Dear all,
on behalf
of the journal Biosemiotics, I refer you to a questionnaire which we now
distribute in the biosemiotic community in preparation of the biosemiotic
glossary project. The editorial team of Biosemiotics, which counts
Alexei Sharov, Timo Maran and myself (note that in parallel Marcello is
finishing the final issues he is responsible for the next few months), has
decided to go through with this project, and that I will be its handling
editor.
The genre
for the resulting publications will be invited review articles. The first,
standard-setting review article, on the notions ‘agent’ and ‘agency’, will be
written by me personally. One review will be published in each regular issue of
Biosemiotics – in other words, usually there will be two review articles
per year. The first article will appear in no. 3/2014. Each article will review
one or more terms.
While I am
the handling editor for these review articles, all three of us will be involved
in decision making. We will routinely discuss and decide on what term(s) to
review next, what author(s) to invite to write each review, etc. As part of the
editorial process, each review article will, when submitted, be distributed to
the members of the editorial board of Biosemiotics and further to those
cited in the article, for feedback. This will be part of the basis for our
editorial decision concerning whether the review is ready to be published or
needs revisions.
A survey in
the biosemiotic community will be conducted in preparation of each review
article. The associated questionnaire, which is to be returned to me as
handling editor, will be distributed to a wide range of biosemioticians,
including but not necessarily restricted to/via the members of the editorial
board and advisory board of Biosemiotics, the biosemiotics email list (biosemiotics@lists.ut.ee), the board
members of the International Society for Biosemiotic Studies (ISBS), the board
members of the International Society of Code Biology (ISCB), and the
Biosemiosis blog (http://biosemiosis.blogspot.com/).
The invited
author(s) will in each case be tasked with describing the outcomes of the
survey associated with their review article, and to do so systematically and in
an unbiased manner. However, when it comes to synthesis and suggestions, they
will have the freedom to propose their own view even if it contradicts the
general/popular understanding. In the writing process, all assigned authors are
expected to conduct an extensive literature review on their own as well.
All
respondents to the first survey in the biosemiotic community are, as part of
the survey, invited to propose specific terms to review. Suitable terms should
be quite concisely used by several biosemioticians, and if the terms are in
more general usage as well, the biosemiotic usage of the terms should somehow
stand out from general usage.
The deadline
for returning the attached questionnaire is December 15th. It should
be sent to my email address (mortentoennessen AT gmail.com
or alternatively morten.tonnessen AT uis.no).
My best,
Morten
Tønnessen
Co-Editor-in-Chief
of Biosemiotics
PS: The
questionnaire is available via my Academia.edu page, here.
