Today I talked with the Classics professor who has been helping me with the paper I’ve been writing on Alexander the Great.
I finished the final edits on my paper for resubmission and I wanted to go over them with a professional.
We made a few more minor edits and I will resubmit once I pull all the copies together, make a CD copy, a new cover letter, etc.
I wanted to talk about how the submission process works for papers in academic articles.
First you submit whatever they require to the editor. The Journal of Popular Culture (JPC) that I’m submitting to wants three hard copies of the paper, a CD copy, a cover letter, and a return envelope.
The editor reads the paper to ensure the topic matches what the journal is about and isn’t horribly written. The JPC wouldn’t publish a paper on math theory for example.
If the paper is on topic it is sent out to two or three professionals in the field. These professionals are often professors of that topic.
The professionals review the paper and give their recommendation to the editor.
The recommendations come in four different flavors.
First, they can reject outright. The paper is rejected and will not be accepted ever.
Second, they can reject but ask for a resubmission. This is what I got. It’s also the most common response to any paper.
Third, they can accepted with a few edits. This is for when a few words are misspelled or there’s a grammar mistake.
Fourth, they can accept without any additional work needed. This rarely happens the first time a paper that is submitted to an academic journal.
I got reviewed by two people. One accepted it as is (AWESOME!) and one rejected it, asking me to resubmit after I’d removed some generalizations I’d made.
So now I resubmit. The editor will look at it again.
The editor will decide which reviewers to send it out to a second time. She could pick the same two as before, only one from before, or new people.
That’s up to her though. For now, I just have to get it in the mail!
-Mister Ed
GoCorral 