Re: [ARUME] Greetings Colleagues,

[Alan Schoenfeld <alans@SOCRATES.BERKELEY.EDU>]

Hi All,

Susan's note raises some important issues.  I'm glad Annie Selden has
responded, because she said some of the things I wanted to say.  Let me
echo them, and say a bit more.

It's the case in mathematics, but much more the case in education, that
journals have their own styles and values.  For example, there are articles
I would submit to the Journal for Research in Math Ed (JRME) but not to the
Journal of Mathematical Behavior (JMB), and vice versa.  More importantly,
given a particular body of data, I would write the work up differently if I
were thinking about submitting it to JRME or JMB.

As an editor and a member of numerous editorial boards, I can tell you that
I've gotten a huge number of submissions that I've recommended be rejected
out of hand - because the content, or the way the article was written,
didn't fit the journal.  When it's clear that the author hasn't done the
least bit of "homework," reviewers get offended: whether it's justifiable
or not, their attitude is, "why should I labor over my review when the
author didn't even take the trouble to check out the journal?"

The bottom line: do your homework.  That means more than just getting the
instructions for authors, which often cover technicalities (length, format)
and a few fundamental principles (for example, Research in Collegiate Math
Ed, which I co-edit with Ed Dubinsky and Jim Kaput, wants manuscripts that
can be read by both mathematicians and education researchers, meaning that
jargon should be kept to a minimum).  Getting the instructions for authors
is step 1.  Step 2, which is much more important, is to go to the library
(or interlibrary loan) and take out 3 or 4 issues of the journal.  Read
them!  Look at the articles, see what the general organization is, what
kinds of arguments and data they tend to favor.  One journal may tend to
publish statistical data, and be short on interpretation; another may do
statistics, but have lots of interpretation; another may be happy to accept
"qualitative" data, but want multiple lines of interpretive argument...
(Along another dimension, a particular journal may publish all its articles
beginning with 150-word abstracts.  Imagine the what goes through
reviewers' minds if your article doesn't have one...).

Think about your data, and about which journal seems most suited for them.
Then write up your article in the style that (a) best does justice to the
data, and (b) is best suited for the journal you've chosen.  When the
article is done,  write a careful cover letter that indicates to the editor
that some thought has gone into your choice of the journal.  Having done
so, you'll have a better paper, and you'll have increased the chance of
seeing it published.

Cheers,
Alan Schoenfeld



At 9:26 AM -0800 2/25/00, Susan Gray wrote:
>Greetings Colleagues,
>I have completed a manuscript that I would like to submit to a journal.
>Does anyone have information about how to contact and obtain author
>guidelines from the following journals:
>Methematical Thinking and Learning
>Focus on Leanring Problems in Mathematics
>Educational Studies in Mathematics
>Journal of Mathematical Behavior
>
>Also, are there other journals (besides JRME) that publish articles
>related to mathematical teaching, learning, pedagogy, etc?
>
>Thanks,
>Susan Gray


##################################################
Alan H. Schoenfeld
Elizabeth and Edward Conner Professor of Education
Education, EMST, Tolman Hall # 1670
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720-1670

Phone: 510-642-0968
Fax: 510-642-3769
email: alans@socrates.berkeley.edu

Home page (papers, etc.): http://www-gse.berkeley.edu/Faculty/aschoenfeld

UCB page: http://www-gse.berkeley.edu/Faculty/gsefaculty.ss.html#schoenfeld

MARS website:  http://www.educ.msu.edu/mars