journal submission etiquette question

[ohmypersephone]

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

Comments

[tyopsqueene]

1. Obnoxiously name-droppy and pointless (this won't go to the reviewers, whatever you say)

2. Depends on house style, depends on discipline, depends on what it is you're doing with the texts. The easiest thing to do is just submit the piece as it is without doing any major revisions to it. If the reviewers want the original, they'll ask you to supply it when they request edits. If they don't, you've saved yourself several days' work.

[ohmypersephone]

Great, thanks - confirmed my instincts! I figured cover letters for a journal were rather less "pitchy" than the sort of letters I write for my non-academic writing jobs, but wanted to make sure I didn't waste an opportunity regardless.

[aryanhwy]

Cover letter? I've never written a cover letter for any journal submission...

As for translations, I work under the assumption that not everyone who reads my work is fluent in all languages. I always provide both translation and the original whenever I can. Which one goes in the body of the text and which one goes in the footnote depends on the particular venue: When I'm writing for medievalists, the Latin goes in the body and the English in the footnote, when I'm writing for mathematicians, the English goes in the body and the Latin in the footnote.

[max_ambiguity]

So you attach a file to an email and just assume the editor will know what it's for?

[aryanhwy]

Every journal that I've submitted to (that I can remember) has an electronic submissions system. Though...now that I think about it, I think I did once send something in via email, a solicited book review, and for that the email simply had an informative subject line and a body along the lines of "Dear X, Attached please find the review of XX as we agreed. Please let me know if you have any trouble reading the file or need it in a different format." I guess that's a cover letter...

[max_ambiguity]

Yeah, that IS a cover letter, no guessing about it. And unless there is an automated submission process, anything I get without a cover letter goes straight to the trash. And if there's any place in an automated process to write an introduction or note, that should be used to provide a cover letter type message as well.

[max_ambiguity]

I wouldn't mention the examiner in your cover letter. The editor won't care, and the reviewers won't see it.

I don't work with translation, but it would seem odd to me if one language was provided and translated, but the other wasn't. If the editor is interested, though, he or she will tell you which way they want it.

[nzraya]

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

[iris4700]

Actually, I wish we did that all the time with foreign language scholarship (as opposed to primary sources), as it would make it easier for me to find good articles for my undergrads. Often I see more extensive quotations of scholarship in foreign languages in an article otherwise excellent for my teaching purposes. Once I went through and translated all the stuff for the students as a separate handout, but that was not a sustainable plan time-wise.

[iris4700]

I have a funny story about that next time we're at a conference bar or in the same part of the state.

I've found that when papers derive from conference proceedings, rather than from a peer-reviewed journal process, the accessibility issues are still rampant - there were several pieces I wanted to use in my Claudius course last year that are post 2000 with block quotations in other languages. Given one of the authors, she may very well have been aiming for those NA scholars you allude to...