Write for Us
Dear Colleagues,
We invite you to write for us. We publish original articles on topics of interest to students, writing teachers, and writers in non-academic contexts.
Writing Commons serves as a reference guide and textbook for students in composition, professional and technical writing, workplace writing, business writing, fiction writing, and poetry writing courses. Beyond the classroom, Writing Commons is the go to source for professionals in workplace writing settings.
All submissions are peer reviewed as described below.
Audience
Our audience is a global community of students, writers, and teachers. Since 2012, over 12 million students and teachers worldwide have used Writing Commons for help with their writing.
By publishing with us, your ideas and practices can reach a broad audience. For example, by 10/22, Professor Christine Photinos‘ article on Paragraph Transitions had been read by over 88,936 people. In turn, Professor Jenna Pack Sheffield’s Using First Person in an Academic Essay: When is It Okay?, has been read by 70,637 people.
| Students | Instructors/Faculty | Working Professionals | |
| Our target audience is undergraduate students in writing courses in the U.S. and abroad, particularly undergraduate courses in academic, business, and technical writing courses. | College & University Faculty. | Knowledge Workers in workplace, academic, and public contexts. |
Submission Guidelines
Before beginning your project, we encourage you to submit a brief proposal to our Co-Editors-in-Chief:
Cassandra Branham
Associate Professor
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
Cassandra.Branham@erau.edu
Megan McIntyre
Assistant Professor of Rhetoric and Composition
University of Arkansas
mm250@uark.edu
Submissions should be sent in .doc or .docx files. You may include videos or images to supplement the text; please submit video links or .mp4s, and all images as .jpeg or .png. Also, feel free to include hyperlinks to other sources that might be useful for students.
For citation, we use Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th Edition.
Your submission
- should be saved as a .doc or .docx file with any images saved as .jpeg or .png format. Please name files according to the following conventions: “Title of webtext.”
- should be 750-1000 words in length
- should be free of internal references to the author’s identity.
- should include a brief cover letter introducing your webtext and its title; you might use this letter to voice any concerns/questions you have about the text.
If you are submitting podcasts, videos, or composing a multi-page hyperlinked text (which we strongly encourage), please e-mail Cassandra Branham (branhac1@erau.edu) directly for specific directions.
Peer Review
Once we receive your article and confirm it matches our needs, we will begin the peer-review process. Articles will be reviewed by at least two members of the staff, review editors, or editorial board. You will then receive our decision to publish as is, publish with revisions, or reject.
We try to have a quick turnaround time with our peer-review process. From initial submission to notification of the submission status, please allow approximately four weeks. If you don’t hear from us by then, please do shoot us a reminder. Thanks!
Suggestions for Contributors
Prior to pitching an article idea, we encourage you to take a moment to learn about Writing Commons. Please check out whether we already have an article on your proposed topic.
Publishing Agreement
Prior to publication, following peer review, authors are required to complete our Publishing Agreement. In brief, writers may choose traditional copyright (i.e., copyright resides with the author) or from one of the Creative Commons licenses:
