A brief guide to locating publishing opportunities (for junior and temporary faculty and advanced grad students in the humanities)

One of the requirements of my job as a junior faculty member is to publish. Now, I work at a teaching university, so the requirements are similar to those at research universities, but the types of allowable publications that count toward tenure and promotion are more expansive. It occurred to me today that everyone might not know what I know. I was fortunate to attend a research university for my PhD with a cohort of research-focused people, which meant we talked about and shared information about how and where to publish. I attended conferences and networked with more established academics in order to learn what was needed. Our professors were also good about incorporating some of this information into classes and conversations, which meant that we were extremely well-prepared about what to expect publication-wise when we went on the academic job market.

However, not everyone had that intensive experience. And once you land the job, no one really talks about what is expected and HOW to locate the right kinds of publishing opportunities. My advice and list are based on the requirements (as I understand them) at my state teaching university.

First, bookmark and check this site frequently: University of Pennsylvania CFP

No matter what your humanities specialty, the UPenn CFP will have publishing and conference opportunities for you. Start here.

A word about conferences. They are not as important as publishing, but you will be expected to attend at least one or two per year (say, one regional and one national or international). Use the conference time to network and seek out publishing opportunities. I landed two book reviews for a well-known cultural journal by simply responding to an editor's call for review ideas at a national conference. I've also met many people in my field who have been incredibly valuable to me and my grad students. But don't let conferences dominate your scholarship.

Remember, publishing is still king, even at a teaching institution.

Second, become familiar with the top 25 or 50 journals in your field or fields. For instance, my primary field is Composition and Rhetoric, my specialty is Indigenous Rhetorics, and my interests extend to teaching (pedagogy) and creativity. This broadens the scholarly publishing potential, but there are still top journals in each of these fields or specialties - in fact, there is a hierarchy of journals. Top tier, middle tier, bottom tier. Some are traditional print journals (such as Rhetoric Review, where my first academic article appeared in 2011), and some are digital (such as Epiphany Journal of Transdisciplinary Studies, where my second academic article appeared in 2012). Both of these journals are peer-reviewed, which means the submission goes through a rigorous and blind process of judgment and revision before it is accepted or rejected. Whether the journals you seek are in print or online, the ones that will count the most are the peer-reviewed publications.

Third, there are many other types of publishing that will count, but that won't take a year or more to see results. As long as there is an editorial process - meaning, there is an editor or editorial team providing revision feedback before your work is published - these publishing opportunities are easier to write, less complicated to obtain, and have a fast publishing time frame. Get on Google and use your browsing capabilities to find blogs, web sites, and online publications for article, essay, creative, review, and opinion opportunities. Find out who the editor is and pitch that person an idea. If they seem open to book reviews, pick a book that hasn't been published yet and suggest a review. To find these unpublished books, go to Amazon and search for your field's most well-known term. For me, it was "indigenous rhetorics" or "Native American studies." For you, it might be "education" or "film theory." Search by publication date from the most recent and then scroll down until you see books that are about to be published within six months. Don't worry about not having a copy - if the editor gives you a thumbs up for the review, just contact the book's publisher for a press copy. The editor can often help with this.

By the way, those academic journals each took a year or more from submission to publication. The publishing I've done in the outlets identified in the last paragraph all took less than a year - often a matter of months - from idea pitch to publication.

Book chapters are also wonderful and if you have the right contacts, these are terrific and valuable additions to your CV. However, books are tricky because publishing is often much, much slower - projects get held up for all kinds of reasons. And the same goes for writing a book. Save the book-length manuscript for your bid for full professor. When you are a temporary instructor hoping to be rolled over into a tenure-track position or a junior faculty member, try for as many scholarly, peer-reviewed pieces as time allows (3-4 in your first five years), but then bulk up your publishing record with the smaller, faster pieces. It shows your commitment to your field and your scholarly activity.

Keep this in mind when it comes to book publishing: If your book (or the one with your contribution) isn't actually in print by the time you go up for tenure, it won't count. I just learned this fascinating fact - only the things in the "published" category will really be considered. Everything else takes a far back seat because anyone can load their CV with "revised and resubmitted" or "forthcoming" promises, but the tenure and promotion committees want to see tangible publications that are out there and available for perusal.

Another great place to publish is encyclopedias. Whatever your field, there is an encyclopedia or two. These have an editorial review process and require you to be at least a PhD candidate or a faculty member to contribute. These entries vary in length (usually run 500 - 3000 words), involve research, and can be cranked out rather quickly once you are used to the genre.

Something else to keep in mind: Everything you do before your tenure clock starts doesn't count. So, if you publish a scholarly, peer-reviewed article as a PhD candidate and that gets you the job, you must realize that it will not count toward your tenure and promotion bid. If that piece was published before you started your job, it doesn't count. If you have been a temporary instructor at your university for four years and are then rolled over into a tenure-track position in year five? Everything you've done in years one - four won't count toward tenure and promotion. The tenure and promotion committees only consider what you've published after the tenure clock has started.

Another strategy to consider for crafting a publication pathway:  Not only is it possible, but also perfectly acceptable, to contact a journal editor cold to pitch an idea. Academic journal editors may respond or they may not, but if you apply what professional writers do all the time - pitching ideas cold to relevant outlets - you may get the nod to try. No guarantee of publication because your work must still be vetted by two reviewers who will not know that you pitched the idea to gauge interest. However, this is a tactic I used all the time as a freelance journalist and I've recently started applying it to my academic publishing and it works! I saw a new journal in my field set to start publishing next year, so I emailed the editor with an abstract of an idea for a potential article. He liked it and said if I wrote it well, it would probably stand a good chance. That's all I needed and I'll be writing that piece over winter break. Why not make your process more efficient by vetting your idea with an editor up front, so that you know your piece will at least have a chance at being considered? Otherwise, you are just blindly submitting to publications that may be a bad fit - but it will take that editor 3 - 6 months to tell you this. Be more efficient and business-like in your approach to academic publishing and you may end up with more and better-focused opportunities.

