Submission Guide « The Socjournal

The Socjourn is a new media sociology journal. We accept submissions from sociologists, graduate students, and multidisciplinary practitioners with an interest in sociology and its issues.

The Socjourn is looking for researchers, students, and instructors who are also writers.  Writing should be clear, precise, grounded, and accessible. Since the goal is to communicate sociological research to as wide an audience as possible, submitting authors should avoid jargon, long sentences, overly complex grammatical structures, and extended and confusing explanations.

As a guideline, submissions to the Socjourn should generally be between 1200 and 2400 words (2-6 pages).

Please have your copy edited prior to submission.

All submitted papers are subject to editorial review and may be turned down if they fail to meet the editorial or scholarly standards of the Socjourn. We are looking for quality writing so do not model your article on what you might see in a typical scholarly journal. The intent is to communicate and reach out so write with that goal in mind.

And just to make sure you’re listening…

Please do not:

• Submit unmodified term papers. We do accept student submissions, but we will not publish your term paper (unless it was submitted by your instructor). Nobody wants to read your term paper except maybe (and that’s a pretty big maybe) your instructor. If you want to write for us, take the time to turn your term paper into a valid bit of grounded scholarly communication.
• Submit a journal article. If your paper has an “abstract” and an “introduction” and maybe a “discussion” and a “methodology” section, use it for toilet paper. Papers like that are designed to turn readers off and obscure what you have to say behind a rhetorical wall of pompous and overcomplicated verbiage. The goal here is communication and not obfuscation or ego aggrandizement.
• Submit badly written work.  If you suspect you are guilty of writing badly, consult our “how to write badly” section.  If you’ve added verb strings, used unnecessary terminology, written in the passive voice,  obfuscated, or otherwise taken simple concepts and ideas and turned them into EPMO,  try the American Journal of Sociology.

Please Do:

• Submit your own personal thoughts, ideas, and opinions, as long as they are grounded in sociological fact, research, or opinion.
• Rewrite your research or paper to make it palatable, meaningful, and useful for a general audience.
• Take an active role in bringing the depth, breadth, and social and political wisdom of Sociology to the world
• Be proud of the work you do.
• Have fun, change the world, change our thinking.

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