Editor's Focus, September 2008

Communication Education Seeks International Submissions

Each year our National Communication Association hosts a panel at its annual conference consisting of the current editors of all the NCA journals. At this panel the editors always begin by telling the audience a little bit about the mission of their respective journals, and then they turn over the session to Q & A. I always liked attending this panel because it gave me an opportunity to gain some insight into what journal editors thought and did. Audience members often asked a number of questions about selecting the most appropriate journal for their work, how the review process works, what it means to receive a "revise and resubmit," and how long must they wait before contacting an editor to ask about the status of their manuscript. As the Editor of Communication Education (CE) for the last three years, I served on that panel and answered a lot of those questions - and more.

Unfortunately, many of our international authors, unable to attend NCA conferences in the United States, do not have the same opportunity to visit with editors and have their questions answered. Importantly, CE is eager to showcase international authors' works; at the same time, few international authors submit manuscripts to CE. Those who do are likely to have their work either "unsubmitted" as inappropriate for the journal or "rejected" for the way their research is packaged.

I'd like to take this opportunity then, to anticipate and answer two particular questions for authors internationally who might want to increase their odds of having their work published in Communication Education. My hope is that more international authors will consider CE for their work, and they will find CE receptive to publishing their research.

Q1: How do I know if my research is appropriate for Communication Education?

There are two ways to determine if your research is appropriate for this particular journal (as opposed to others). First, read the mission statement available online. Most editors indicate what research they are looking for and what they are not. For example, consider the first paragraph of the mission statement I wrote for my term:

During my tenure as editor, I intend to solicit and publish the highest quality research that advances practice and theory in instruction generally and in communication education specifically. I hope to advance the area by encouraging systematic and programmatic research, theoretically-grounded projects, rigorous literature reviews and meta-analyses, and interesting methodological and pedagogical papers. Moreover, I encourage authors to interpret and discuss their findings in ways that are useful to practitioners of instruction. I will not publish articles that have limited heuristic and theoretical value and/or are not based in sound research design.

Second, examine several issues (not just the most recent issue) of CE to see if your research looks similar to what is already in print. Notice the format of the articles, the purpose statements, the rationale for the study, the various methodologies, how results are reported, and so on.

Q2: How do I package my research for a U.S. journal, such as CE?

The editorial policy of CE states that "Manuscripts must conform to the conventions of the 5th edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association." If you are unfamiliar with the APA publication manual, you are at a serious disadvantage. Study the manual to learn about the various parts of a manuscript and how they should be sequenced; learn how to organize a manuscript with headings, devise tables and figures, and reference others' works. Include the use of headers and page numbers, appreciate when numbers are expressed numerically or as words, and rely on double-spacing throughout. These details and more often make the difference between a manuscript that is taken seriously and one that is not.

Keep in mind that the Editorial Board for CE consists almost entirely of authors who have published extensively in Communication Education. These are the same people who will read your article and make a recommendation as to whether it should be rejected or revised for eventual publication. They studied the APA style manual in undergraduate school and then again in graduate school. They have come to rely on the rules and format defined by the manual for their own work. They know about spacing, headings, punctuation, capitalizations, and endnotes. And for many of these reviewers, the failure to adhere to most of these rules underscores their reluctance to provide a favorable recommendation. They complain to me that authors who do not proofread their manuscript carefully and ensure that their paper is in final, publishable form are likely as well to be careless with their data or fail to cite accurately their sources.

Whether you think this judgment is fair or warranted is not the issue; what is important is packaging your manuscript in a way that optimizes the perception that your work is careful, credible, and publishable. Fortunately, there are online proofreading services that specialize in APA and will examine your work for a fee, convert your paper to APA, and provide quick turnaround (hours or days). The service I've used over the years for some of my own work is called: www.proofreadnow.com I've used the service to check my APA (and other styles that may be required by other clients or outlets, such as AP or MLA). These and similar online services will check for grammar, style, spelling, headings, reference lists, and more. With the assistance of the publication manual and online proofreading services, there should be no reason for having a manuscript rejected simply because the format and style fail to meet journal guidelines.

My term as Editor of Communication Education is quickly coming to an end with the final issue for 2008 currently in production. With the help of an amazing editorial board, I am pleased to have met many of my objectives for the journal. We have become proficient in an online manuscript submission, processing, and production system new to the journal. The system has offered greater efficiency, maintained better records, and provided immediate and frequent feedback to authors, reviewers, and me. Members of the editorial board were quick to provide their reviews and recommendations. As a result, from manuscript submission to final production, the timeline has been shortened considerably while maintaining a high quality journal.

While those objectives are important, equally important to the mission of the journal is extending its outreach to our international readers and authors. I urge our international researchers to send their manuscripts to Communication Education. The new editor, Dr. Melanie Booth-Butterfield of West Virginia University, agrees that it is time to more fully engage international researchers and readers to the journal. In fact, she suggests that international authors e-mail her directly if they have concerns about the appropriateness of their manuscripts for CE.

Thank you for the honor of editing CE. It's been a pleasure to serve you.

Sincerely,
Patricia Kearney
California State University, Long Beach