Instructions For Authors

These instructions are provided to ensure timely review of your submission.

  1. The journal follows a method of blind peer review. All submitted manuscripts must be free of any reference to author or institution.
  2. ACJ reserves the right to return any manuscript without review should it be deemed outside the scope of human communication, be available elsewhere online, or technically, methodologically, or theoretically flawed.
  3. All submissions must reflect the original work of the author(s). Please note manuscripts will be screened for unoriginal material. The submission of your article for review implies consent for all screening during the publication process.
  4. Final submissions of accepted manuscripts must be formatted per APA, following the latest edition guidelines, including recommendations for avoiding bias.
  5. Manuscripts should be between 3,000-5,000 words in length.
  6. Manuscripts must be submitted electronically to mnaser@csub.edu

All submissions must be formatted per Word.

Submissions should include: A cover letter stating the following information 1) the manuscript title, 2) name(s) of the authors(s), 3) keywords for the article to be used to electronic search engines, 4) an abstract, 5) author(s) biographical information – names(s), titles, and affiliations of the authors(s), address, email address of the corresponding author only, a history of the manuscript – previous publishing’s, presentations, or if it is whole or part of a thesis or dissertation, and the number of characters and words in the manuscript. The article’s manuscript should be submitted as a separate document. Both documents should be identified either as “title of the submission – cover letter” or “title of the submission – manuscript.”

SUBMISSION PROCEDURES

The author submits her or his work using one of the three formats below (ranked in order of preference):

  • by emailing the document and accompanying materials to the Editor.
  • by notifying the Editor of the uniform resource locator (URL) where the document and accompanying materials are housed. The files will then be copied to a secure URL.
  • by mailing the document and accompanying materials to the Editor on a CD-ROM.
  1. The Editor reviews the work for blatant analytical, stylistic, or grammatical errors.
  2. If no errors are found, the Editor determines which three (3) member of the Review Board are most suited to review the particular submission.
  3. All reviewers are asked to return their decisions and commentary to the Editor, via an email form, within six-eight weeks of accepting the task.
  4. Based upon these comments, the Editor decides upon one of three courses of action: a) rejections, b) conditional acceptance with revisions, or c) acceptance.
  5. The researchers(s) are then notified of ACJ‘s decision via email.
FORMATTING SUBMISSIONS

All submissions need to be saved as Word files. We  encourage authors to make use of the possibilities of online publications, including multimedia elements. We ask that you leave the majority of the text unformatted, since it will be placed into a template to maintain the look of the journal. If you are an accomplishing HTML editor and want to create a special look for your page(s), we are more than happy to make exceptions to the standard design. just realize that if you want a different look, you will need to do the coding yourself (working with the associate editor as necessary). the following are a few specific guidelines we ask of everyone to follow:

  1. Any external links (links to other pages on the WWW) should be checked for accuracy.
  2. Please use APA format (5th edition or most recent).
  3. Use italics for emphasis and titles of journals/books.
  4. Multimedia elements (graphics, audio files, video clips) should be inserted where desired, and checked for accuracy/functionality.
  5. Heading levels should be as follows:

Heading One: Centered and Bold Face

Heading Two: Left Marin, Bold Face

Headng Three: Indented, Italicized, Bold Face 

REQUIREMENTS FOR PUBLICATION
  1. The author(s) must strongly consider all grammatical, stylistic, and substantive changes suggested by the reviewers and the Editor.
  2. Title pages must be reformatted according to the official template. The rest of the text must begin on a new page and be single spaced within paragraphs and double space between them. Please block indent all quotations longer than three sentences.
  3. The author(s) must ensure that all information (including name, affiliation and contact addresses), hypertext format, and links are accurate. The editorial staff will not correct errors to a posted article unless they are related to converting the original document from Work to PDF. 

Neither the American Communication Association nor the American Communication Journal assume any liability for any information housed on its server. By agreeing to publish in the American Communication Journal, authors assume liability for all words, content, and meanings, regardless of context or third party involvement. The American Communication Journal wiil copyright all works on its site; however; authors retain the right to make use of their own work (with the exception of commercial publication).