Breaking New Ground in 2007-2008!

TWI has been redesigned and rebuilt. A major component of that process is still in progress. In 2008, we will begin soliciting new submissions as part of a distributed, peer review process that leverages Web 2.0 technologies to build the community's network of scholarly review and publication. Until then, we're holding off on accepting open submissions for review. Below, you'll see how things typically have worked in the past.

General Submissions

The Writing Instructor (TWI) is a refereed, networked journal. Once submitted for review, the General Editors, Review Editor, or Area Editor will consider whether a work has the potential to make a valuable contribution to the scholarship and teaching of writing, as well as the TWI community. Articles, hypertexts, assignments, letters, book and website reviews, and other material worthy of further consideration will be reviewed by three or more specialist readers, sometimes consisting of Editorial Board members. If the work is submitted to the attention of an editor of a topical issue, that editor will be among or in addition to the reviewers. Criteria for evaluation include whether the contribution is well focused, original, provocative, engaging, well written and designed, timely, and of general interest to writing instructors.

If two or three reviewers recommend publication of the respective text to the Editorial Board and the Board agrees to proceed with publication, an editor is assigned to the project and will help the author proceed to the next step in the process: preparing the work for electronic publication, which will usually involve addressing revision suggestions, making sure that the work meets TWI style guidelines, that any necessary permissions are secured, and that--if it is a hypertext or other multimedia project--it functions properly in its electronic form. When the work is ready for publication, the issue editor will offer a publication contract to the author. When signed and returned to TWI, these contracts spell out the terms of publication and the Creative Commons license..

If a work is not recommended to the Editorial Board by two or three of the initial reviewers, it is returned to the writer with suggestions for further research and/or for revision, but without any promise to publish. Any revised works resubmitted to TWI are recirculated to reviewers, some of whom may read the original text.

General submissions accepted after blind, peer review will have such a distinction indicated in the article's provenance.

Commissioned or Invited Submissions

The work of authors formally invited to contribute work to TWI will be reviewed by other members of the Editorial Board and ultimately must be approved by the General Editors, Area Editors, or Review Editor

Format for Submissions to TWI

The rapid emergence of electronic publication and networked communities makes for a bewildering array of possibilities and challenges for writing instructors. Our worlds have become wider and more complex, not simply because of theoretical developments in the field, but because the media for expressing and sharing them have become vastly dispersed in new technologies; the demands on student writers, more varied; information about the teaching of writing, more readily available; the function of writing and communication in the digital world, perhaps less certain but just as critical for human relations as ever. With this in mind, TWI provides digital spaces for activities and entities such as the following:

• Refereed Projects: research articles, hypertexts, and other media that bridge writing theory and practice; discuss from historical and theoretical perspectives the discipline's past and future; or explore or display the role and status of the writing instructor. (~6,000 - 11,000 words)
• From and For the Classroom: classroom practices and assignments. (Up to 2,000 words)
• Reviews: text and hypertext reviews of books, journal issues, web projects, and other and media relevant to writing instruction. (~1,000 - 5,000 words)
• Viewpoints: commentary on the nature of writing and writing instruction. (Up to 2,000 words)
• Readers Comment: letters and comments on TWI articles, projects, or events. (Up to 500 words)
• Ask the Professor, WPA, Writing Center Consultant, or Student. (Up to 500 words)
• Interviews: text or video interviews with noted writing instructors. (Ask)
• Announcements and Calls for Papers. (Up to 250 words)

TWI does not have a specific word-length or node-number requirement, but we encourage you to keep the suggested length in mind as you prepare your submissions for review.

Multimedia Elements

The Writing Instructor will publish still images, sound, animations, and full-motion video as well as text as components of hypertext projects. Authors should consider the general guidelines for including multimedia components in Web pages recommended in the The Columbia Guide to Online Style (2nd edition) by Janice Walker and Todd Taylor. Over time, TWI will develop new guidelines best suited to our particular circumstances and will provide authors with models to follow (if needed). Obtaining permission to republish multimedia elements such as images or music will be the responsibility of the author(s).

Alternative Formats

TWI is open to proposals for alternative formats and projects that may involve more than one author or that may utilize TWI technologies. To propose an alternative format, contact David Blakesley, TWI Co-Editor at blakesle@purdue.edu.

Hypertexts

TWI makes every effort to follow guidelines suggested in The Columbia Guide to Online Style (2nd edition) by Janice Walker and Todd Taylor and then those for accessibility endorsed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Core Techniques for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (in draft form in 2007).

Link Style

We encourage authors to use intuitive links within texts that give readers a good sense of where they lead. Some authors may also want to use onMouseOver tags to provide additional information. In any case, links should be integrated into the hypertext and should assist with navigation and/or development and elaboration of the topic. Avoid overusing external links. Stand-alone hypertexts will be published outside of the Drupal shell that runse the main TWI site.

Font Style

In most cases, TWI will use Cascading Style Sheets, so hypertexts should be formatted using simply HTML tagging.

Images

Images should be optimized for the Web and be an integral component of the presentation. They need to be resident, not external, and all permissions to republish them at the TWI site must be secured by the author or fall under Fair Use guidelines. For further information about Fair Use, please review the U.S. Copyright Office's statement on the issue in Circular 21, "Reproduction of Copyrighted Works by Educators and Librarians" (PDF format; 120K). For images captured from video, TWI follows guidelines suggested by the Society for Cinema Studies and most university presses, "Fair Usage Publication of Film Stills," which you can read about in Digital Publishing F5 | Refreshed, a free TK3 book published by Parlor Press.

Hypertext Production

Perhaps more so than traditional print-based publication, hypertext production will naturally involve authors in a collaborative process with editors at various stages in the process of electronic publication. We encourage authors to contact us with questions about the preparation of their hypertexts before spending too much time preparing it for submission.

Submissions from Editorial Board Members

Members of the Editorial Board may submit work for publication consideration, subject to the review process described above.

Contact Information

Questions about a particular topic or the review process should be directed to Dawn Formo at dformo@csusm.edu or by snail mail to The Writing Instructor, c/o Dawn Formo, Literature & Writing Studies Program, California State University, San Marcos, San Marcos, CA 92096-0001. Phone: 760.750.4199

When we open up again for new submissions in 2008, we'll provide full submission guidelines here.

For additional information, recommended style guides, and topical suggestions, contact David Blakesley at blakesle@purdue.edu; by mail at the Department of English, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907; by phone at 765.494.3772; or by fax at 765.494.3780.