, as well as directly into Wikipedia. This improves the accuracy of the encyclopedia, and rewards academics with citable, indexed publications. It also provides much greater reach than is normally achieved through traditional scholarly publishing.

You may either write a Focused Review of 400-800 words, which will be incorporated into the main article, or you may write an Encyclopedic Review of 2000-5000 words which will be published as its own page.

If you would be interested in this, please reply within two weeks. You may set your own submission deadline, after which the work will go through public peer review. If you would prefer to write on a different topic, please let us know and we may be able to accommodate you.

We look forward to your reply,

[SENDER NAME]

On behalf of the WikiJournal of Humanities editorial board

More information about the journal can be found at WikiJHum.org/About

Article submission invitation (wikipedia page)

Dear [RECIPIENT NAME],

I thought I'd email you about the idea of putting the [TOPIC] page that you are a main contributor to through external, academic peer review for publication in the WikiJournal of Humanities. For existing Wikipedia articles, it can be a great way to get additional feedback from external experts. Peer-reviewed Encyclopedic Review articles are dual-published both as standard academic PDFs, as well as directly into Wikipedia. This improves the accuracy of the encyclopedia, and rewards authors with citable, indexed publications.

Since you developed the page on Wikipedia, it can be submitted to the journal (with only minor formatting edits) in a similar way to featured article nomination at this page.

You may set your own submission deadline, after which the work will go through public peer review. If you would prefer to write on a different topic (either solo, or with a team of coauthors), please let us know and we may be able to accommodate you.

When you submit the article, you may recommend up to 6 suitable peer reviewers, and exclude up to 6 reviewers. We aim to ensure peer review within 4 weeks when possible.

[SENDER NAME]

On behalf of the WikiJournal of Humanities editorial board

Article submission confirmation

Dear [RECIPIENT NAME],

Thank you for your response. When you are ready, we encourage article drafting and submission through our pre-print server, as this makes subsequent formatting and typesetting much simpler. If you choose, you may incorporate any, some or none of the existing images on Wikipedia, and the same is true of any text.

When you submit the article, you may recommend up to 6 suitable peer reviewers, and exclude up to 6 reviewers. We aim to ensure peer review within 4-8 weeks when possible.

If the article is published, we will then help you to incorporate suitable material into Wikipedia.

We look forward to your submission,

[SENDER NAME]

On behalf of the WikiJournal of Humanities editorial board

More information about the journal can be found at WikiJHum.org/About

Review coordinator introduction

Example email for peer review coordinators when first introducing themselves to authors:

Dear [RECIPIENT NAME],

My name is [SENDER NAME], I am the Editorial Board member of WikiJournal of Humanities who will be responsible for handling the Peer Review of your submission.

We strive to make the peer review process as transparent and useful for our authors as possible (recent example).

Next stepsː

As a first step in our peer review process, your submission will be checked by the handling Editor (myself) and possibly other Editorial Board Members. This allows us to unify the papers we publish in terms of style, fix minor spelling and grammar issues etc. as well as allow a thorough first assessment as early as possible in the review process. After that, we will send the manuscript out for external peer review. The final decision for publication lies with the Editor in Chief and the rest of the Editorial Board.

At this point, please check if there are any initial editorial comments to address here: [LINK TO PEER REVIEW PAGE]. If so, provide a response and/or make changes to your submission as appropriate. Otherwise peer reviewers are being contacted and we will let you know as they return their comments.

Thank you for choosing WikiJournal of Humanities. I hope you value our peer review process, and please do not hesitate to contact me should you have any further comments or questions.

Kindest regards,

[SENDER NAME]

On behalf of the WikiJournal of Humanities editorial board

More information about the journal can be found at WikiJHum.org/About

Reviewer comments complete

Dear [RECIPIENT NAME],

The peer reviewers have now submitted their comments on your submitted article. You can see their recommendations here:

[LINK TO PEER REVIEW PAGE]

Please update the article and write a response to their comments (which you may post directly at the review page, preferred method, or email to us).

We look forward to seeing your responses,

[SENDER NAME]

On behalf of the WikiJournal of Humanities editorial board

More information about the journal can be found at WikiJHum.org/About

Article accepted for publication

Dear [RECIPIENT NAME],

We are pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been accepted for publication in the WikiJournal of Humanities.

It has been assigned the DOI [DOI number] and will appear on the journal's main page in the next 24 hours.

The final three steps are:

Format the PDF version
[If article intended for wikipedia-integration] Integrate any updates into the Wikipedia article
Suggest a post for the journal's twitter account (examples)

You are welcome to perform any of these steps yourself (just let us know to avoid duplicated work), otherwise journal editors will perform these in the coming weeks.

