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© 2024 Interior Design Educators Council
1. It has been a few years since I have published in JID – has anything changed at JID in the last few years?
The Journal of Interior Design has a new mission statement: The Journal of Interior Design is a scholarly, refereed publication dedicated to a pluralistic exploration of the interior environment. The Journal seeks to move the discipline forward by welcoming scholarly inquiry from diverse and interdisciplinary approaches, perspectives, and methods that actively explore and analyze the evolving definition of the interior. The Journal’s publications investigate the interior relative to design, human perception, behavior, and experience, at all scales and for all conditions. Scholarship published in the Journal shapes, informs, and defines interior design education, practice, research, criticism, and theory.
This mission statement clearly denotes that JID is accepting of all forms of scholarship along with varied approaches to research including visual essays, qualitative approaches, creative scholarship, scholarship of teaching and learning, quantitative research, and humanities essays. A newer category for submissions is the Visual Essay (VE); encouraging an image-based exploration of issues of interest to the discipline.
2. Are the review criteria on the website in addition to any videos?
Author and Submission guidelines are provided on the Wiley website (JID’s publishing company) for invited perspectives, letters, articles, and visual essays. The review process is also explained. Please see the following link: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/page/journal/19391668/homepage/forauthors.html
The video, “How to Craft a Successful Submission to the Journal of Interior Design” is also available on the Wiley website under News and Announcements: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/19391668 and through the Interior Design Educators Council (IDEC) website at: https://idec.org/journal-of-interior-design-webinar/
3. What are common reasons a manuscript/essay might be rejected (desk-rejected / revise-and-resubmit)?
When a manuscript or essay is received through Scholar One/Manuscript Central (the site JID uses for manuscript submittal and review), it is assigned to an Editor-in-Chief, Associate Editor, or Guest Editor, depending on the topic. The editors review the manuscript or essay. At this point, they have two decisions: desk reject or send out for further review.
As the editor reviews the manuscript/essay, they consider the following:
- Could the manuscript/essay be published as it is after two reviews? It is important to note that submissions go out for blind review twice at most.
- Does the submission move the field of interior design forward?
- How is the writing? Are there problems with grammar, spelling, organization, and/or clarity?
- Visual content of the essay? Does the VE offer a critical perspective?
- If a methods section is included, what is the sample size? Instruments used? Procedure? Are reliability and validity addressed?
- Did the author(s) follow submission guidelines? This has recently been an issue. For example, authors will submit too many figures, figures that are not 300 dpi, figures that are not in the correct format, or they may be over or under the word count. It is critically important to review submission guidelines prior to submitting.
- Major gaps or deficiencies are present in the manuscript, rendering the paper unfit for publication.
- The content of the manuscript does not correspond with the mission of the Journal (i.e., not about interiors).
- The overall quality of the manuscript does not meet the expectations of the Journal.
A desk reject can happen when problems occur with the criteria noted above. On the other hand, once the manuscript/essay is received, the editors can send it out for review if they opt not to desk reject.
REVIEW PROCESS:
- The editors send the manuscript/essay out to two expert reviewers who blind review the work.
- Once reviewer comments are received, the editor can either accept, ask for minor revisions, ask for a revise and resubmit, or reject. This decision is based on reviewer and editor comments.
- A Notice of Revision (NOR) is prepared for the author that includes reviewer and editor comments. The decision is included in the NOR (i.e., accept, minor revision, revise and resubmit, reject).
- If the submission is a minor revision or revise and resubmit, a date is provided to resubmit the revision.
4. Do the authors see the reviewer responses to all the questions provided to the reviewers?
The authors receive a Notice of Revision (NOR). The Notice of Revision typically includes all reviewer and editor comments. This is, however, at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief, Associate Editors, and Guest Editors. If a reviewer provides comments that are not considered helpful, the editors may eliminate them from the NOR.
5. Do authors clearly understand why the manuscript/essay was rejected?
Regardless of whether a manuscript/essay is initially rejected (a desk reject) or rejected after a review, extensive comments are provided to let the author know why the article or visual essay was rejected. For a desk reject, it is not uncommon for the editors to provide two pages of suggestions to help the author improve the manuscript or essay.
For a reject based on reviewer comments, the editors prepare a NOR that includes not only reviewer suggestions, but editor recommendations as well.
6. What if the submission was rejected then the author worked on it, do you not recommend them to resubmit?
Authors may always use reviewer and editor comments to improve and resubmit the revised manuscript/essay even if it has been rejected. We recently had an author who resubmitted a manuscript three separate times. On the third try, the manuscript was accepted for publication. Please note, acceptance is dependent on reviewer and editor feedback. Even when a manuscript is revised, there is no guarantee of acceptance.
7. If I revise my manuscript/essay based on reviewer/editor suggestions, will it automatically be accepted?
A manuscript/essay will go out for blind review twice at most. Much of this depends on reviewer and editor comments and the amount of revisions required.
Many submissions will receive a revise and resubmit after the initial review. The editors prepare the NOR that provides reviewer comments along with editor suggestions. The author is given time to revise the submission (four to ten weeks depending on the amount of revisions). Once the author revises, they resubmit the revision through Scholar One/Manuscript central. The manuscript/essay is now labeled as R1.
