Excerpts from CELJ Guidelines

The Hemingway Review is a member of the Council of Editors of Learned Journals (CELJ). The following recommendations for journal submissions are excerpted from CELJ Guidelines.

EXCERPTS FROM CELJ GUIDELINES FOR CONTRIBUTORS

1. Consider your essay.

   An article should state clearly at the outset how it contributes to the subject, field, or methodology it addresses; it should define its parameters and stick to them. Is it about one title or an author's works or a way of reading applicable to many books or subjects, or does it address particular ideological, theoretical, political, social, or aesthetic issues? It is often useful to position an essay in relation to contemporary criticism, to show how it relates to and differs from what others have been writing. In sum, the ambition, focus, and proof texts of the article should be firmly identified. 

   Papers that originated in seminars or for conferences sometimes rely on an implicit context supplied by the initiating occasion. Such framing of the issues needs to be made explicit in an essay submitted for publication in anything other than "conference proceedings." 

   Contributors may benefit from seasoned colleagues's advice about the content, strategies, and argument of a manuscript, as well as suggestions about where it might be sent. It is usual to submit prospective work to others for their comments; such "product testing" often results in significant improvements to the text, and frequently supplies the author with indications of how the material will be received and understood. 

   An article needs to find its optimal length. Seminar and conference papers may need to be amplified, whereas a thesis or book chapter may need to have the theoretical framing material from earlier sections summarized and the exposition and examples cut. A journal article falls within a very different rhetorical genre from a seminar paper, conference presentation, or thesis chapter. To convert any of these versions into a publishable article usually requires major changes in style, voice, argument, and evidence. Sometimes an idea needs a lot of development and context; sometimes a point can be made very economically. Not all articles should be stretched or squeezed into 20-25 pages. Since different journals have different length requirements (expressed in number of words or number of pages), decisions about length will be affected by, and reflexively affect, decisions about what journals are targeted.

    

2. Consider the journal. 

   What journals are most appropriate for the article in its present form? Read issues of several journals to determine their suitability. Which ones print articles similar in subject matter, theory, methodological approaches, length, presentation? Does the journal receive "open" submissions, or must contributors belong to an organization or have presented the paper at a particular conference? 

   What is the audience for the journal? The MLA Directory of Periodicals provides, for thousands of journals, addresses, circulation statistics, editorial policies, and instructions for submitting essays. How frequently articles in the journal are cited can be ascertained by consulting the Arts and Humanities Citation Index in print or on CD ROM. Consider which journals you regularly read, and which ones often publish in the area of your article. Ask colleagues which journals they use.

   What is the journal's style? The tone of the periodical, whether it publishes annotated articles, whether it prints literature as well as critical pieces and reviews, all may influence decisions about what is appropriate to publish therein. 

   What is the journal's reputation? Ask colleagues' opinions. Also check out the acknowledgment pages of major recent books in your field; were any of the contents previously published in any of the periodicals you are considering? 

   How much of any issue is devoted to open submissions? Usually the journal's guidelines to contributors, printed in the front or back matter, will indicate its policies. Is most of each issue taken up with articles and notes , or with special topics, forums, position papers, reviews, and information about forthcoming events, most of which result from invited rather than open submissions? 

   Seek out calls for papers for special numbers on predetermined topics. Such numbers usually come out much faster and more reliably than books composed of commissioned essays. Indeed, contributors should weigh their options carefully before committing their work to volumes of commissioned essays. Sometimes these proposed collections never get to press, whereas journal publications on special topics usually do, since the subscribers have paid for and expect their issues. 

   Will the publication be available in a variety of formats--paper copies, on-line, on disk, in electronic abstracts, etc.--and will its contents be accessible through indexing and other reference services? This information is printed somewhere in each issue of most journals.

    

3. Follow the procedures for submission. 

   Each journal specifies how it prefers essays to be submitted. Such specifications may include length, format, and topics for regular or forthcoming special issues; number of copies of an essay to be sent; kind of copies (original ribbon copy, photocopies, e-mail attachments, diskettes, etc.); return postage coupons or SASE (self-addressed stamped envelope) if the author wants copies returned; style protocols; length of time required for processing submissions; and other matters. Follow the procedures for each journal. 

   Provide a cover letter that includes whatever the journal specifies. It is usually helpful to summarize very briefly the argument of the essay, and to mention anything that makes the submission particularly appropriate (e.g., it responds to a recent article on the same topic published by that journal). 

   Determine whether the journal accepts submissions when the author's name and/or address is concealed from all but the title page and cover letter, and if so, decide whether to submit anonymously. Some believe that anonymous submissions to some degree protect authors from gender or other discrimination; others prefer to name their contributions, especially if that name is connected to a body of work with which this submission is associated. Some are concerned that evaluators may be biased by the author's institutional affiliation (or non-affiliation) or level of seniority. Some reviewers will not read anonymous submissions; most will. Some reviewers prefer to remain anonymous themselves; others give permission for their identity to be communicated to the author in some or all cases. 

