Please find attached and pasted in below.
Best,
~~
Christina Haas, Professor of Writing Studies
College of Liberal Arts ~ University of Minnesota
Editor, Written Communication
*follow WC on twitter - @writtencomm
7 September 2011
Dear Written Communication Editorial Board
members,
I hope this email finds
you well. I am writing with some Written Communication updates.
First, I recently
received the annual publisher?s report from Sage, and I have some good news
about Written Communication?s most
recent impact factor, as calculated by Thomson Reuters for the 2010 Journal Citation
Reports. WC?s impact factor is up -- from 0.63 in 2009 to 0.939 in
2010. This moves the journal up to
a rank of 26th among the 67 communication journals published by Sage, and it is
a significant bump. While impact
factor is only one measure of a journal?s success, it does reflect in concrete
ways the increasing reach of the research we publish.
This
change represents, I think, a renewed interest in writing research among
communication, rhetoric, linguistics, and education scholars, but it also
reflects the collective work we have done to bring visibility to the journal
(by word of mouth, at conferences, in print, and via social media). However,
it is above all a direct result of the fine scholarship that I have been able
to publish, due in no small part to your efforts: your diligent, thorough, and insightful reviews and your
soliciting of high quality research manuscripts for the journal. We are already
seeing an uptick in the number of manuscript submissions, putting us on pace to
exceed recent years? submission numbers.
Second, as you recall
from my email to you last spring, WC is moving to an all-online manuscript
submission and review system, called SageTrack. The system was developed by Sage, but
we are fine-tuning it for our use.
Some of you have already received mss to review via SageTrack during our piloting phase. By the start of 2012, we hope to have the system fully
operational. Thanks for all of you
for your patience during the transition.
Third, the response to
the CFP for the Special Issue on ?Writing in Global Context? was outstanding,
as was the quality of the mss received.
Consequently, the October issue will contain five really top-notch
articles on this theme. In
addition, the January 2012 issue will be a continuation of the SI, with three
additional articles. I couldn?t be
more pleased with the scope, rigor, and import of these eight Special Issue articles. Look for this issue soon, online and in
print, and be sure to alert other scholars of the articles within it
Fourth, our 2012 Special
Issue, ?Writing and Cognition? will be published in July 2012. A CFP is attached, and I would very
much appreciate it if you could distribute is widely. As you see, this issue (co-edited with Rui A. Alves of the
University of Porto) will be in honor of pioneering writing researcher (and EB
member) John R. Hayes. The
publication of this SI (in July, 2012) will be concurrent with the EARLI
SIG-Writing conference, to be held in Porto, Portugal. I will be attending the conference and
will host a dinner (like we did for WRAB in Fairfax) for Written Communication Editorial Board members and other ?friends?
of the journal. Do let me know if
you?ll be there.
Finally, Editorial
Board member Summer S. Taylor died suddenly last spring. The October 2011 issue includes a
tribute to Summer, written by Debbie Hawhee and me. Her loss is sorely felt by the Written Communication community, as well as by many of us
personally.
My best as you move
into your fall schedules and routines.
As always, my heartfelt thanks for your hard work on behalf of WC.
Sincerely,
~~chris
Christina
Haas, Professor of Writing Studies
University of
Minnesota
Editor, Written Communication