Sincerely,

[SENDER NAME]

On behalf of the WikiJournal of Humanities editorial board

Article declined for publication

Dear [RECIPIENT NAME],

Thank you for submitting your manuscript for consideration to the WikiJournal of Humanities. The journal's Editorial Board has carefully reviewed and discussed your submission.

The manuscript was judged as not meeting criteria for inclusion in our journal at this time. Specifically, Editors agreed that SPECIFY_REASONS_HERE.

The Editorial Board agreed that the limitations of your submission are not ones that can be addressed by a major revision to make it publishable in the WikiJournal of Humanities.

[OPTION A without possibility of resubmission]: Accordingly, we are returning a timely decision of Reject without possibility for re-submission.
[OPTION B with possibility of resubmission]: However, if you are able to address the major points raised above with a major overhaul of your work, you might be able to resubmit your work as a new submission.

We thank you for considering our Journal for your work. This decision will not influence our assessment of any further works, and we hope you will consider submitting to WikiJournals.

Sincerely yours,

[SENDER NAME]

On behalf of the WikiJournal of Humanities editorial board

Emails to peer reviewers

Note that reviewers will often respond to a second email even if they did not respond to the first.

Inviting a review

Dear [RECIPIENT NAME],

I am an editor of WikiJournal of Humanities, a Wikipedia-integrated, open access journal with no publication fees. I am writing to request if you would be a peer reviewer for a recently submitted article (located at [THIS LINK]):

[TITLE]

[IF RELEVANT: This submission is adapted from Wikipedia's article on the same topic.] [IF RELEVANT: accepted for publication, it will be published in the journal, and any amendments will be used to correct the Wikipedia page (used extensively by students, teachers and researchers). These articles gain high exposure (often >100,000 reads per year), so ensuring their accuracy through expert peer review is extremely important.]

Our peer review guidelines can be found at WikiJHum.org/Peer_reviewers.

You may review anonymously or choose to reveal your name
Peer reviews for accepted articles are public
Since the review is quite broad, you may review a subsection of it so long as you clearly indicated which sections were reviewed

If you are able to review the article on this occasion, please let us know at your earliest convenience. We aim to receive reviewer comments back within one month if possible.

Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions,

[SENDER NAME]

On behalf of the WikiJournal of Humanities editorial board

More information about the journal can be found at WikiJHum.org/About

Reminding a reviewer

Hello,

I would like to ask if your circumstances have changed for availability to peer review the submitted article on [TOPIC] at:
[FULL LINK].

Since Wikipedia pages are such a highly accessed resource, we are keen to have this article accurately peer reviewed. Our peer review guidelines can be found at WikiJHum.org/Peer_reviewers.

If you are unable to act as reviewer, please consider recommending suitably qualified alternatives.

As always, please feel free to contact us if you have any questions,

Thank you again,

[SENDER NAME]

On behalf of the WikiJournal of Humanities editorial board

Confirming a reviewer

Dear [RECIPIENT NAME],

Thank you for agreeing to perform this peer review.

You may submit your comments via this form

We prefer to display your name online with the review as we believe this builds trust in the review process (~75% of reviewers choose to do so). However, you may remain anonymous upon request. We recommend that comments are constructive, and include both strengths and areas for improvement, and be referenced whenever possible. Otherwise, the journal has no strict rules regarding the structure and length of a peer review, but guidelines can be found at WikiJHum.org/Peer_reviewers

Please don’t hesitate to ask me if you have any questions or would prefer to have the article in a different format.

[SENDER NAME]

On behalf of the WikiJournal of Humanities editorial board

Second check by a reviewer if requested

Dear [RECIPIENT NAME],

The authors of the article you reviewed for WikiJournal of Humanities have responded to your comments.

[Updated article link]
[Author response comments link]

Please let me know if you are satisfied that they have addressed your comments, or if you recommend further revisions.

Thank you again for your work as a reviewer,

[SENDER NAME]

Emails to editors

Confirming an applicant's identity

Thank you for your application to join the editorial board of the WikiJournal of Humanities. Please respond to this email to confirm that you are the person making this application. I will then bring the application to the editorial board for consideration.

New article submission

Subject: SUBMISSION: [Article title]

Dear WikiJHum editorial board,

A new article has been submitted via authorship declaration form:

[link to preprint]

The author [has / has not] recommended any peer reviewers
[list any suggested reviewers, excluded reviewers]

If the board decides that it's in-scope, then are there any volunteers to be the peer review coordinator?
Please sign up on the tracking table if you are willing to coordinate the review
I've also cced in relevant assoc. editors in case any wish to assist.

