Submissions

Author Guidelines

When you format your submission, please follow guidelines for the current version of the MLA Style Guide. For general formatting, see http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/; for citation formatting, see http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/02/.

Checklist

☐ Please include your abstract (maximum 200 words) following the title and preceding the body of your text. Return to the online submission site and, under your Metadata, add your current bio (if you haven’t already done so).

☐ Send your manuscript file saved as a .doc, .docx, or .rtf format; please do not send PDF files.

☐ Use Times New Roman font, 12-point type, and double-spacing throughout. Do not justify the text; instead, align text left.

☐ Add a running head with a short title and page numbering at the upper right corner.

☐ Please do not use boldface or other special type anywhere in the manuscript.

☐ Turn off auto note / numbering function and insert notes manually. Numbered notes should be placed as endnotes, not footnotes.

☐ Main headings should be centered and use upper and lower case; secondary headings (such as section headings) should be left-justified and use upper and lower case.

☐ Please double-check all references for inclusion, spelling, and quotation use (very important!).

☐ Tables should be saved in the program in which they were produced; authors should indicate program type in their correspondence with the editors.

☐ Images and line-art should be submitted as image files in uncompressed TIF or JPG format and as separate files, at 300 dpi or higher. Be sure to include permissions for use of images that you did not create yourself.

☐ Please accept all changes made via “track changes” and delete all comments.

☐ Dates are inclusive – e.g., 1962-73

☐ Numbers are spelled out – e.g., Eighteenth century, seven people, eighty-four days later, etc.

☐ Double hyphens are emmed with no spaces before or after (i.e. like—this)

☐ In works cited, use abbreviations:

SUNY P (rather than State University of New York Press—same with others: Duke UP, U of Alabama P, etc.)

CCC (instead of College Composition and Communication)

JAC (instead of Journal of Composition Theory)

CCCC (conference, not a publication – no italics – Conference on College Composition and Communication)

NCTE (National Council of Teachers and Educators

Thanks for taking the time to edit your manuscript carefully! Close attention to detail will allow us to move your submission into production more quickly.

Submission Preparation Checklist

All submissions must meet the following requirements.

Manuscripts should be no more than 7,500 words and should conform to current MLA guidelines for format and documentation; they should be free of authors' names and all other identifying references, including institutional affiliation.
Submissions should be uploaded in digital format. Upload manuscript as an attachment (.doc, .docx, or .rtf format), with all metadata (i.e., embedded identifying information) removed from the file. Also, be sure to remove all "track changes" features from throughout the manuscript.
Composition Studies will not consider previously published manuscripts or conference papers that have not been revised and extended for a critical reading audience.
If you have images to accompany your article, please upload the images as separate, supplementary files rather than embedding them in the document. Images must be 300dpi, and can have a maximum width of 4.5 inches and maximum height of 7.5 inches.
Those wishing to submit course designs should first review the Course Designs submission instructions.

Course Designs

Each issue of Composition Studies includes Course Designs, a unique feature for writing/rhetoric faculty at all post-secondary and graduate institutions. Course Designs presents a complete writing or rhetoric course—from its theoretical assumptions and syllabus to a post-course analysis of strengths and limitations. A course design should reflect particularly innovative goals, structure, or approach.

Information about Submitting a Course Design

A published course design includes, in this order:

A course description that briefly outlines the course.
A description of theinstitutional context in which the author briefly explains the relationship between the course and/or its specific design and the needs, desires, or focus of the program, department, institution, or community in which the course is offered.
A theoretical rationale, written specifically for journal readers, that explains the course’s theoretical frame. Together with the critical reflection that follows, this section is the heart of the course design.
A critical reflection on the design in which the author assesses strengths and acknowledges weaknesses, reflecting on what s/he and the students learned and why.
A syllabus, preferably the same document distributed to students.

Purpose: As writing/rhetoric instructors, most of us are notorious “borrowers”; indeed, we often complain that we lack sufficient opportunities to exchange the successful activities and approaches we’ve developed through years in the classroom.

Course Designs addresses this need in a concrete way that nevertheless acknowledges the difficulty of transplanting a specific design into another instructor’s classroom, given the range of experience, teaching personae, pedagogies, material circumstances, etc. of our readers. Thus, rather than supply a package of materials for readers to simply reproduce in class next semester, the primary purpose of Course Designs is to inspire, to provoke reflection, to offer new approaches, to challenge prevailing assumptions, to suggest possibilities.

Criteria: Given the above purpose, the editor will evaluate each course design submission according to how well it

moves beyond “what I did in my class last semester” to examine what students and their teacher learned and why
theorizes the content of the course as well as the pedagogical approach—that is, the ends and means of the writing instruction being presented
adds to/complicates/calls into question commonly held ideas about teaching writing
connects to a larger concern or chronic dilemma in the field of writing studies/rhetoric

Published Course Design Example

Book Reviews

Since 2004, the full text versions of Composition Studies Book Reviews have been available online. Book Reviews not included in our print issues appear as Online Exclusives. Browse the archives.

Interested in reviewing for Composition Studies? Book Review assignments are made from a file of potential reviewers. To have your name added to the file, send a current vita to Bryna Siegel Finer, the Book Review editor. (Requests to review particular books will not be honored.)

Copyright Notice

The Author grants to the publisher, Composition Studies, a royalty-free, worldwide nonexclusive license to publish, reproduce, display, distribute, and use the Work in any form, including but not limited to a nonexclusive license to publish the Work in an issue of the journal (print or Web), copy and distribute individual reprints of the Work, authorize reproduction of the entire Work in another publication, and authorize reproduction and distribution of the Work or an abstract thereof by means of computerized retrieval systems (such as Westlaw, Lexis and SSRN). The Author retains ownership of all rights under copyright in the Work, and all rights not expressly granted in this agreement.

The Author agrees to require that the publisher be given credit as the original publisher in any republication of the Work authorized by the Author. If the publisher authorizes any other party to republish the Work, the publisher shall require such party to ensure that the Author is credited as the Author.

Each Author is responsible for all statements made in the Work. Each Author warrants that the Work:

is his or her original work
has not been previously published
has been submitted only to Composition Studies
does not contain any libelous or unlawful statements
has gathered appropriate ethics approval (IRB) for the use of any material involving human subjects (this applies to student work and classroom-based research)

Privacy Statement

The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.