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Author Guidelines

Sections


Theory: These often interdisciplinary essays with a conceptual focus and a theoretical frame offer expansive interventions in the field of fan studies. Theory essays undergo blind peer review. (5,000–8,000 words, plus a 100–250-word abstract)

Praxis: These essays analyze the particular, in contrast to Theory's broader vantage. They may apply a specific theory to a formation or artifact; explicate fan practice; perform a detailed reading of a specific text; or otherwise relate transformative phenomena to social, literary, technological, and/or historical frameworks. Praxis essays undergo blind peer review. (4,000–7,000 words, plus a 100–250-word abstract)

Symposium: Parallel to academia's tradition of compact essays, often published as letters, fandom has its own vibrant history of criticism, some of which has been collected at the Symposium archive. In the spirit of this history, TWC's Symposium is a section of concise, thematically contained essays. These short pieces provide insight into current developments and debates surrounding any topic related to fandom or transformative media and cultures. Symposium submissions undergo editorial review. (1,500–2,500 words)

Review: Reviews offer critical summaries of items of interest in the fields of fan and media studies, including books, new journals, and web sites. Reviews incorporate a description of the item's content, an assessment of its likely audience, and an evaluation of its importance in a larger context. Review submissions undergo editorial review. (1,500–2,500 words)

Although authors specify during submission whether their essay best fits Theory or Praxis, the editors may change it in consultation with the readers and the author to best fit the submission.

Preparation of text


Because TWC is an online-only publication, to ease citation of articles in other forums, TWC requires that all heads be numbered (1. Introduction) and that all paragraphs be numbered in brackets according to head: [1.1]. Display extracts should be numbered in sequence as if they were regular text. The works cited head is numbered, but its individual entries are not.

Text should be ordered as follows: title, abstract, suggested keywords, text broken up by first-level heads, acknowledgments, notes, works cited, and any tables or figures. Author name is omitted from the manuscript for peer review. Supplemental files may be submitted at the same time as the manuscript file.

For multiauthored contributions, a single author should be designated as the corresponding author, who will traffic the submission through the submission and publication processes.

Preparation of files


TWC accepts contributions as Rich Text Format (.rtf; preferred), Word (.doc), and Open Office (.odt) files. We would prefer not to receive .docx files. Please delete identifying metadata from the file's Properties before submission (For further details, see Ensuring a Blind Peer Review). Files are uploaded through TWC's software interface. Authors must create a user ID and sign up as Author, log in, and then submit. In addition to the file containing the text itself, authors may upload supplemental files, such as .pdf or .avi files.

If contributors wish to submit very large files, such as video clips, please contact the Editor for instructions (editor@transformativeworks.org).

Permissions


Authors, not TWC, are responsible for obtaining and paying for permissions. Authors whose studies were approved by an institutional review board should indicate this in their contribution's acknowledgments section.

TWC, like its parent organization, the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW), is committed to the free expression of ideas, particularly in the context of scholarly activity about derivative fan artworks. Therefore, we do not require the consent, explicit or implicit, of the original author of a transformative work under discussion, such as a piece of fan fiction or a vid. All citation URLs to such texts need only be open to the public.

TWC permits screen shots of media sources, such as television programs or films, and clips to be printed under our rationale of fair use.

Informed consent


Researchers should disclose institutional review board approval at the time of submission, if relevant.

TWC follows the tenets of online research laid out in the Association of Internet Research's Guide on Ethical Online Research.

Style


Submissions to TWC should be formatted according to the most recent edition of the Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) using author-year style.

In-text parenthetical literature citations should provide author name, year, and, if relevant, a page number. The term "et al." should used for three or more authors: (Draper 1973; Wiens et al. 2007). In CMS under Documentation II, the examples to follow are labeled T.

Page numbers should be cited parenthetically. Although endnotes may be used, they should be kept to a minimum. Acknowledgments, which must list the names of specific people in order to be included, should appear before Notes.

The dictionary used is the most recent edition of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. Authors may consult Merriam-Webster Online.

Preparation of works cited section


The works cited section should include only works cited. Reference to URLs, dailies, newspapers, and ephemera may appear in text, without being included in works cited. Examples of bibliographic format are as follows. In CMS, Documentation II, the examples to follow are labeled R.

Book


Braudy, Leo. 1997. The frenzy of renown: Fame and its history. New York: Vintage.

Article/chapter in book


Ehrenreich, Barbara, Elizabeth Hess, and Gloria Jacobs. 1992. Beatlemania: Girls just want to have fun. In The adoring audience, ed. Lisa A. Lewis, 84–106. London: Routledge.

Article in journal


Hills, Matt, and Rebecca Williams. 2005. "It's all my interpretation": Reading Spike through the subcultural celebrity of James Marsters. European Journal of Cultural Studies 8:345–65.

URL


Kociemba, David. 2006. "Over-identify much?" Passion, "Passion," and the author-audience feedback loop in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Slayage 19. http://slayageonline.com/essays/slayage19/Kociemba.htm (accessed March 26, 2007).

 

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.

  1. The submission has not been previously published in English, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
  2. The submission file is in Microsoft Word (.doc), Rich Text Format (.rtf), or Open Office (.odt) format. If submitting to a peer-reviewed section of the journal, the instructions in Ensuring a Blind Peer Review should be followed.
  3. The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines.
 

Copyright Notice


Creative Commons License


Content in TWC is licensed under
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License.

TWC, not the author, retains copyright. Anyone seeking to reproduce content for profit, including authors, must obtain permission from TWC. Such permission is routinely granted for free. Submit queries to the Editor at editor@transformativeworks.org.

TWC retains copyright for three reasons: (1) because this is standard in the academic journal industry and it streamlines permissions because there is a single point of contact; (2) because we are committed to open access, and our policy ensures that authors cannot abrogate this; and (3) because it permits us the ability to grant reprint requests if the author becomes unreachable.

We are a Gold Open Access journal, allowing postprint archiving according to the standards established by the Bethesda Meeting on Open Access Publishing.

We believe images, including images altered by an artist to create a derivative artwork, and song lyrics may appear in TWC under fair use under U.S. copyright law. Such images and lyrics are fair use because:
  1. They are lower in resolution and quality than the original.
  2. They do not limit the copyright owners’ distribution rights.
  3. They are being used in the context of academic analysis in a manner that contributes meaningfully to our culture.
  4. They represent only a tiny fraction of the whole artwork.
  5. They are hosted by the OTW’s servers, and the OTW is a nonprofit organization.

 

Privacy Statement

The names and e-mail addresses entered in TWC's site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.



Transformative Works and Cultures (TWC), ISSN 1941-2258, is a Gold Open Access publication of the nonprofit Organization for Transformative Works copyrighted under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License.