Submissions

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Submission Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.
  • All authors with their contact information and institutional biographies (about 100 words) are included.
  • The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
  • The submission file is in OpenOffice, Microsoft Word, or RTF document file format.
  • Where available, URLs for the references have been provided.
  • The text is single-spaced; uses a 12-point font; employs italics, rather than underlining (except with URL addresses); and all illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text at the appropriate points, rather than at the end.
  • The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines.

Author Guidelines

Programmatic Perspectives, the journal of CPTSC, is soliciting articles about theoretical and practical aspects of technical, professional, and scientific communication program administration. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

  • Program assessment
  • Curriculum development and innovation
  • Cross-cultural issues
  • Faculty development
  • Technology integration
  • Relationship building
  • Diversity issues
  • Program maintenance
  • Programs transitions (e.g., expansion from certificate to major)
  • Student and faculty recruitment
  • Recruitment and retention
  • Internationalization/globalization
  • Historical perspectives on program administration
  • New program development

General Submission Guidance

All submissions unless otherwise noted should include an Abstract (150-200 words), 5-6 Keywords, Author Bios (100 words), and Acknowledgements. Please add the bio information to your user profile in OJS.

Authors should remove any identifying content to the Word file itself to facilitate blind peer review. 

If the article contains illustrations  (drawings, photographs, images), please create each illustration in a separate file and zip all files together. Illustrations should be saved at 300 dpi or better in EPS, TIFF, PSD, GIF, or JPG format.

Submissions should conform to the Programmatic Perspectives Style Guide. For items not addressed in the guide, please refer to the latest publication of the APA. Please note: Programmatic Perspectives includes authors’ first names in the References and in the first in-text citation.

Journal Statement on Authoring Using Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Programmatic Perspectives aligns its stance on AI with the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Position Statement.

"AI tools cannot meet the requirements for authorship as they cannot take responsibility for the submitted work. As non-legal entities, they cannot assert the presence or absence of conflicts of interest nor manage copyright and license agreements.

Authors who use AI tools in the writing of a manuscript, production of images or graphical elements of the paper, or in the collection and analysis of data, must be transparent in disclosing in the Materials and Methods (or similar section) of the paper how the AI tool was used and which tool was used. Authors are fully responsible for the content of their manuscript, even those parts produced by an AI tool, and are thus liable for any breach of publication ethics."

Submission Types

Email queries to Co-Editors Rhonda Stanton (rhondastanton@missouristate.edu) and Russell Kirkscey (trk82@psu.edu).

Research Articles 

Research articles are manuscripts that detail systematic, formal research studies (such as pilot studies, case studies, interview surveys, or survey studies) on topics of interest to technical and professional communication administrators, scholars and teachers. 

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, 

  • Program assessment 
  • Curriculum development and innovation 
  • Cross-cultural issues 
  • Faculty development 
  • Technology integration 
  • Relationship building 
  • Diversity issues 
  • Program maintenance 
  • Program transitions (e.g., expansion from certificate to major) 
  • Student and faculty recruitment 
  • Recruitment and retention 
  • Internationalization/globalization 
  • Historical perspectives on program administration 
  • New program development 
  • Interdisciplinary program efforts 

Length: 5,000-10,000 words exclusive of references and appendices 

Program Showcases  

Program Showcases narrate the experiences of an author or authors in a particular technical and professional program. These articles showcase academic programs in the area of Technical and Scientific Communication. This section seeks to capture the knowledge, experience, and conceptual frameworks that drive our administrative activities, interests, and challenges of the administration of a specific program, with the goal of building upon our shared knowledge. Manuscripts should also include key takeaways that other programs/program administrators can use.    

Length: 4,000-8,000 words exclusive of references and appendices 

Commentaries 

Commentaries are essays addressing topics that would be of interest to Programmatic Perspectives audiences. Commentary pieces should use academic literature and/or personal experience in technical and scientific program administration to contextualize the topics. Commentaries may also be used to respond to previously-published articles in the journal.

Length: 1,000-5,000 words exclusive of references 

FOCUS Articles 

FOCUS articles are short, timely pieces that spotlight current or emerging issues related to technical and scientific communication that readers would find useful in their administrative roles. These topics can include, but are not limited to, pedagogical approaches, industry trends, administrative resources, funding strategies, policy discussions, and such other issues 

All articles will be double-blind reviewed. Please email queries to FOCUS Editor Joseph Jeyaraj (joseph.jeyaraj66@citytech.cuny.edu).  

Length: 2,500 words, including abstract, main text, and references 

Format: Manuscripts should have a straightforward title and include a one- or two-sentence abstract. Multi-authored work is welcomed. 

Book Reviews 

Reviewers should focus on those concerns most relevant to the journal’s target audience: technical, professional, and scientific communication administrators and faculty who are interested in the theory and practice of program development and administration. If appropriate, reviews may consider how the text(s) contribute to one aspect of the profession—for example, programmatic assessment or curriculum development. Authors should summarize a volume’s content and briefly summarize the organization and content.  

In addition to a broad summary of the volume, authors should address the following topics 

  • how the text(s) specifically contributes to the profession in terms of programmatic issues and perspectives or how it fails to do so 
  • how the text(s) compare with similar ones in the profession 

Please email queries to Book Review Editor Timothy Ponce (timothy.ponce@uta.edu). 

Length of review for single work: 1250 words exclusive of citations 

Length of review for multiple volumes: 2000 words exclusive of citations 

Additional book review instructions 

Book Reviews

Format for Book Reviews

Include the following information for each book reviewed:

  • title
  • author(s) or editor(s)
  • place of publication
  • publisher
  • date of publication
  • number of pages

Provide the following information after the heading and before the first paragraph: Reviewed by (Your First Name, Your Last Name), (Your Institution).

In the Submission Process

  • Include a 100-word reviewer biography.
  • Use the first paragraph of the review as the abstract during the submission process.

Style and Content

Focus your review on those concerns most relevant to our target audience: technical, professional, and scientific communication administrators and faculty who are interested in the theory and practice of program development and administration. If appropriate, focus your review on how the text(s) contribute to just one aspect of the profession—for example, programmatic assessment or curriculum development. We encourage you to omit relatively minor concerns, such as minute details about what each chapter contains.

  • Length of review for single work: 1250 words
  • Length of review for multiple volumes: 2000 words

If possible, address the following concerns in your review:

  • how the text(s) specifically contributes to the profession in terms of programmatic issues and perspectives or how it fails to do so
  • how the text(s) compare with similar ones in the profession

Do not feel obligated to provide extensive evidence (including direct quotations) from the text(s) to support your claims. In fact, we might need to edit supporting evidence to reduce length.

If you decide to provide supporting evidence:

  • include page citations for quoted material (for example, Smith makes a strong case that “the profession will raise its stature considerably if more quality research on this topic is completed” (p. 143)
  • include an author’s first and last name on first reference. Subsequent references should only be last names.
  • provide full citations for other publications mentioned in your review
  • include authors’ first names in the References

 

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