Best regards,
[SENDER NAME]

New editor application

Subject: New applicant requires comment

Dear editorial board,

There is a new [editorial board / associate editor] application that requires comment. Please leave a brief note on your opinion (comment/support/oppose).

https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Talk:WikiJournal_of_Humanities/Editors

I've copied these applications below and the edit links should work.

Best regards,
[SENDER NAME]

[copy-paste the full application from the wiki page into the email]

Onboarding a new board member

Dear [Recipient name],

Welcome to the editorial board of WikiJournal of Humanities! Please add a 1-2 sentence description of yourself via VisualEditor here (or email it to me and I'll add it), as well as upload a photograph of yourself to your wikidata item and update any information there. We also suggest adding a longer description of yourself (in the first person) at your universal userpage.

I've added you to the board mailing list (WJHboard@googlegroups.com) using this email address. Let me know if you'd prefer to use a different one.

This is where you'll be let know of newly submitted articles that will be in need of a review coordinator, articles where review has been completed and are in need of publication decision, editorial requests for comment, and reminders for our monthly(ish) video meetings.

When you take on your first peer review coordination, you'll be paired with a more experienced editor to walk you through it. The main sources of reference information are below:

Process guidelines for editors here
Private board information (login details etc) here
List of articles in the pipeline here
You're also welcome to comment on the wiki forum here.

We look forward to working with you,
[SENDER NAME]
On behalf of the WikiJournal of Humanities editorial board

Onboarding a new associate editor

Dear [Recipient name],

Welcome as an associate editor of WikiJournal of Humanities! You've now been added to this page.

Please confirm the best email address to contact you on when we need particular editorial help, such as finding peer reviewers for a submission within your field of expertise. We also suggest adding a longer description of yourself (in the first person) at your universal userpage.

Lastly, here is some further information, if you haven't seen it already:

Process guidelines for editors here
List of articles in the pipeline here
Please join the journal's public mailing list for related discussions (open for anyone to email and read).
Similarly, you're also welcome to comment on the wiki forum here.

We look forward to working with you,
[SENDER NAME]
On behalf of the WikiJournal of Humanities editorial board

Declining an editor application

Dear [Recipient name],

Thank you for your application, however the consensus was to decline at this time.

[link to application],

The main reason is [consensus reason, e.g. current lack of open access experience], and you would be welcome to re-apply at a future date.

Thank you again for your interest in the project,
[SENDER NAME]
On behalf of the WikiJournal of Humanities editorial board

Inviting a potential guest editor

Subject: [Article title] @ WikiJournal

Dear [Recipient name],

I am looking for a guest editor who would organize peer review of an encyclopedic article on [Article title]. I am contacting you following a recommendation by [Recommending person].

Up to a few changes, the submitted article is identical to the Wikipedia article with the same title. It was submitted to the WikiJournal of Humanities, a pluridisciplinary journal that seeks to improve Wikipedia's articles across a range of disciplines, and to give credit to their authors for their work. In this case, the article was submitted by [Submitting author name], who made major contributions to the Wikipedia article under the pseudonym [Wikipedia pseudonym].

The editorial board of the WikiJournal of Humanities does not yet include an expert of [Field]: this is why I am looking for a guest editor, who would in turn invite at least two academics to review the article, and would make recommendations based on their reports. (The reports are publicly available, but their authors may remain anonymous). The guest editors and the reviewers may work by email, I would do the interfacing with the journal's website.

The submitted article attracts over 4000 daily pageviews on Wikipedia: it is therefore important to check that it is reliable, and to correct it if appropriate. Would you be interested to be the guest editor for this article? Do not hesitate to ask me any question that you may have.

Best regards,
[Editor's name, affiliation, contact details]

Submitted article: [Link]
Corresponding Wikipedia article: [Link]

WikiJournal of Humanities: www.WikiJHum.org

Example of a published article: https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/WikiJournal_of_Science/Radiocarbon_dating

Example of a declined submission: https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/WikiJournal_Preprints/Surface_tension

New peer review submission

Subject: New peer review submitted for: [Article title]

A new peer review has been submitted by [Reviewer name] for an article that you're coordinating:

[Link to Article text]
[Link to talkpage (reviewer comments)]

Please take a look and inform the author
[SENDER NAME]

Editorial board publication decision needed

Subject: DECISION TIME: [Article title]

An article is ready for a publication decision by the WikiJournal of Humanities:

[Link to Article text]
[Link to Author response comments]
Coordinators: [peer review coordinators]

[Your opinion on whether the author has adequately addressed the reviewer concerns, if there are any additional issues to be discussed, and your recommendation on whether to accept, decline, request further changes, or contact additional peer reviewers].

We'd value the opinions and inputs of the other editorial board members over the next week.

[SENDER NAME]