Current Issue

Submissions

Submitting to Kairos

Kairos promotes original and challenging electronic work, exploring the possibilities afforded by contemporary digital venues. Kairos publishes "webtexts," which means projects developed with specific attention to the World Wide Web as a publishing medium. We do not suggest an ideal standard; rather we invite each author or collaborative writing team to think carefully about what unique opportunities the Web offers. Some projects may best be presented in hypertextual form or in multimedia. In the course of our editorial review process, you should expect editorial staff and editorial board members to analyze your choices carefully, so please be sure to think them through. Please refer to our Style Guide for guidelines on technical considerations, format, and citation style.

Kairos welcomes contributions from scholars pursuing a wide variety of digital issues, from theory to praxis. Kairos features six sections: Topoi, Praxis, Inventio, Disputatio, Reviews, and Interviews. These sections have different approaches and different editorial policies, as listed below. We ask that if you are considering submitting your work to Kairos, you first visit the various sections of the current (and previous) issue(s) to determine which section best matches your work.

As an open-access journal, Kairos does not charge a subscription fee and is freely available for all readers. The journal also does not charge submission or publication fees of potential or published authors. Kairos does not publish advertisements, announcements of events or publication, or links to resources that are not provided in published articles. Once an article is published, no additional materials or links will be added; however, the editorial staff will attempt to redirect defunct links to the appropriate dated entries in the Internet Archive where available.

Kairos uses an open review process. We do not use a double-anonymous review process (historically referred to as "double-blind review," a terminology we see as outdated and ableist); rather, multiple reviewers confer about each submission. When submitting to the journal, there is no need to attempt to remove information about the author(s) or institutions referenced in the work. Reviewers will know authors' names, and likewise, authors will know who reviewed their work.

Queries may be sent to kairosrtp@gmail.com; submissions ready for consideration should be submitted via the Kairos Submission Form. Before submitting, we suggest going through this design and APA checklist.

Which Section Should I Submit To?

  • Topoi: Peer-reviewed scholarly analyses of issues relating to rhetoric, technology, and pedagogy. Submissions are accepted continuously, and authors are encouraged to contact the editorial staff early in their project's development. Prospective contributors to Topoi begin the editorial review process by sending a cover email with the webtext's abstract and a current URL of the submission. Authors who need an alternate delivery method should contact the editors in advance.
  • Inventio: Peer-reviewed reflections that focus on the decisions, contexts, and contributions that have constituted a particular webtext. Inventio authors will be able to include, alongside or integrated with their finished webtexts, materials that help them articulate how and why their work came into being.
  • Praxis: Peer-reviewed investigations into the intersections of rhetoric, technology, and pedagogy with an emphasis on what happens in the writing/rhetoric classroom and why. Webtexts—case studies, discussions of networked/new media composing, or other formats—should showcase how writing is informed by emerging technologies foregrounding practical aspects (i.e., how would one use the technique being described? Who might benefit from following the author's approach and why?) while providing a theoretical grounding. Because the Praxis section typically features actual classroom research, authors are encouraged to provide appropriate, scholarly use of video, audio, image, or other digital media examples of the techniques described.
  • PraxisWiki: Peer-reviewed wiki entries on teaching narratives, assignments, and short digital pedagogy pieces related to technology and writing. Submissions are welcome on an ongoing basis— for more information visit the PraxisWiki or contact the Praxis Wiki Editors with any questions.
  • Reviews: Editorially reviewed critiques and reviews of books, media, software, games, institutes, and other texts or webtexts of interest to scholars of rhetoric, technology, and pedagogy. See our Call for Reviews or email the editors with a proposal for a review not listed there. Reviewers will be asked to provide a brief design proposal outlining technologies to be used and the potential design of their webtext.
  • Interviews: Editorially reviewed extended interviews with scholars doing interesting work relating to rhetoric, technology, and pedagogy. See our Call for Interviews or email a query to the Interview Co-Editors Brandy Dieterle and Monica Jacobe at kairosinterviews@gmail.com. The query should, in 250-300 words, provide the interviewer(s) and interviewee(s) names, brief bio of the interviewee(s), and current titles and affiliations; a brief explanation of the topics the interview intends to address and a rationale of the significance; and a description of your initial ideas regarding the webtext's design and/or structure.
  • Disputatio: Editorially reviewed mini-manifestos, rants, letters to the editors, responses to previously published webtexts.

What We Are Not Looking For

We’re not looking for a standard, text-based article written in a word processing program such as Microsoft Word or a similar program. We don't accept traditional print essays. Because the work we publish integrates rhetoric, design, and code to produce a scholarly argument that is instantiated in the use of media and design, we also have fairly specific technical requirements (e.g. we typically don't accept work produced in proprietary formats or systems—like iWeb or Wix). Please see the Kairos Style Guide for details.

Additionally, we do not accept submissions that have been simultaneously submitted elsewhere and we expect authors who submit to Kairos to refrain from submitting to other venues until our review process has concluded.

Calls for Webtexts

We regularly post calls for webtexts, particularly for forthcoming special issues or seeking work on topics of particular interest to our readership. In addition to specific calls, we also have regular calls for reviews and interviews:

Submission Form