Sharing Problem Awareness from an Editorial Perspective: Necessity and Possibility

Problem awareness is widely recognized as a core driving force of research in the humanities and social sciences. However, in editorial and publishing practice, editors and authors often fail to reach a consensus on "what constitutes a genuine problem" due to differences in disciplinary backgrounds and cognitive frameworks. This paper argues that transforming problem awareness from an individual cognitive trait into a shared methodological framework between editors and authors is a possible pathway to address this issue. This study attempts to demonstrate the feasibility of sharing problem awareness through dialogue at three levels: theoretical, historical, and empirical. Specifically, theoretical dialogue assesses the depth of a problem's connection to academic traditions; historical dialogue evaluates the temporal depth of a problem; and empirical dialogue determines whether a problem is rooted in the lived world and authentic experience. Together, these three dimensions form a practical tool that can guide interdisciplinary manuscript review. At the same time, the paper acknowledges the inherent limits of such sharing, including individual cognitive differences, disciplinary barriers, and the unique research paradigms of certain specialized fields. The necessity of problem awareness sharing arises from several practical challenges that confront academic publishing. As interdisciplinary research continues to gain momentum, editors of comprehensive humanities and social science journals frequently find it difficult to evaluate manuscripts that fall outside their own areas of expertise. A heavy reliance on peer review alone often privileges disciplinary technicalities at the expense of the broader public significance of a research question. Meanwhile, authors—especially early-career researchers—often equate problem awareness with trending topics, policy relevance, or novel perspectives, rather than with questions that genuinely advance collective knowledge. In this context, problem awareness sharing offers a common language through which editors and authors can jointly identify, assess, and refine research questions. This diagnostic framework also demonstrates its practical value in three key areas of editorial work. First, it enhances manuscript review accuracy by helping editors move beyond superficial criteria and systematically evaluate the theoretical, historical, and empirical contributions of a submission. Second, it improves communication efficiency by replacing vague judgments such as "insufficient problem awareness" with structured, actionable feedback that authors can readily understand and act upon. Third, it strengthens editorial planning by enabling editors to move from being passive recipients of submissions to active co-creators of research agendas with authors. The paper concludes by emphasizing that problem awareness sharing does not aim to impose a fixed standard for evaluating research questions, but rather offers a flexible and debatable reference framework. Striking a balance between the potential for sharing and its inherent limitations reflects both the professional wisdom of editors and the broader imperative of constructing a distinctive knowledge system for the Chinese humanities and social sciences.