Abstract
Academic journals provide a professional meeting
place for current ideas and knowledge. The process of having your writing
published can be daunting, yet can also be stimulating and rewarding. For
the growth of innovative, relatively young fields such as an outdoor
education, it is vital that new writers, as well as old hands, are
encouraged and nurtured in their development. This workshop will
demystify the journal publication process and provide practical guidelines
and strategies for newcomers, as well as up-to-date information on current
trends and developments in the publication of outdoor education material
in journals world-wide. Workshop Summary
Why get published? There are several reasons:
- from a personal point of view - getting your ideas and written work
peer-reviewed and disseminated is evidence of your ability (e.g., useful
for academic promotion, professional kudos, increases your network, etc.)
- from the field's point of view - we are relatively rich in our
programming, but poor in our disseminated knowledge through written
publication; new ideas, whether they be new programs, new theories,
research, etc. are all valuable topics - even if it doesn't make it into
one of the three OE academic journals, there are many magazines,
newsletters, and websites that the material could be presented
Why not get published? It is an exercise in persistence, patience, and
being able to accept critical feedback that few people wish to endure.
The short-term costs are greater than the short-term rewards. And it
isn't easy to do it the first time - be prepared to undergo a learning
curve that takes a while to "get on top of" (never really finishes!).
A good place to start is with the three major outdoor education journals -
JEE, AJOE & JAOEL. This is because they have high acceptance rates and
are a bit more friendly than your average academic review process,
especially for first time authors. We definitely need more first time
authors in our field (esp. graduate students and experienced
practitioners), to keep it expanding, and as editors we try to encourage
and support first time authors. For a brief historical overview, details
of how to access, links to homepages, guidelines to authors, etc. each of
the journals, check out:
http://www.wilderdom.com/journals.htm
For links to other journals which publish OE material, go to:
http://www.wilderdom.com/Sources.html#Refereed
For links to non-peer reviewed newsletters and magazines which publish OE
material, go to:
http://www.wilderdom.com/Sources.html#NonRefereed
So, what do you write about? An area of expertise and passion which fills
a niche in the published information about outdoor education. Also
consider book reviews, letters to the editor (or replies to articles),
brief articles, plus AJOE has a non-refereed section.
Which journal? Whilst there is some overlap in the foci of the three
major OE journals, when submitting consider the following if your article
has:
- a regional focus in UK/Europe - strongly consider JAEOL
- a regional focus in Nth America - strongly consider JEE
- a regional focus in S.Pacific - strongly consider AJOE
- a focus on experiential education (as opposed to AE/OE) - strongly
consider JEE |