The Language Teacher
04 - 2000
So . . .You Want to Be a TLT Special Issue Editor?
Katharine Isbell, Julie Sagliano, Mike Sagliano, & Tim Stewart
The Language Teacher runs Special Issues regularly throughout the year. Groups with interests in specific areas of language education are cordially invited to submit proposals, with a view to collaboratively developing material for publication. For further details, please contact the Editor. Let's see. How did we get ourselves tangled up as editors of a special issue of The Language Teacher anyway? We thought it would be a good idea and, in retrospect, it was a great learning experience. However, frankly, at times it seemed like we were caught in a never-ending process. Before we share our insights, a brief recap of our duties and responsibilities as special issue editors is in order.
First, we corresponded with the TLT editor and proposed ourselves as special issue editors. Next, we decided on a theme, in this case Active Learning, which was subsequently approved by the editor who in turn scheduled "our" issue. It sure seemed like 18 months would give us plenty of time . . . . We wrote and put out the call for papers, solicited a contribution from a noted specialist in the field of active learning, critiqued and ranked featured article submissions, provided revision feedback and suggestions to contributors, wrote rejection letters, and forwarded the submissions to TLT Editorial Advisory Board for final feedback. Not finished yet! Then we returned submissions for another round of revision, wrote more rejection letters, decided on the order of presentation in the journal, collected abstracts and biographies from the selected contributors, wrote an introduction, and finally sent all of this in two months before publication date. At the same time, we coordinated with the back-half editors (My Share, Book Reviews, and Net Nuggets) to ensure that the entire issue would be devoted to active learning.
Simple, right? Not really. We quickly relearned two important principles: anything that can go wrong will go wrong, and things take longer than expected. So before you jump into a special issue editor position, we would like to share with you what we learned from our experiences in the editorial hot seat.
Expect it to be a tremendous amount of work.
Fortunately, there were four of us so we divided up the submissions and worked in two teams. This made the editing process more manageable. However, we still felt rushed as deadlines loomed. Doing it alone would be a definite challenge!
Be absolutely and totally organized from day one. Keep electronic and hard copies. Create checklists, flowcharts and timelines and use them.
We thought we were organized, but as it turned out, we misplaced the contact information for one of the My Share contributions, and even after frantic searches through folders and email messages, all we could do was wait to hear from her again. Unfortunately, we are still waiting.
In another incident, we heard from a feature article contributor whose paper we had unknowingly lost. He contacted us just in time to rectify the error that would have eliminated his submission from the pool. If you are organized from the start, you will save yourself a lot time and avoid stress.
Establish a working relationship with TLT editor and stay in regular contact.
Be aware that TLT editor changes yearly. A well-organized and efficient editor can help make your job go a lot more smoothly. Don't be afraid to ask for support and guidance from the entire TLT staff. It is important to know, however, that TLT staff has final editorial control of your issue.
Remember that TLT Editorial Advisory Board [EAB] has the final approval over what articles are accepted for publication.
For this reason, be careful not to promise publication until the EAB has reviewed the submissions. We had worked extensively with the submissions and yet the EAB returned them with copious additional comments. When we sent the submissions back for a final round of revision, one of the authors was livid over the comments. More to the point, she claimed that by encouraging continued revision of her paper, we, the powerless special issue editors, had led her to believe that her paper was already accepted for publication, and she withdrew her submission. The fact was that we had a completely different opinion of the writer's paper from that of the EAB reviewer and felt that her submission was among the strongest. We indicated to her we had never said her paper was accepted and explained that while criticism of one's work is often unsettling, the process of writing for professional journals usually requires a lot of time for revision. Our advice to her was to look at the reviewer's suggertions again after a week or so and consider revising her paper one more time. We never heard from her again.
Check, double check, triple check everything all the time.
Even doing this we still had some minor problems. Our draft call for papers was unexpectedly published and had the incorrect submission deadline and no contact information. The two book reviews written for our issue ended up in the preceding issue of TLT and for some reason, the promised Net Nuggets column was never unearthed.
Enjoy the rewards of being a TLT Guest Editor.
Once submissions started piling up on our desks, we had the pleasure of reading numerous articles that approached the topic in ways that we had never expected. The diverse perspectives in the submissions on active learning surprised all of us. We certainly learned a lot, both theoretically and practically, from the writers whose work was accepted as well as from those whose submissions were not.
Perhaps we will become better writers ourselves after working with the different writing styles used by the contributors. Seeing how different authors dealt with their content and organization as they tried to meet our expectations was useful. Our writing styles may have improved through appreciation of and learning from other writers.
We definitely became better at negotiating as we corresponded with our contributors over desired editing changes. We tried to achieve optimal results from writers by taking care not to offend their talents.
Seeing the efforts of writers and of the work performed by TLT staff as we worked on the special issue has whetted our appetites for more editing opportunities in the future. Our desire to prepare our own submissions for publication has also blossomed.
So despite some trials and tribulations, all of us felt that being TLT Special Issue Editors was a very worthwhile learning experience. There was a great deal of satisfaction in being able to pull everything together with the help of fellow editors, TLT staff, and the writers themselves. It is a professional development opportunity that we recommend you to consider.
So if you have some time on your hands, an interest in contributing to the field, reasonable organizational skills and patience, JALT has an offer for you: volunteer to edit a special issue of TLT. There is no salary and no perks, but you do have the entire journal staff at your disposal. You learn a lot about yourself and the writing and publication process.
The writers:
Katharine Isbell is an Assistant Professor of Comparative Culture at Miyazaki International College, Japan. Her primary responsibilities are to develop and teach Applied Information Science and English adjunct sections to university courses. Her research interest focuses on the use of computers in the language classroom.
Julie Sagliano is teaching English at Miyazaki International College in Japan. Her professional interests include team teaching, and the use of debate and video in the classroom. She has taught in South America, Africa, Europe, and the Middle East.
Michael Sagliano has been teaching English and collaborative courses for six years at Miyazaki International College. Using active learning, especially videos, simulations and games, he has taught content-based courses at other colleges in Japan, the United States and Bahrain. Involved in the founding of JALT's Akita chapter, he served as its first chapter president from 1992-93.
Tim Stewart has been teaching at Miyazaki International College since 1994. From 1996 to 1998 he was editor of Canadian Content, the journal of the Association of Canadian Teachers in Japan. He has had his manuscripts rejected by some of the finest publications in the field.
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