American Communication Journal

A publication of the American Communication Association

Submissions

Note: All new submissions should be sent to Debbi Hatton at Sam Houston State University.

Concepts & Call

Submission Guidelines

Review Procedures

Formatting Submissions

Requirements for Publication

Special Editions

Concepts & Call

By providing digital space for work that could not be published in traditional print journals, during the nine years of publishing, ACJ has become the premier journal for media rich scholarship. The American Communication Association issues a call for scholarship that focus on human communication and technology. The 2008 editions will feature the following focuses-

Volume 10.1 deadline	Spring 08	Pop Goes the Culture	1/31/08
Volume 10.2 deadline	Summer 08	Negotiating the Great Divide	4/30/08
Volume 10.3 deadline	Fall 08	Defining Digital Freedom	7/31/08
Volume 10.4 deadline	Winter 08	Talking a Good Game	10/31/08

Contributors may approach the themes from a variety of perspectives: critical/rhetorical, qualitative, and quantitative. Manuscripts not seemingly associated with the selected themes may be submitted for consideration in a special section of the journal. Essays are also welcomed by the editorial board.

Manuscripts should be web-rich, at a minimum this would include bookmarks within the submission itself that leads both to any relevant endnote and/or citation and to other resources available on the web at the time of submission. Authors may also elect to include professional graphics (no blinking text or moving letters), photos, video clips, audio clips, animations, including interactive elements all of which will be stored on the ACJ’s server space. However, not all worthy scholarship does, should or can be written in such a way that “cyberspace” can contribute usefully to it. So this journal will also accept more traditional scholarship.

Submission Guidelines

The journal follows a method of blind, peer review. Therefore, all submitted manuscripts must be free of any reference to author or institution. ACJ reserves the right to return any manuscript without review should it be deemed outside the scope of human communication, or technically, methodologically, or theoretically flawed. Final submissions of accepted manuscripts should be formatted in APA or MLA, following the latest edition guidelines. Please refrain from using racist, sexist, or discriminatory language. Typically the length of manuscripts submitted to the journal range from 3,000-5,000 words in length.

Manuscripts should be submitted electronically to Hatton@shsu.edu as an email attachment, formatted in Word 2003 or 2007. Large media rich submissions should be sent on a PC formatted CD to Debbi Hatton, Dept. of Communication Studies, Sam Houston State University, Huntsville, TX 77340. The author should retain a hardcopy, because manuscripts will not be returned.

Submissions should include: A cover letter stating the following information 1) the manuscript title, 2) name(s) of the author(s), 3) keywords for the article to be used for electronic search engines, 4) an abstract, 5) author(s) biographical information – name(s), titles, and affiliations of the author(s), address, email address of the corresponding author only, a history of the manuscript- previous publishing’s, presentations, or if it is whole or part of a thesis or dissertation, and the number of characters and words in the manuscript. The article’s manuscript should be submitted as a separate document. Both documents should be identified either as “title of the submission - cover letter” or “title of the submission – manuscript.”

Review Procedures

The author submits her or his work by stated deadline.
The Editor reviews the work for blatant analytical, stylistic, or grammatical errors.
If no errors are found, the Editor will assign the article to three Editorial Board members best suited to review the particular submission. Typically requires two weeks.
All reviewers are asked to return their decisions and commentary to the Editor-elect, via an email form, the Editor decides upon one of three courses of action: a) rejection b) conditional acceptance with revisions, or c) acceptance. This is typically handled within six weeks.
The author(s) are then notified of ACJ’s decision.

Each volume of the journal will include four issues (numbered 1 – 4) and designated Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter. The normal deadlines for submissions would be January, April, July, and October. Publication schedule for purposes of citation will be March, June, September and December. A full citation would thus be Author. “Title.” American Communication Journal. (volume:number). Year. Month.

Formatting Submissions

The body of the manuscripts should be single spaced and not exceed 5000 words. Section heading should be bold in font.
Any external links (links to other pages on the WWW) should be checked for accuracy.
Each item in the works cited list should have an anchor, using the last name of the author or the first significant word of the title as the name of the anchor point in the works cited list.
Use italics for emphasis and titles of journals/books.
Multimedia elements (graphics, audio files, video clips) should be inserted where desired, and checked for accuracy/functionality.
Please remove any editing comments or software.

Requirements for Publication

The author(s) must strongly consider all grammatical, stylistic and substantive changes suggested by the Editorial Board and when necessary resubmit manuscripts by stated date.
The author(s) must ensure that all information, hypertext format, and links are accurate and working.
Neither the American Communication Association nor the American Communication Journal assume any liability for any information housed on its server. By agreeing to publish in the American Communication Journal, authors assume liability for all words, content, and meanings, regardless of context or third party involvement. The American Communication Journal will copyright all works on its site; however; authors retain the right to make use of their own work (with the exception of commercial publication.)

Special Editions

Individuals may propose special issues, or sections, to be included in the journal. Depending on the level of submissions we are experiencing, such a special issue may become one of the regular numbers of the relevant volume (and may thus “leapfrog” over an earlier number still under construction), or it may be assigned a special number (usually #5) as part of the volume set. It will be published when complete regardless of the publication schedule for earlier numbers. Such special issues or section may propose a separate editor, although the guidelines, requirements for submission, and review process will remain the same as for regular issues.