   Determine whether a journal will accept a paper being submitted simultaneously elsewhere as an article or as part of a projected book. Most journals will not accept multiple submissions of articles; many have stated policies regarding publishing an essay that has already been accepted as part of a book. Unacknowledged multiple submission is a major breach of professional ethics.

    

4. What to expect after submission. 

   Many publications will notify the author by mail, e-mail, or other means when the essay is received, and may indicate the approximate amount of time the decision will take. If you have not heard within three weeks, you may call to find out whether your mailing arrived. 

   Most professional publications referee their contents. Submissions invited by guest editors or regular editors for special or regular issues are usually considered refereed articles. 

   Many publications review submissions in-house, then consult others before arriving at a decision. Finding the right consultants, and finding them available, takes time, especially during holidays and vacations. It is usually in the author's best interest to allow a reputable journal time to make an informed judgment. 

   Decisions can often be reached within three to four months of submission, except perhaps during summer vacation. Some journals, such as PMLA, have a two-tiered review procedure; in such cases a final verdict will take longer to reach. If no response is forthcoming after four months, authors may inquire about the status of their essays. * Should the editor be unable to commit to a satisfactory timetable after four months, an author may notify the editor that the article is being submitted elsewhere.

    

5. What journal responses involve. 

   Decisions are usually one of four kinds: reject, with or without readers' reports; invitation to revise, usually with suggestions for substantial revision; provisional acceptance, usually pending minor revisions; acceptance, often accompanied by instructions for perfecting the typescript to conform to the journal's standards, and some information about transfer of copyright and publication schedule. 

   Readers' reports usually provide significant indication of how another professional understands the article and its contribution. Editors choose readers with care, and many such readers have a long track record with a journal and lots of experience advising prospective authors about revising to improve the submission. Authors should consider these reports as dispassionately as possible. Those changes which seem reasonable, which appear to strengthen the article's argument and to extend its implications, and which deepen and broaden the context, should be attempted. Those which seem to the author to misread the purpose of the article or to require a kind of research or revision that would turn the essay into something quite different may not be worth attempting. Authors have a choice about whether to revise in accordance with the editor's and readers' reports and resubmit to the same journal; or, if the proposed revisions seem wrong, to withdraw the piece from the first journal--informing the editor of that decision--and submit it elsewhere. 

   Many journals consider an invitation to revise to be an agreement to work further with the author in seeking ways to render an essay publishable. When a revision is submitted, the author should make clear in a cover letter how previous readers' suggestions have been handled. Revised texts usually are considered in the context of the original response; if possible, a favorable verdict will be reached. But any response short of a contract is not a contract; there are cases where the revisions make the submission less publishable, and despite the best efforts of all concerned the article has to be rejected after revisions.

    

6. What to do when a manuscript is accepted. 

   Editors make up the contents of their publications in different ways. Some will fix the date of issue at the time of acceptance; others put copy into proof far in advance and make up particular numbers according to such considerations as space, topic, timeliness, and balance. In most cases it would be reasonable to expect that an essay for a periodical published two to four times a year would be published within 24 months of acceptance. Special circumstances may, however, advance or retard publication. * Authors must keep the journal informed at all times about how to reach them. Moreover, authors are expected to reply to all inquiries quickly; journals operate on very tight deadlines and any delays can be costly. 

   Authors are expected to present accurate copy texts, with all quotations correctly transcribed and all text perfected for grammar, spelling, and orthography. Authors warrant to publishers that the material is original or that the sources are duly acknowledged. Authors are usually responsible for accurately translating foreign quotations if required; for obtaining copyright permissions; for producing tables, charts, and graphs; for providing photographs suitable to reproduce; and for supplying captions. Authors may also be asked to provide a brief identification for a list of contributors. 

   Many journals want both hard copy and a disk of the author's final version, and specify the allowable software programs for word-processing. 

   In agreeing to have a journal publish an essay, an author cedes authority over matters of style and presentation to that journal. 

   Copy editors will conform the typescript to the journal's specifications for such matters as nature and location of references, indexes, textual headings and subdivisions, and so forth. Such changes are not optional and usually are not referred to the author. Other alterations, including corrections of grammar, transcriptions, references, and facts, may also be imposed by copy editors. Authors are usually consulted, before proof, about any substantive changes. An author may question a copy editor's decision, and many do object and often prevail with regard to some local matters. But major protocols (how footnotes are presented, for instance) are usually not negotiable.

   No changes other than corrections making proof conform to copy text can be made at proof stage. Sometimes authors receive proof to check, but not always. 

   Authors usually have an opportunity to purchase offprints or copies of the issue in which their essay appears. 

   Copyright in the essay as it appears in the periodical usually belongs to the periodical; journals and presses make various kinds of arrangements about assigning copyright to other forms of publication.