submitting journal articles

know the journal

Before submitting to a journal, look over as many recent issues as possible. Get a feel for the types of articles it tends to publish. Does it generally prefer theory to history? Practical theatre over literary analysis? Is the readership primarily made up of specialists in a particular area, or will your article need to appeal to a more general audience? Does it wallow in juicy, discursive footnotes, or dismissively cram a few references on the last page? The better your understanding of the priorities and trajectory of a particular journal, the better prepared you’ll be to submit something that will have a comforting air of familiarity for an editor who is likely combing through a swath of submissions that simply aren't appropriate for his/her journal.

 

know the editors

Carefully consider the editors who will be deciding what to publish. If you’re not familiar with their work, try and track down some previous publications (reviews, in particular, can give you some idea as to their criteria for praise/blameworthy scholarship). Clues to their writing style, comfort with theory, pet peeves, idols, villains, etc. might help you avoid careless mistakes, such as enthusiastically praising Scholar X, whose work the editor has previously called “ideally suited to levelling uneven table legs.” Also, if you see an editor at a conference, don’t be afraid to strike up a conversation, or ask if s/he has any advice for graduate students preparing to submit pieces.