Submission Guidelines

Series Editor: Lisa Melonçon, University of South Florida

The Foundations and Innovations in Technical and Professional Communication series publishes work that is necessary as a base for the field of technical and professional communication (TPC), addresses areas of central importance within the field, and engages with innovative ideas and approaches to TPC. The series focuses on presenting the intersection of theory and application/practice within TPC and is intended to include both monographs and co-authored works, edited collections, digitally enhanced work, and innovative works that may not fit traditional formats (such as works that are longer than a journal article but shorter than a book).

We welcome proposals for projects that address research, practice, and/or teaching. Topics that are of particular interest are listed below, although these do not preclude submissions in other areas:

• Workplace studies
• Empirical studies
• Intercultural and global perspectives
• Technological issues to include surveillance, algorithms, critiques of technology, empirical studies on use
• User experience and usability from a variety of perspectives and to include diverse artifacts or situations as points of examination
• Sensory rhetorics to include the important of visual, auditory, kinetic, haptic, olfactory in the creation and delivery of information
• Information design (broadly construed)
• Theoretical work that includes a specific and direct connection to potential practice
• Data-driven and/or quantitative studies
• Pedagogical and programmatic research that is empirically driven, particularly studies at the field level and regarding transfer and that explore relationships within higher education such as with WAC/WID/FYC
• Provocations and innovations to encourage pushing the boundaries of traditional topics and approaches

As part of the WAC Clearinghouse, the TPC series recognizes the interdisciplinary aspects of professional and technical communication, particularly when it is used in courses that prepare students to communicate within their chosen disciplines and professions. As such, we welcome attention to the connections between TPC and WAC, CAC, and ECAC.

The decision to publish a proposed project based on a research study will be based on how the design of the study--including the discussion of the methodological orientation, the choice of methods, and methods of analysis--addresses the problem under investigation. Similarly, the decision to publish works in the areas of teaching and professional practices will be based on the strength of the argument, the scholarly foundations informing the argument, and the contribution the work would make to the literature in TPC.

Contact Information and Proposal Guidelines

Queries should be directed via email to Lisa Melonçon, University of South Florida, at meloncon.research@gmail.com.

To ensure timely consideration of your proposed work, please provide the information outlined below:

• the names of the author(s) or editor(s);
• the complete title and subtitle;
• the length or proposed length;
• the content of the project including your aims in writing it; your primary findings, arguments, or themes; its genre; the sources used in your research, if applicable;
• the relationship or similarity your work has to other writing in the field with a clear indication that this work is situated within the research of TPC (and related fields/disciplines, including worked published on the Clearinghouse, if applicable);
• the intended audience for your book, including courses for which the book might be used as a text or collateral reading and organizations or groups that might be interested in reading it;
• a brief summary of related books that have been published elsewhere with how this text can be differentiated from existing texts;
• any features in the proposed manuscript that will require special attention in the design and production of your book, such as photographs, line drawings, or other illustrations; charts, graphs, or tables; technical or foreign languages; complex mathematical or scientific data; video, audio, or other multimedia elements; embedded data sets or applications;
• the status of your manuscript, including how much of it has been written and when you expect to finish writing it; and
• an annotated table of contents (or abstracts of an edited collection).

Please include with your proposal a copy of your current curriculum vitae or resumé, as well as those of any co-authors or editors. Include the full manuscript, if it is available, or a sample chapter from the manuscript (preferably an introduction, methodology chapter, or early chapter in an edited collection).

Submissions to the series will be reviewed following the WAC Clearinghouse peer review processes. Our peer review process is informed by the Clearinghouse invitation to contribute scholarly work and its statement on diversity, equity, and inclusion. Our reviews are also guided by the statement on anti-racist scholarly reviewing practices, which can be found at https://tinyurl.com/reviewheuristic.

A Note on Open-Access Publishing

The Foundations and Innovations in Technical and Professional Communication series offers books in free digital editions and low-cost print editions. Books are offered through a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License. Copyright is held by the author(s) or editor(s) of the books. The publishers cover the costs of reviewing, designing, producing, and distributing the books. Any proceeds from sales of print books in the series are used to support the publication of subsequent books. Our goal as a publisher is to make work available to the widest possible audience while maintaining the highest standards in scholarly publishing. We welcome contributions to the series and to the larger goal of supporting open-access scholarly publishing. If you have questions about the goals of the WAC Clearinghouse project, please contact Mike Palmquist at Mike.Palmquist@ColoState.edu.