The editors review the R1 submission paying attention to the revisions made to ensure the authors have addressed reviewer and editor comments. The editor can either send the RI out for a second review, accept, or reject. If the editor opts to send out for a second review, the manuscript/essay will typically be assigned to the same reviewers who reviewed the first time; however, the editors reserve the right to assign different reviewers.
After the R2 is received, the editor must decide whether to accept or reject. There are cases where manuscripts/essays have gone out for two reviews and have been rejected. In other words, revision does not ensure the manuscript/essay will be accepted for publication. There are several reasons why this may occur: Perhaps the editor decides that based on reviewer comments, getting the manuscript to an acceptable publishable format will be difficult. The reviewers may point out methodological problems that cannot be corrected. The author may not have thoroughly addressed reviewer comments.
8. Timeline for getting feedback?
Reviewers have three to four weeks for review. Once the reviews are received, the editors have four weeks to prepare the NOR. The following data is from Wiley:
Submission to first decision: 36 days (median)
Submission to final decision: 44 days (median)
9. Time for publication upon submission?
187 days (median) (per Wiley)
10. What is the difference between the special issues and general submission?
Special issues are focused on a particular topic and are published as the first issue of the year in March. Special issues differ from general submissions because the topic area is geared towards a particular theme identified by the JID Board of Directors and Editors. Past special issues include: history, creative scholarship, sustainability, healthcare, marginalization, the body inside, neuroscience (forthcoming), and technology (forthcoming). Papers submitted to a special issue that do not match the call for proposals are rolled over into the general pool of submissions
11. Is the next upcoming special issue on Technology? Have you planned beyond that to what the following special issue might be the following year? How far in advance do you plan special issue topics?
The 2023 special issue is on Technology entitled, “Exploring the Future of Interior Design in a Virtual-Physical Continuum” coedited by Newton D’Souza, Florida International University and Upali Nanda, HKS Architects. The call can be found at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/19391668.
Special issue topics are determined two years in advance of publication. This provides time for a call for guest editors, abstracts of interest, and manuscripts for review. The 2024 special issue is focused on Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity.
12. What is the best way to label/identify an image developed by a researcher?
Much is dependent on the image. To illustrate, if the author took a photograph that enhances the text, the image would be labeled and cited as “Photograph taken by Author”. If the author developed the image, it would simply be labeled with necessary information (e.g., Figure 1. Design-thinking Process Detailing Prototyping Phase). The key is that the figure, image, or table corresponds and augments the text.
If the image or figure is taken from another source, it is critically important that the author provide the credit/source. Authors are responsible for obtaining copyright permissions for images/figures they included. Further, all images and figures must be in 300 dpi, and the author may have up to 10 images or figures for articles. Please note that visual essays have different submission requirements for figures and images that are specified at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/page/journal/19391668/homepage/forauthors.html
13. Do you have any tips for negotiating word counts?
The Journal of Interior Design submission guidelines state that articles may be 5,000-7,000 words (excluding references and notes). Visual Essays can have text that ranges from 1-2 pages at approximately 600 words per page. There is no negotiating word counts.
14. What should graduate students consider when preparing a manuscript for JID (e.g., converting thesis to article)?
The editors love to receive thesis work, and a number of graduate students have published the research or creative work from their thesis in JID. Consider, however, that a manuscript/essay is very different from a thesis. First, a manuscript is often shorter and is limited to 7,000 words if submitted as an article. Often a thesis is longer. Second, a manuscript typically does not have a definition of terms section, which may be found in a thesis. Third, the introduction and literature review of a thesis are often longer and may provide extensive background information. A manuscript must be written concisely selecting the most relevant studies to make the case for the investigation. For a Visual Essay submission, the author would need to focus on selected ideas and aspects of the work that could be best understood and represented with visual material such as photographs, sketches, etc.
15. In JID, how important is it to provide inter-rater reliability in qualitative or mixed-method studies?
From a social sciences perspective, if the authors have inter-rater reliability scores, they should be provided particularly since these scores illustrate the agreement of findings. Inter-rater reliability will improve the validity of the results. If inter-rater reliability was not measured, the authors can discuss this as a limitation of the study.
16. Is there a hard and fast rule about bringing in new literature in the social sciences to the discussion section if the findings were surprising and therefore, they sought literature to corroborate the findings?
This is a common mistake seen in manuscripts written from a social sciences approach. The social sciences rule is as follows: The literature review is the body of knowledge. It provides context to the proposed study and should identify the gaps in the literature. The discussion section examines how your current investigation either negates or agrees with the body of knowledge cited in the literature review. The general rule of thumb is that new literature is not brought up in the discussion section.
17. How important is it to have a theoretical framework?
From a social sciences approach, the reviewers are looking to see if connections are made between existing knowledge cited in the literature review to the proposed study. Reviewers are examining if the authors are able to identify the frontiers of the field and explicitly state how their investigation will move the field forward. In the humanities, a theoretical framework serves a similar purpose to a contextual framework in the social sciences, and in addition it often provides a place for drawing the essay to its conclusion.
In the context category, reviewers are asked to evaluate using the following questions: Does the author provide a contextual framework or precedent? Was important knowledge or research used in the development of the work?
