Another year of great strides

Abstract

COPYRIGHT 2014 BY PSI CHI, THE INTERNATIONAL HONOR SOCIETY IN PSYCHOLOGY (VOL. 19, NO. 4/ISSN 2164-8204) Four more issues of the Psi Chi Journal of Psychological Research have been printed. I have exciting updates to share and new developments to report, but above all, I want to take a moment to thank the authors for submitting their fine work to our Journal. They provide the content that is critical to the advancement of science. I also want to thank reviewers for their tireless work on behalf of Psi Chi Journal. Their excellent peer reviews provide the feedback necessary for us to meet the Journal’s mission “to foster and reward the scholarly efforts of psychology students as well as to provide them with a valuable learning experience” (Psi Chi, 2014). Our publication standards are high. In the fiscal 2013–2014 year, 54 editorial decisions were made. Only eight manuscripts were conditionally accepted at the first submission. This represents an acceptance rate of 14.8%, which is comparable to rates for American Psychological Association (APA) journals (APA, 2013). However, a majority of first submissions were invited to return major revisions (n = 31, 57.4%) providing ample evidence of our efforts to support burgeoning authors in strengthening their publication skills. The Journal is growing in multiple ways. Our manuscript submissions are up. In 2013, we received 64 original manuscripts. As of September 15, 2014, we have received 69 manuscripts. At this printing, 75% of the manuscripts processed in 2014 were submitted by undergraduate students, 18% by graduate students, and 7% by faculty. The numbers are similar to 2013 when the proportions were 79%, 13%, and 8% respectively. Psi Chi Journal is also literally growing in size. For the past two years, we have published five manuscripts per issue. This was a deliberate decision intended to provide our members with a high-quality, consistent product. Due to the increase in submissions and improved manuscript management system, we have increased the number of original empirical articles to seven per issue, starting with the 19.3 issue. Finally, our Journal team has grown. Last year, we had three excellent Associate Editors, Drs. Debi Brannan, Carlos Escoto, and Shelia Kennison. This summer we added a fourth Associate Editor to our team, Dr. Steven Rouse. Dr. Rouse is a Professor of Psychology at Pepperdine University (CA) whose work focuses on personality assessment, positive psychology, and spirituality-based conceptions of self-worth. He brings strong quantitative skills to the position. Dr. Rouse teaches Introductory Psychology, Psychological Testing and Measurement, Personality, and Psychology and Religion. We also have a new editorial assistant at Utah State University (USU) to support new projects for the Journal. Jeisianne Rosario Colón is a first-year doctoral student in the Clinical, Counseling, and School Psychology program at USU. Her scholarship is focused on Latino mental health with a special interest in families and parenting. We have made some notable changes to journal processing, most notably APA style and plagiarism checks. We have a talented in-house APA style editor who now systematically reviews all submissions for adherence to APA style. All authors, regardless of the editorial decision, receive substantive feedback on APA style. This also frees our reviewers to focus more deeply on the scientific content of the manuscripts while resting assured that all publication style issues will be addressed. Our APA style editor carefully checks manuscripts at submission and every revision that follows. As of this fall, all manuscripts are also being submitted for plagiarism checks through TurnItIn® to confirm the originality of each contribution. I am happy to report every single manuscript checked has returned as original work! A critical goal for the Journal is to disseminate the work of our authors to the benefit of psychological science. To better understand our impact, Psi Chi Journal now has a GoogleScholarTM account so we EDITORIAL: Another Year of Great Strides