Editor Roles & Responsibilities

Each editor for an ASHA journal manages the peer review of at least 15 submissions per year. Each submission will likely travel through multiple rounds of review (typically two to three rounds at most). Editors are asked by the editors-in-chief to serve a multiyear term, during which the editors-in-chief rely on them to do the following:

  • assign manuscripts to editorial board members (EBMs) for review;
  • monitor the peer-review process to ensure fairness, timeliness, thoroughness, and civility.

The editors are empowered to make final editorial decisions regarding their assigned manuscripts after weighing comments from the reviewers.

  1. An editor should give unbiased consideration to all manuscripts offered for publication, judging each on its merits without regard to race, gender, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the author(s).
  2. An editor should process manuscripts promptly.
  3. The editor has the responsibility and authority to accept a submitted paper for publication or to reject it. The editor may confer with the editor-in-chief as well as EBM or ad hoc reviewers for an evaluation to use in making this decision.
  4. The editor should confirm that the author has correctly identified the manuscript type for the manuscript they are submitting to ensure the correct peer-review template is used.
  5. The editor and the editorial staff should not disclose any information about a manuscript under consideration to anyone other than their editor-in-chief, reviewers, potential reviewers, and ASHA’s editorial administrator.
  6. An editor should respect the intellectual independence of authors.
  7. Editorial responsibility and authority for any manuscript authored by an editor and submitted to the editor’s journal will be handled by one of the other editors of that journal. Editors should avoid situations of real or perceived conflicts of interest.
  8. Editors should avoid situations of real or perceived conflicts of interest.
  9. Unpublished information, arguments, or interpretations disclosed in a submitted manuscript should not be used in an editor’s own research except with the consent of the author.
  10. Editors should inform their editor-in-chief if they have ethical questions or concerns about a reviewer’s behavior or about ethical aspects of a work.

For more journal specific information about the role of editors, please see the Editorial Board Roles page for AJAAJSLPJSLHR, and LSHSS or Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups.

Editor Qualifications

Editors should meet the following criteria:

  • have research interests in common with the Mission & Scope of the journal
  • have a record of published research in scholarly journals, including serving as lead author
  • be well-respected in the CSD community and be actively involved in research
  • have substantial experience in reviewing manuscripts
  • have a willingness to drive journal activities

ASHA’s Peer Review Process

ASHA journals have added structure to the peer review process in the form of review templates that are built into the Editorial Manager submission and peer review system. The review templates are meant to help provide both reviewers and authors greater clarity on how submissions are evaluated. Complete details on the specific steps a manuscript goes through and the expected timelines for review can be found in what to expect in peer review in our Author Resource Center. Guidance on Selecting Reviewers and Assigning Reviewers are included in the Editor Resource Center.

 Editorial board members (EBMs) serve as committed reviewers who can be nominated by editors and are invited by the editors in chief. EBMs serve a 1-year term. They are expected to provide reviews on at least 8–10 manuscripts per year and to do so according to timeliness and quality expectations.

EICs rely on the editors’ judgement and experience, in addition to submission and reviewer performance data, to help them determine the composition of the editorial board. Editors’ recommendations play a key role in the annual EBM recruitment process.

EBMs should possess a high level of expertise in their specialty (or specialties), have experience with reviewing manuscripts, and a commitment to participating in the review process of the journal. These individuals are named on the journal masthead. ASHA membership or certification is not required.

EBM Qualifications:

  • Research expertise, typically through a PhD
  • Expertise in content areas to be covered
  • Some review experience
  • Record of scientific publications in peer-reviewed journals
  • No requirement for ASHA membership
  • No requirement for U.S. citizenship or residency
  • Allowed to serve on non-ASHA editorial boards during term length

Links to the editorial board rosters for ASHA journals are provided below:

Editors will also on occasion need to make use of ad hoc reviewers. There are tools built into Editorial Manager that can help locate such individuals. Additional information and guidance is provided in the Selecting Reviewers section of the Editor Resource Center.

Available Resources

ASHA Community Site

New editors join an online Community run by ASHA and accessible by the editors-in-chief of the journals, all journal editors, and all EBMs (though not accessible to ad hoc reviewers).

The ASHA Community supports editors’ ongoing work and allows discussions that can begin on the site and continue via e-mail (similar to a Listserv but with messages archived on the site for future reference).

A great feature of ASHA Community participation is the ability to respond to discussions through e-mail. Editors can respond to discussion items and have their response logged in the thread for anyone accessing the site to read later, and anyone set up to also receive e-mail notifications of discussions will get the response. 

ASHA Journals Editorial Policies

View our Editorial, Production, and Peer Review Policies page for a curated view of ASHA’s various publication policies.