The accompanying tables offer the readership our annual breakdown of articles received and articles published in the HAHR. The cumulative figures for the first two years of the University of Arizona editorship are included as well.
Manuscript submissions declined during the period July 1, 1976 to June 30, 1977. We received a total of eighty-six articles during the past year as compared to ninety-eight articles during the previous twelve-month period. The decline is explained in part by the fact our figures for last year included a number of files turned over to us by the previous editors, in addition to all of the articles that were submitted to us during the first twelve months. It is also possible that the high rate of rejections described in the last annual report discouraged some potential contributors. In spite of the decline for 1976-1977, the 184 submissions for the two-year period just slightly exceed the average number of submissions (90) for the five-year period during which the journal was at the University of Texas.
The rate of acceptances decreased slightly during the last twelve months. Discounting those articles listed as pending, we were able to accept only thirteen articles of seventy-eight, an acceptance rate of seventeen percent. We anticipate that several of the pending articles ultimately will be accepted and that the final figures will indicate that approximately two out of every ten articles will have been accepted.
As has been noted in previous analyses, Mexico and Brazil continue to dominate article submissions. For the first time, however, articles treating Brazilian history (21) outnumbered those on Mexico (20). The combined total for Brazil and Mexico constituted almost half (forty-eight percent) of all articles received. The Central American republics, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Venezuela, continue to evoke slight interest.
Chronological emphasis for the 1976-1977 period indicates that studies treating the colonial period comprise twenty-four percent of all submissions, a drop of six percent from the previous year. We attach no special significance to this slight decline.
It is worthy of special notice that for the third year in a row, articles in social history dominate topical emphasis. We noted this trend in last year’s report and now it has become even more pronounced. Our two-year totals indicate that articles in the field of social history comprise thirty-three percent of all submissions; political history, twenty-three percent; diplomatic history, sixteen percent; economic history, fourteen percent; intellectual history, twelve percent; and miscellaneous, two percent (percentages rounded).
The figures in the tables describing articles published, even those for the two-year period, are not sufficiently large to invite meaningful interpretation. It may or may not be statistically significant that colonial articles fared somewhat better than their counterparts in the national period. While colonial articles made up twenty-seven percent of the submissions, they constituted thirty-five percent of the articles actually published. Conversely, articles on the national period comprised seventy-three percent of the submissions but only sixty-five percent of the articles published. It is still too early to conclude either that the best work is being done in the colonial period or that our readers for national articles are more demanding. We will continue to monitor these statistics, however.
In addition to the information which can be derived from the tables, we wish to report two other pieces of information which we found of interest. For the two-year period ending June 30, 1977, the HAHR received twenty-four articles from foreign authors. Of these, eleven came from England, five from Israel, four from Canada, two from Brazil, and two from Japan. The acceptance rate for foreign authors was twenty-five percent, slightly higher than for their United States counterparts.
Finally we have once again calculated the average time span between article submissions, editorial decisions, and actual publication. Recognizing the considerable importance of the publication decision, we do our best to render prompt responses. In our last report we indicated that the average publication decision was made fifty-two days after receipt of an article. By concerted effort we have been able to reduce this figure to forty-three days during the last twelve months. Because our backlog of articles is not large, actual publication comes about thirteen months after original submission. Those authors who have written for other major journals will appreciate that in this regard the record of the HAHR is an enviable one.
