The article reports on the process of editorial review. It is the object of this article to describe and explain the reviewing process and to comment on the points of particular sensitivity. Except when associate editors are involved, the entire review process is conducted anonymously. Many reviewers prefer not to know the author's identity, and authors sometimes believe that factors attendant to their identity may serve to prejudice the reviewers. Apart from the design of the process itself, much of which is inherited from one's predecessors, the two most critical decisions are the choice of the reviewers and the editorial decision to be made on the basis of the reviewers' analyses and recommendations. Reviewers serve in an advisory capacity to the editor. It is important to emphasize that it is the editor who decides on a manuscript. It is to be hoped that the editor will be guided in the great majority of instances by advice furnished by the reviewers. But the responsibility for making sound editorial decisions is necessarily his, and it must be understood that he may disagree with their counsel. In such circumstances, he may seek advice from still other reviewers until he believes that a particular course of action deserves his support.

The article focuses on the issue of communicating accounting research results. With the research into the accounting literature, it has been asked whether the findings of the research are being transmitted effectively to those who would endeavor to understand the implications of the research for the future of the discipline. It may be urged that a disservice would be done to the cause of path-breaking research if its results must be seen to be conveyed in the same widely understandable terms as might be found in the more familiar applications. Journals do not perform the same role as seminars or colloquia to which only a small circle of highly trained researchers might be invited. Authors of frontier research may communicate among themselves at such gatherings and through the circulation of working papers. Those who would seek publication in a journal are assumed to be prepared to make their research accessible to a wider audience, and it is the responsibility of a journal editor to facilitate this dissemination by encouraging authors to remove the unnecessary obstacles.