journal submission etiquette question
Dear all,
Just a quick advice question from a long-time lurker, new academic. I'm a first-year doctoral student at a UK university in a humanities field. During the viva voce examination for my earlier master's this summer at that same university, the external examiner (an academic I particularly admire and respect) was quite kind about two shorter ( Read more... )
Just a quick advice question from a long-time lurker, new academic. I'm a first-year doctoral student at a UK university in a humanities field. During the viva voce examination for my earlier master's this summer at that same university, the external examiner (an academic I particularly admire and respect) was quite kind about two shorter ( Read more... )
1. It's not so much that it's obnoxious as that, as tyopsqueene says, it is pointless. You don't even really need a cover letter -- the journal will send out your article anonymously to one or more peer reviewers, meaning the people who decide whether or not it should be published won't even see the letter. All you basically need to say (and it can be an email rather than a letter, if you're submitting electronically) is: "Dear [Editor], please find attached the manuscript of an article that I would like to submit for publication in [Journal]. The work has not appeared elsewhere and I am submitting it only to [Journal] at this time. Many thanks for your consideration. Yours sincerely, [You]."
2. As one who has peer-reviewed essays for a few different journals that deal with literature in foreign languages, I personally think it is obnoxious not to give ALL quotations in English translation if your main text is in English. You want your work to be accessible to readers who may not have one of the two other languages you're working with. Check the submission guidelines of the journal you're submitting to -- usually they will say something about how to handle translations/quotations from foreign-lang. texts -- but if they are silent on this question, give the quotations in English and, where necessary, supply the original foreign-language wording in parentheses (or, if you need to quote the original at length, in a footnote). "Where necessary" = any place where the exact wording is crucial to the argument you're making, or you sense that the reader would need an opportunity to evaluate your translation.
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