Individual journals hosted on the WAC Clearinghouse set their own submission policies and formatting guidelines, and specific details are available on each journal’s website under their “Submissions” link. Examples can be found at https://wac.colostate.edu/atd/submissions/, https://wac.colostate.edu/jwa/submissions/, and https://wac.colostate.edu/openwords/submissions/. Though many journal editors prefer that manuscripts be sent to them directly, others such as the WAC Journal ask that authors use Submittable or, as is the case with Revista Latinoamericana de Estudios de la Escritura, the WAC Clearinghouse submissions portal. Please check the Submissions link for whichever journal you plan to submit to for more detailed information. In all cases, however, we ask that in keeping with our commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice, and in response to the Black Lives Matter movement in particular and to systemic racism, oppression, and bias more generally, authors review our Invitation to Submit Scholarly Work.
As with submissions, development processes will vary somewhat from journal to journal, but most often, submissions will be acknowledged by the journal editor within a week of their arrival and will then undergo a table review by the editorial team for relevance, length, appropriateness, readability, content, and format. At that point, the editors will decide whether or not to send the manuscript to external reviewers. If they decline to send the manuscript to reviewers, they will contact the author(s) and let them know in a timely fashion. Once manuscripts have been approved for publication by reviewers and the journal’s editor(s), they will move to the galley preparation stage where authors will have an opportunity to make final, minor edits to the text. When that process is complete, the article will be scheduled for publication in the journal, though the specific date of publication will depend on the journal’s frequency, the number of other articles in the publication queue, and editors’ decisions about which issue it is best suited for. Editors should keep authors apprised about the scheduled publication date and inform them of any changes in the publication schedule when possible.
Most journals employ a double-anonymous review process, and they will typically send the manuscript to two or more reviewers. At the editors’ discretion, manuscripts may go through more than one round of revision and review, and they may be rejected at any time during the review process. Multiple rounds of review are not a guarantee of publication.
Please consult the WAC Clearinghouse’s manuscript guidelines in the WAC Clearinghouse Authors and Editors Guide. Though some of the topics in this manual will be relevant solely to book manuscripts (e.g., manuscript length, chapter formats, indexing, etc.), we ask that authors follow the rules for layout, citations, tables, images, bias-free language, reference lists, and other applicable formatting topics closely. Some journals may have additional requirements for manuscript formats, particularly as they apply to different genres or sections of the journal. Please review the instructions on their websites as well.
The journal editors will complete the production process for articles and other materials published in the journal. Authors should ensure that the manuscript they send to the journal editors meets the criteria specified in the manuscript preparation guidelines specified by the journal. If the journal does not provide guidelines, authors are encouraged to consult the checklist at the beginning of the WAC Clearinghouse Authors and Editors Guide. While some of the items in the checklist are applicable only to books, the following items should be considered:
Journals are primarily responsible for their own marketing and publicity. The Clearinghouse will, on occasion, share announcements about the publication of new journal issues and/or CFPs for upcoming special issues on its main page and in social media, but this will be dependent on scheduling and our desire to promote all journals and book series equally. Editors are welcome to send CFPs and other journal announcements to the associate publisher for scholarly journals so they can be added to the announcement schedule; we recommend doing this as early as possible for announcements with deadlines (such as CFPs or nominations) to ensure they will appear on the Clearinghouse page in a timely fashion. Note that the announcements will be brief, typically consisting of a headline (about 60 characters or fewer with spaces) and a brief blurb (about 50-100 words), so we recommend including a link to the full CFP or other document in the announcement.