With a lot of help, we are slowly putting together the smoothly functioning journal machine that will (we hope) be Semantics and Pragmatics.
–Advisory Board: we may add one or two people, but as Kai blogged here, it’s in great shape. Several advisory board members have already been offering us some things to think about.
–Editorial Board: these are the second most important people to the success of the journal (after the authors). And we already have a spectacular Editorial Board line up. So far 82 fabulous semanticists, pragmaticists, philosophers, psychologists and computer scientists have completed the sign up process, running the gamut from Abbot to Zimmerman. The breadth and strength of our Editorial Board will mean that we send each reviewer an article only infrequently, and that we can target articles to our own expert board members for review without seeking outside help.
–Journal website: we have a professional designer, Leslie Hastings, doing some great work for us. She’s developing style sheets which turn the very functional Open Journal Systems web pages into something more distinctive and visually appealing. In the color scheme of Leslie’s current (top secret) incarnation of the web site, subtle hints of MIT and UT coloring buzz through a sharp white foam of content on a creamy beige background. I call this style “latte”. But who knows – it may be Mocha, Halloween or Juicy Fruit by the time you see it. The site should go live in a matter of weeks.
–Journal style and latex class files: Chris Potts and Ken Shan of our Technical Board are close to a release of the new class files. We aim to beta release them within a couple of weeks to allow some user testing. While we’re still finalizing various font and spacing issues, we’re confident that S&P articles will look very professional, and be comfortably readable both on-screen and in print. More news on this to follow soon.
–Journal policy: while Kai and I have discussed, and taken advice, on just about every aspect of the journal, many crucial details are still hanging over us, for example the exact wording of journal policy documents and copyright policy (which will resemble the Creative Commons license).
So the big question is: when will we be open for submissions? Everything’s going smoothly, but we’re not there yet. Could it be that we’ll accept our first paper before Thanksgiving? Watch this space!