ds of feedback, in tempo giusto! (Harnad, 1991: 44).In the electronic realm, the pace of academic discourse can be accelerated and the long and often frustrating delays eliminated. At the EJS we have no postal delays. Submitted papers are in the email boxes of reviewers usually a few minutes after I log on to my university account. Sometimes I need to convert the submission to ASCII and this may add a day or two if I don't have the time to do the conversion immediately. But even this delay is insignificant. Our board members and reviewers normally take a few days to no longer than two weeks to complete their review. Once I have received their comments in my email box, I have to make my final decision. Again, depending on my work load, this can take anywhere from a few minutes to two weeks. After the decision, I inform the author electronically.If the paper is accepted, or after the author has completed revisions, the next step is to format, copy edit, and convert it to HTML and ASCII. Without interruptions, this takes about an hour depending on the complexity of the piece. Once this is completed, the article can be sent to the author for a final once over and then placed on the web page. Total time from submission to publication is 7 days to 2 months and in ideal cases, two days is not unreasonable!Delays enter into the process when the author has to complete revisions to the paper. Since most of our submissions require some sort of revision, these delays are regular occurrences. However, perhaps as a direct result of having had their submissions handled quickly, most authors complete their revisions apace. So, even with this added delay, it is still possible to publish a paper in as little as a month from the time it is first submitted.(25)Clearly this is a quantum time savings and the benefits are potentially enormous. Harnad (1990) has written extensively about the potentials of the new medium.Scholarly inquiry in this new medium wil...