So be fearless, don't hesitate, and don't let the existing rules block your progress. Find a hybrid position between following the conventional rules and making your own path so that your publishing record will cover all the bases, be varied and yet focused on your fields, and show your level of dedication and scholarly activity.

Now go publish! And please leave any comments, questions, or additional ideas. :)

SRI: Silly Revolting Indigestion? Spoiled Repugnant Insanity?

No.

Student Rating of Instruction. Spring Edition. 2012. Now coming to a university department near you. Watch as adjuncts, instructors, and tenure-track faculty squirm on theoretical stakes as students skewer them for various reasons real or imagined. Witness as administrators and supervisors carefully consider what students have to say as they weigh the professional fates of us feckless folk and determine whether, based on what students have to say, we should be reappointed for another year.

Have I dripped enough sarcasm into my introduction to sufficiently convey how horrifying these little written barbs are? The SRI…the bane of my (and fellow instructor and tenure-track faculty’s) existence. Why? Because our department heads, deans, and provosts actually take into consideration the OPINIONS of 18-20 year olds in determining our overall effectiveness, knowledge, and clarity as professors.

Don’t get me wrong, I actually value student input. I actively request it every semester in every class that I teach – but I expect my students to provide substantive feedback about what they learned, what they would change about the class, and an explanation or argument as to WHY something should change. I’ve used this valuable feedback to make changes…every semester. So why, might you ask, am I being so hard on the SRI? Simple. It is ANONYMOUS. Which makes it the equivalent of Rate My Professors where there are zero consequences for lambasting a professor because the student decides that it is the professor’s fault that he or she didn’t do well – that the professor wasn’t clear, knowledgeable, and available…not that the student wasn’t prepared, procrastinated all semester, didn’t listen or pay attention in class, and never asked a single question. In other words, the SRI encourages vengeance and utterly lacks any accountability.

SRIs are used to evaluate our overall performance as instructors by people who do not yet have college degrees, who do not have the knowledge that we do about writing, college level instruction, or rhetoric, who think (generally) that Facebook and Twitter are as worthy of their attention as their college coursework (even IN class), and who skip class because it is raining…or snowing…or windy…or sunny…or or or or or….and think that those are viable excuses for missing class. These SRIs make me distinctly uncomfortable and on edge every semester…and I know that I’m not alone in that feeling. The power that the students have over us is monumental and scary – they can literally make or break our careers, depending on how heavily weighted the department or university tenure committee decide to make the SRI.

I cannot force my students to listen. I cannot force my students to grant me more attention in class than they grant their texts and emails on their phones. I cannot force my students to begin assignments early, work diligently on them, and turn them in on time. But they can force my department head to note that I’m not clear enough, or give assignments that are too hard or weighted too heavily, or that I don’t turn graded work back fast enough. On this last one, I admit to taking up to two weeks to grade and return work, which I always figured was ample time, given all of the other responsibilities that I must attend to. If ALL I did was teach and grade, then the work would likely be returned within two class periods. But that’s not the reality of my job or my life. Sometimes I don’t work on weekends. And sometimes I don’t work until 10pm. So what do I do? Ignore my other responsibilities in favor of fast grading? Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

These SRIs are the equivalent of your interns evaluating YOUR overall effectiveness as a boss and influencing your continued employment…can you imagine? Most people who work outside of academia who learn this (when I tell them) are floored and disgusted by this idea. Indeed. As are we.

But.

As students are now considered “consumers” of education and we are evidently cogs in the education delivery business, my job is to give the consumers what they want…easy, simple, and numerous assignments that spread the overall grade weights widely so that no one assignment carries a heavier load, a low amount of reading and writing, and an easy path to an A. Or at least that’s how these SRIs make me feel…they devalue what I do by allowing individuals who are distinctly unqualified to comment on my performance and to judge my effectiveness based solely on opinion and whether they like me or not.

You’d think that I have terrible SRIs, right? I don’t. My evals are usually pretty good, but if I try anything different, anything truly innovative, anything that goes outside the expected norm? I suffer with poor SRI ratings.

This contentious document makes it IMPOSSIBLE for me to bring my creativity, innovation, new ideas, and adventurous spirit to the crafting of composition classes. Why is that important, you might wonder? Well, being creative and innovative in a composition class actually helps the students who are paying attention and doing the work a whole lot more than a traditional, standard, expected, taught-from-a-textbook approach that gives purposeless, audience-less five-paragraph essay assignments. But that’s a gripe for another day.

If you are a professor or instructor in a similar position, how do you work to guarantee good student responses to the SRI (“excellent” and “good” ratings)? Do you explain things every single day (redundancies atop redundancies)? Do you give quizzes on what you explained? Do you provide pizza and cookies once a month? Do you start everyone at an A and give them ten assignments worth 10% each and make it almost impossible for them to fail or do poorly regardless of their level of engagement?

Any advice or ideas will be greatly appreciated, both for me and anyone who suffers the same heartburn every semester. Let the games begin.

Edit: This article just arrived in my university mailbox, forwarded by a fellow faculty member to all faculty. Given the content of my post, this is highly relevant. Note especially the VAST differences in the definition of an "effective teacher" between students and faculty.