K A I R O S: Guide for Prospective Authors

Guide for Prospective Authors

This document is designed to be a comprehensive guide for prospective Kairos authors. We've created it in linear form so that it's easily printable -- we know that some of you would prefer to have a hard copy beside you as you work on your submission. The guide is organized by questions:

What are current publishing opportunities with Kairos?

Each issue of Kairos features six sections: Features, CoverWeb, News, Reviews, K-Interactive, and Interviews. These sections have different approaches and different editorial policies, as follows:

Features: Extended scholarly analyses of large-scale 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. Please email co-editors Douglas Eyman and James A. Inman.

CoverWeb: Theme-based, multivocal examinations of contemporary issues in rhetoric, technology, and pedagogy. Submissions are accepted by issue and by theme. We now have CoverWeb-specific submission guidelines. Please contact CoverWeb Co-Editors Cheryl Ball and Beth Hewett to learn more.

News: Calls for papers, announcements about new initiatives and products, reflections on electronic list and other scholarly discussions, and more. Visit Kairosnews, or contact News Co-Editors Charlie Lowe and Clancy Ratliff to learn more.

Reviews: Individual or collaborative reviews of books, media, and other texts of interest to scholars of rhetoric, technology, and pedagogy. Reviews are solicited. Please contact Reviews Co-Editors Rich Rice and Gail Corso to learn more.

Praxis: Classroom spotlights, responses to previous Kairos publications, scholarly debates, and more. Submissions are accepted continuously, and special opportunities for participation are sometimes available. Please contact Praxis Editors Colleen Reilly and Joyce Walker for more information.

Interviews: Extended interviews with scholars doing interesting work relating to rhetoric, technology, and pedagogy. Please contact Interviews Editors Brad Lucas and Margaret Strain to suggest individuals to be interviewed or to propose an interview of your own.

What form and format can submissions be?

Kairos publishes "webtexts," which means projects developed with specific attention to the World Wide Web as 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, others more linear, and in some instances multimedia and graphical architecture may be critical, while other projects may be less suited to such approaches. 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.

At the same time we do not offer a standard form and format, we do want to provide examples. Visiting the following webtexts will give you a good idea about the range of forms and formats that Kairos has published:

Vielstimmig, Myka. "Not a Cosmic Convergence: Rhetoric, Poetics, Performance, and the Web"

White, Jeff. "Hypersuasion and the New Ethos: Toward a Theory of Ethical Linking"

Wysocki, Anne. "Monitoring Order: Visual Desire, the Organization of Web Pages, and Teaching the Rules of Design"

Yagelski, Robert P. "Computers, Literacy, and Being: Teaching with Technology for a Sustainable Future"

Technical Considerations

In terms of technical form and format, we do expect submissions to be composed for the web. That said, we cannot accept submissions in Word, WordPerfect, or other wordprocessing formats. We request HTML files.

When developing webtexts, we encourage authors to use software that is specifically designed for the purpose of creating websites, such as Adobe GoLive, Macromedia Dreamweaver, Netscape Composer, and Microsoft FrontPage. Authors should not simply use the "Save as HTML" or "Save as "Website" option in word processing or presentation software; Microsoft Office 2000 (and above) products are particularly bad choices for developing websites and we will not accept submissions created in this manner.

Images included in submissions should be either .jpg or .gif, and care should be take to properly size the image (using image editing software rather than simply specifying the size in the HTML image tag) and to make sure that the images will load quickly, even for relatively slow connections. Images included in webtexts should be original work, used with permission, or fall under fair use guidelines.

How do authors submit something?

Submissions should be sent electronically to co-editors Douglas Eyman and James A. Inman (kairosed@technorhetoric.net) or to the appropriate section editor. Authors should provide a URL for their project or a zip file with all of its individual files, and they should also name two or three current editorial board members they believe best qualified to evaluate their work.

How does the editorial process work?

The editorial process begins when co-editors Douglas Eyman and James A. Inman receive submissions.

For the Features section, the Kairos editorial review process includes three distinct stages, or tiers.

Tier One: When the the co-editors receive a submission, they evaluate it, deciding if it is indeed appropriate for Kairos and if it is of sufficient quality to merit entering it into our formal editorial review process. If the co-editors agree, then they bring the submission to the entire editorial staff, where the webtext is further evaluated for its addressing of Kairos' publishing interests and its scholarly value.

Tier Two: If the editorial staff decides that a submission is appropriate and of high quality, then the co-editors bring the webtext to Kairos' editorial board. The entire editorial board discusses the submission for a full week, coming to a collaborative assessment of its quality and potential to be published in Kairos.

Tier Three: If the editorial board together decides that a submission is of high quality, then the co-editors assign three editorial board members to work directly with the webtext's author or authors. The board members guide revisions, based on the editorial board's comments and evaluation. And while advancement to this editorial stage is not a guarantee of publication, it does reflect a significant investment in the submission via the specific assignment of editorial board members. Our intention is to publish the webtext, if the author or authors complete the revisions requested in consultation with the editorial board members.

This editorial process is one of the most unique aspects of publishing with Kairos. We believe it offers authors an exciting and unprecedented chance to work with editorial board members who are among the leading thinkers in the world about rhetoric, technology, and pedagogy.

For all other journal sections, the editorial process includes review by editorial staff to determine the quality and appropriateness of the submission for publication in Kairos and then a thorough review by editorial board members assigned to the section. Please contact section editors to learn more.

What are your policies about use of copyrighted material?

Authors submitting works to Kairos are responsible for securing and archiving any permissions or licensing pertaining to the use of copyrighted images or multimedia.

What are your policies about linking?

Links policies include the following:

All links should contribute to the possible meanings and readings of the texts. Linking for the sake of linking is discouraged.

Authors should attempt to make clear where links are going so that readers may make informed navigational decisions. This can often be done by linking from descriptive phrases rather than individual words.

Links to external nodes should point, to the best of the author's knowledge, to stable sites and resources. Since back issues of Kairos will be available in our archives, we must strive to make all links as current and accurate as possible. Authors might consider contacting the authors of pages they link to in hopes of determining such stability.

Care should be given in linking to commercial sites in order to avoid promoting any particular companies or their products. If links must be made to commercial sites for the purposes of the webtext, they should be made to informational documents rather than sales pages when possible.

Since we have no control over external sites to which authors may link, broken links and "404" errors are likely to occur eventually. In order to prepare for such problems, authors should include an "External Links Page" that lists, node-by-node, the destinations and purposes for each off-Kairos link.

What are your policies about human subjects?

Authors submitting work to Kairos are responsible for securing and archiving any human subjects permissions pertaining to their research.

Do authors retain copyright on materials published in Kairos What about reprint rights?

Authors of accepted webtexts assign to Kairos the right to publish and distribute their work electronically, including publication on the web and on CD-ROM, and to archive and make it permanently retrievable electronically. Authors retain their copyright, however, so after their project has appeared in Kairos, they may republish their text in any manner they wish -- electronic or prin t-- as long as they clearly acknowledge Kairos as its original site of publication. Contributions that have already been published or are being considered for publication elsewhere are not eligible to be considered for publication in Kairos, unless a cross-publishing arrangement has previously been negotiated.

If you have any additional questions, please contact co-editors Douglas Eyman and James A. Inman at kairosed@technorhetoric.net.