Scholarly journals play an extensive and essential role in academic discourse. These publications support and disseminate cutting-edge research, connect thought-leaders across disciplines, and encourage deliberation that enhances scholarship.
Many editors of scholarly journals rely on unsolicited proposals and content to ensure their readers can enjoy up-to-date writing and research by diverse and authoritative authors in the field. Submittable is proud to work with academic publishing organizations in this capacity—here are several journals doing outstanding work to serve their specialties.
Harvard Educational Review
Founded in 1930, the Harvard Educational Review (HER) is a scholarly journal featuring the work of “researchers, scholars, policy makers, practitioners, teachers, students, and informed observers in education and related fields.” This quarterly print publication, part of the Harvard Education Publishing Group, is interdisciplinary and highly-regarded as a source of education-focused perspectives and research.
Submissions to HER are considered anonymously by a team of 20 individuals in a two-stage review process. The journal uses Submittable to accept both solicited and unsolicited work; for the latter, HER considers research articles, essays, and pieces for its “Voices” series, as well as work that falls outside of these categories. HER further incorporates Submittable in their revision submission process and for calls related to symposium papers (a recent request sought work on “Portraiture as a Method of Social Inquiry”).
Michigan Journal of Medicine
The Michigan Journal of Medicine (MJM) is double-blind, peer-reviewed journal featuring scientific and clinical research, led by health professional doctoral students at the University of Michigan (and also featuring their published research). First published in 2016, MJM provides an opportunity for students to develop critical skills drafting, submitting, evaluating, editing, and publishing research that will prepare them for professional success after academia.
MJM is committed to making scientific data relevant by keeping it readily available—even if experiment outcomes aren’t “positive” or “successful,” their results are still important to share. To this end, MJM is fully open-access. The publication also serves as a learning lab at multiple levels: under the guidance of University of Michigan Medical School faculty, MJM editors work closely with fellow students to strategize, hone, and release high-level, research-driven content.
MIT Sloan Management Review
Founded in 1959 as a scholarly journal, the MIT Sloan Management Review (MIT SMR) is dedicated to business-management research, innovation, and practice with a focus on technology’s vital role in the industry. MIT SMR facilitates and publishes large-scale collaborative research projects called Big Ideas, and content from international thought leaders, distributed digitally and in print—MIT SMR receives 211,000 website visitors per month and its print quarterly has a total readership of 64,200.
MIT SMR is read primarily by business executives, many in top management, seeking strong, research-based content that is both innovative and relevant. Guest content is selected through a combination of internal and peer review. Authoritative writers can submit full-length articles, as well as shorter tech-focused pieces (for the Frontiers section) or content for a Big Idea Initiative (recent Big Idea topics have include AI, Data & Analytics, and Sustainability). Article proposals are also welcome, as are book proposals, considered for publication through MIT SMR’s partnership with MIT Press.
ImageTexT
ImageTexT is a web-based, open access academic journal focused on intersections between image and text, including comics, animations, illustrated and image-inspired literature, and visual rhetoric. Begun in 2004, ImageTexT is part of the University of Florida’s Department of English, offering digitally accessible content from each of the journal’s bi-annual issues free of charge.
ImageTexT incorporates a blind peer-review process—Submittable is used by editors to collect and review text and digital image files, as well as article and review revisions. In addition to general submission content, the journal solicits work for special topic forums. Recent examples include “ImageText in Motion: Animation and Comics,” and “ImageTech: Comics and Materiality.”
Religion and American Culture
The first issue of Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation (R&AC) was published in 1991. Part of Indiana University’s Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture, R&AC is a semi-annual scholarly journal focused on “religion in its American contexts from diverse methodological approaches and theoretical perspectives.” R&AC features articles based on original research that seek to enhance and complicate discourse around American culture and religion.
R&AC incorporates a multi-level double-anonymous review process. Each volume of the journal, available via subscription, includes three to four research-based articles of 25-35 pages each. In addition to publication review, Submittable is used by the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture to consider Young Scholars applicants.
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Most administrators and reviewers for journals of this kind are academic researchers themselves—saving them time on (potentially) manual editorial processes encourages and supports their scholarship. Submittable is glad to serve this community with features, services, and product design uniquely well-suited for scholarly publications. These include customizable (as opposed to automated) forms, a pleasing user-interface, compatibility with peer-review and open-access platforms, five team-member access levels, integrated reporting, custom API, and robust customer support for both submitters and organizations.
Interested in finding out more about using Submittable for your scholarly journal? Please reach out anytime.
Rachel Mindell is a Special Projects Editor at Submittable. She also writes and teaches poetry. Connect with her on LinkedIn.