The Journal of Interdisciplinary Music Studies (JIMS) is unique in two ways: its approach to deep interdisciplinarity and its combination of open access, peer review, and zero cost. If you are preparing a submission to JIMS, please understand that we have no paid editorial staff. Beyond the usual review procedure, we do not have the resources to help you write your paper or to understand and implement the submission guidelines. It is therefore essential to read and understand the guidelines in detail before submitting and or resubmitting. If anything is unclear, please feel free to ask.
JIMS aims to promote collaboration between humanities and sciences in musicology. All submissions must address a musically relevant issue and demonstrate a synergetic interaction between humanities and sciences. Submissions may be purely empirical, purely theoretical, or a mixture of the two. Anyone can submit, regardless of qualification(s), previous publication(s), affiliation(s), or society membership(s); reviewers will consider only content.
JIMS previously insisted that regular submissions must have at least two authors, of which either the first represents the humanities and the second the sciences or vice-versa. This submission was relaxed at the 2018 meeting of the Society for Interdisciplinary Musicology. There is no longer any restriction on authorship.
All submissions must be formatted using the JIMS template document, which you can download either as word or pdf. The document contains essential instructions for the content and format of your submission. Please read it carefully.
The form and content of JIMS abstracts corresponds to the aim of JIMS, which is to promote deep interdisciplinarity between humanities and sciences. The two background sections should refer only to relevant background in the chosen disciplines. They should not refer to each other, nor should they refer to the main content of the paper. The aims section should contain only aims and it should be relatively short. The main contribution section should summarize the main claims and evidence. The implications section should present real, plausible implications for research or practice. The paper’s main thesis should rely equally on input from the two background disciplines. All points in the abstract should be elaborated in detail in the following text.
JIMS assigns all editors, authors, reviewers and commentators to the humanities or the sciences according to the disciplinary infrastructures in which they are qualified and/or have published. In ambiguous cases, JIMS reserves the right to make an autonomous decision. In this process, the English word “humanities” is assumed to be roughly equivalent to both the German word “Geisteswissenschaften” and the French expression “lettres et sciences humaines”. The English word “science” is assumed to comprise natural, social and formal sciences and to exclude humanities (musicstudies.org/infor.html).
JIMS does not publish summaries or reviews of current literature. Theoretical contributions should explain and defend clearly articulated claims or theses, which should be analysed from different perspectives. Those perspectives should in turn be critically evaluated. Authors should systematically explore arguments and evidence for and against their claims, considering sources from both humanities and sciences, and striving to maintain a balance between the two. The introduction should review relevant literature in humanities and sciences; the central section(s) of the text should make detailed connections between these literatures, achieving a plausible and original synergy.
Manuscripts are submitted as a single pdf file that includes all text, figures, tables and any other material intended for publication. Pages are numbered throughout. The format conforms to the JIMS template document (see above link and either the Chicago Manual of Style or the American Psychological Association Manual. Each new submission is accompanied by a statement of authorship, conflict of interest, and copyright.
All submissions that conform to these guidelines (including OPC submissions – see below) are subject to a confidential peer-review procedure. The procedure is administered by an action editor who is invited by the administrative or guest editor/s; administrative and guest editors may also act as action editors themselves. The (first) author is responsible for all communication with the action editor, which is generally electronic (email with attachments). The (first) author is also responsible for informing any other author(s) about such communications.
The review procedure involves two separate stages:
- The submission is reviewed by at least two independent experts. At least one of them is qualified in the submission`s main humanities discipline and at least one in its main science discipline (as indicated in the abstract). Reviewers are asked whether the submission should be accepted or rejected for publication and to give suggestions for improving the content. The first author then revises the article according to their suggestions. If one humanities reviewer and one sciences reviewer independently recommend rejection and back up their case plausibly, the submission is rejected.In this process, the reviewers should feel free to act independently of the authors whose work they are evaluating. If a reviewer believes that there may be a conflict of interest, s/he is asked to contact the administrative editor before writing the review.
- After the text has been revised to the satisfaction of the reviewers, the action editor comments on the presentation, considering its clarity, structure, and interdisciplinarity (see ABOUT). In general, the text should be interesting for, and readable by, representatives of both stated background disciplines. The article is only accepted for publication after further revision to the satisfaction of the action editor.
Revised manuscripts are accompanied by a cover letter, in which the first author responds to every suggestion by every reviewer in the following format:
- the reviewer’s suggestion
- one or more extracts from the revised submission that show how the author/s responded to it
A reviewer’s suggestion may only be ignored if the (first) author and action editor agree that the suggestion is erroneous, inappropriate, or irrelevant.
