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2nd Editorial Meeting – September 25, 2020
Introduction
The committee responsible for Bras-J met online on Friday, September 25th, 2020 at 1 pm (Berlin time) to discuss the next steps to the first publication of the journal. The meeting was conducted by Thais Cavalcanti and Giovanna Imbernon was in charge of the minutes. Matheus Zago, Matheus Hebling, Cláudia Pires, Anna Bennech, Lucas Fraga, Eric Nogueira, and Guilherme Souza also attended the meeting.
The meeting started with a general discussion on the tasks assigned in the previous meeting (on September 11th) and proceeded to discuss the following topics:
- BRaS-J schedule
- Guidelines and general characteristics
Schedule
The first topic presented by Thaís Cavalcanti was the schedule of the first BRaS-J publication, indicating three possibilities: a. the process beginning in October/November 2020 for a four-monthly publication starting in March 2021; b. the process beginning in 2020 for a four-monthly publication starting in March 2022; or c. the process beginning in 2020 and changing it to a biannual publication. Thais Cavalvanti also pointed out some practical aspects regarding the schedule as the time available to conduct all the stages of publication, opening calls for authors, and being able to handle the tasks within less than five months. In her perspective, it is a short period to publish a high-quality journal and extremely demanding.
Matheus Zago said BRaS-J has not the ideal conditions to publish its first issue next March considering it will be a special issue. That said, he endorsed the 2022 schedule as the right choice for BRaS.
Matheus Hebling agreed with Matheus Zago saying it would be difficult to gather articles and to publish it so fast, also because of a reduced work team.
Cláudia Pires agreed with the other members and mentioned that changing the periodicity could lead to some technical problems regarding the ISSN registration at the German National Library.
Anna Bennech indicated that it would be not worthy to compromise quality at this stage, so opting for the 2022 schedule would be prudent.
After expressing their concerns, the members voted, and between the three abovementioned options, the 2022 Schedule (b) was chosen.
However, Lucas Fraga objected to the decision arguing that BRaS-J should have its first issue in 2021 and opting for six-monthly issues.
Sections and guidelines
After the discussions on the schedule, the second part of the meeting was focused on the sections and guidelines. Based on some previous work did by the members and shared by e-mail, the group discussed the contributions, and some comments were made.
Regarding the book reviews, Giovanna Imbernon pointed out that it should not be limited to classic books/works but BRaS-J should decide the list of works based on their relevance to the current political and social contexts as well as to BRaS-J objectives. Thaís Cavalcanti also agreed with this and Matheus Zago acknowledged the importance of a joint decision regarding the list of books. This topic will be further discussed at the next meeting.
On the author’s guidelines, the group discussed its basic aspects as the number of words, items to be included, or not in the counting.
Eric Nogueira pointed out that 8,000 words would be ideal, but it should not include the references. He thinks a low number of words would limit the author’s possibility of writing an in-depth article. Cláudia Pires agreed with his point of view. Anna Bennech agreed with this proposition and mentioned that the word count has to comprise the text from the introduction to the conclusion. Similarly, Matheus Zago pointed out this is the best option and added that after being accepted for publication, the article could have its length altered, i.e., it could have more than 8,000 words.
Thaís Cavalcanti and Matheus Hebling considered that it should include the references, and he supported that it would avoid unnecessary citations. However, Eric Nogueira argued that with references, the maximum length would have to be 10,000 words.
The last matter discussed is related to the journal sections and how it is divided until now. Given that the sections are independent, i.e., each section would receive its submissions, Matheus Hebling believes that this would limit publications since it would not allow the intersection of themes and areas. Matheus Zago recused making comments on this matter and thinks it refers only to the Associate Editors.
After all the aforementioned subjects being discussed the next meeting was scheduled for October 9th.
