CCCC 2001 in Review: A.27 How to Get Your Article In CCC

Marilyn Cooper and several editorial board members gave a panel discussion that was really a "behind the scenes" look at what happens to a manuscript submitted to the journal and how authors can increase their chances of ultimately publishing their work there.

Janice Albert, editor of FORUM, a publication representing the interests of non-tenure track comp professionals which appears once yearly in CCC and in Teaching English in the Two Year College. She stressed that FORUM is not theoretical, and suggested two possible topics of interest for future issues: 1. the abundance of people trained in teaching college-level English and the shortage of people trained in teaching secondary-level English. 2. Responses to the February 2002 Harper's article "Summa Cum Avarita" which suggests that adjuncts and part-timers will be the norm in colleges and universities of the 21st Century, and its Chronicle of Higher Ed counterpart, "Is Higher Education as We Know It Going to Exist?" (March 15 '02) (see the review of Charles Moran's plenary talk at the Research Network Forum for another take on this). Albert continued to emphasize that FORUM is always looking for writers and book reviews and asked audience members to pass the word on to adjuncts who might not have access to the same technology or resources that would enable them to see a call for contributions.

Marilyn Cooper then went on to talk about the current publication statistics for CCC. At present, CCC receives 100 manuscripts a year and publishes 20 (as an aside, she also mentioned submissions are down among all journals and that in the past, CCC has received upwards of 120 submissions per year). Half of these are sent out for review, usually to one editorial board member and one member of the scholarly community at large (keeping in mind areas of expertise). Those that are not sent out are generally not appropriate for CCC's wider audience (articles more appropriate for linguistics or journalism journals, for example) or have not followed the journal's general guidelines. Those that are sent to reviewers are either published as is (rarely), asked to revise and resubmit, or rejected with suggestions for revision or other more suitable places of publication. Cooper emphasized that many articles that are eventually published may be revised and resubmitted more than once. She also included a helpful handout with a list of do's and don'ts for aspiring CCC authors.

Cooper is looking for articles that have some kind of "payoff" "insight" or "conclusion." She is especially looking for reports of full, original research studies, articles on visual rhetoric and communication and articles that take a historical perspective and connect this perspective to current practice. Many articles, she noted, are heavy on critique but light on suggestions as to what should be done to solve the problem in question. Stephen Ruffus, editorial board member from Salt Lake Community College reiterated that those submitting to CCC should know the journal well, and know how issues in their sub-discipline are played out. Editorial board member Ralph Cintron (University of Iowa) discussed the necessity for a good essay to be written "gracefully" and to reveal an author "embodying" the text, taking it over both stylistically and argumentatively. [SV]

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