Regular versus Open Peer Commentary (OPC) submissions
The format of the submission is the same in both cases, including the length and format of the abstract. The abstract includes background paragraphs in two main disciplines – one in humanities and one in sciences. These paragraphs are expanded upon in the main text to demonstrate a synergy between humanities and sciences.
OPC submissions differ from regular submissions as follows:
- There is no restriction on the authorship of OPC submissions. We accept single-author submissions and submissions whose authors are only humanities scholars or only scientists. Regular submissions have at least two authors, of which the first two are a humanities scholar and a scientist in either order.)
- The length of an OPC submission (all text including title page, abstract, tables, references, biographies, figure captions) is limited to 8000 words. The limit is relaxed to 9000 words following review to allow authors to respond to reviewers’ suggestions. (There is no limit on the length of regular submissions, but reviewers may recommend changing the length.)
- OPC submissions are accompanied by an email with a list of three colleagues who have accepted to write peer commentaries if the submission is accepted for publication. If the submission is proposed by a humanities scholar, all three suggested commentators should belong to the sciences, and vice versa. Additional suggestions from any discipline are welcome. The email should include the email addresses and homepage addresses (or CVs) of all proposed commentators.
- Reviewers of OPC submissions are informed about the OPC procedure and asked whether, in their opinion and according to their own criteria, the submission is suitable for publication with OPC. If one humanities reviewer and one sciences reviewer independently answer “no” to this question and back up their decision with plausible arguments, and the submission does not meet the criteria for regular submissions, the submission is rejected. As for regular submissions, reviewers should feel independent and free to state their opinions honestly; if not, they should declare a conflict of interest.
Once an OPC submission is accepted for publication and revised satisfactorily, the action editor/s begins to invite commentaries of up to 500 words from experts in relevant areas of humanities and sciences, including one or more of the commentators proposed by the author/s. The reviewers are also given the revised manuscript and an opportunity to write peer commentaries with the option of concealing the fact that they reviewed the original submission.
In addition, an open call (including titles and abstracts, but not authors) is launched on the JIMS website and sent to relevant email lists, in which interested commentators with a doctorate (or relevant publications in international peer-reviewed journals) in a relevant discipline are asked contact the action editor. The open call requires potential commentators to provide their homepage address or CV and a summary of the planned commentary in 2-3 sentences. The action editor accepts or rejects such requests depending on the commentator`s qualification and suitability, and the number and quality of existing commentaries.
Upon acceptance, the requester receives the complete revised text for comment. Commentaries should generally be submitted within three weeks, otherwise the invitation lapses. The action editor selects for publication two to six peer commentaries from the humanities and two to six from the sciences. For papers whose first author is a humanities scholar, the number of commentaries by scientists must equal or exceed the number of commentaries by humanities scholars, and vice-versa for papers whose first author is a scientist.
The action editor ensures that commentaries meet the following criteria: substantive, constructive, plausible criticism or interpretation; polite formulation; focus on the issues rather than the authors (no ad hominem arguments); and reference to appropriate literature. Commentaries that are not revised satisfactorily according to the suggestions of the action editor may be rejected.
Following the final selection and revision of peer commentaries, they are sent to the (first) author with a request for a reply of up to 1500 words within three weeks. At this point, neither the original text nor the commentaries can be changed. If it is necessary to correct a factual error or to omit part of the text for well-substantiated legal reasons, and the action editor agrees to the change, the (first) author may do that provided s/he also informs those commentators (if any) who referred to the changed part of the text in their commentaries. They may then change their commentaries accordingly, provided the action editor approves the change.
If the original submission has more than one author, the reply may be written by the first author alone. In their reply, the author/s provide an integrated overview of the commentaries. They then respond to the main points of all commentators, referring to the author of each point by name. The action editor applies the same editorial principles to the author`s reply as s/he did to the commentaries, and the author/s is/are similarly bound to comply with her/his recommendations.
Finally, the action editor forwards the complete text of the article, all commentaries that have been selected for publication, and the author`s reply to the administrative editor (for regular submissions) or guest editor/s (for special issues). They may ask for further revisions or for the deletion of any passage or commentary.
Common problems and suggestions
Submissions whose (first) author is a scientist are often considered to be weak by humanities reviewers, and vice-versa. To avoid this problem, make sure that every point made in the two background sections of your abstract is carefully elaborated in the main text, focusing on aspects that lie outside the primary expertise of the (first) author. As the main text proceeds, a balanced synergy should emerge between those background sections. Towards the end of the paper, consider the implications of the main conclusions for both sciences and humanities. If the central part of the paper is biased toward sciences, pay particular attention in the final part of the paper to implications for humanities, or to placing the findings in a humanities context; and vice versa.