The craft of journal practice

Abstract

This article reflects on journal practices in a study of The British Journal of Social Work conducted as a multiple method historical case study, focussing on the first 40 years of the journal. What constitutes a journal’s identity is slippery. Broadly speaking, there are those practices that are located primarily within the immediate creation of volume upon volume, and there are practices through which the journal interacts with those worlds that touch on its boundaries. Editorial appointments, editors’ visions, the work of reviewers, and the infrastructure of technology are all located fairly close to the journal’s day-to-day practice. In this article, the focus is on these comparatively internal practices. This includes becoming a British Journal of Social Work editor; doing the job; reviewers and reviewing; editorial judgement; and technology. We gained a strong sense of continuity in terms, for example, of how those to whom we spoke understood the journal’s identity, and managing editorial succession. There were tensions – perhaps essential – manifested in the deployment of rhetorical arguments and pleas. But while calculated to persuade, the ebb and flow of rhetorical issues are no less about substance and realities.