Information For Authors
The Journal of Critical Study of Communication & Disability accepts the following types of manuscripts:
Original research: Presenting original work where neither the current manuscript nor a version of it has been published elsewhere or is being considered for publication in another journal or book. In addition to research articles, this journal encourages publications of case studies and field reports accounting for social, historical, political, economic, and/or psychological contexts as part of this category.
Overview articles: Presenting an original summary and review of the study of a specific topic from a critical perspective facilitating depth and breadth of a specific topic of interest from historical, social, and political methodological perspectives. The journal encourages studies that are inclusive of qualitative research and not only quantitative research as part of this category.
Book reviews: Presenting a summary and a critical review of a published book
Tutorials: Offers instruction and explanatory information on using a critical lens to transform curriculum, policy, and/or practice
Critical Reflections: Presenting individual reflective and reflexibility reports to interrogate practices and beliefs embedded in curriculum, policy, and/or practice
Note: The editors are open to considering manuscripts that may not be listed above, and encourage you to contact the editorial board members with any questions about manuscripts that are not included in the list. They are developing the ability to accept video submissions in future issues.
No matter the type, the editors are interested in manuscripts that are outside of and/or challenge the positivist epistemological inquiry of communication and disability. They are also interested in manuscripts that offer depth of understanding at the intersection between communication, communication disability and social, historical, political, economic, ecological and/or psychological contexts and power relationships providing a new epistemic critical interdisciplinary based inquiry in relation to communication and society.
We reserve the right to reject work that we deem to not follow high ethical standards, even if formal IRB or equivalent ethics committee(s) was obtained.
All work should be submitted through this website via the Submissions page. All authors will need to create an account for the purposes of communicating with you about the submission.
Questions can be emailed to the managing editors at jcscd@adelphi.edu.
Submission Guidelines
These are general guidelines. Please see the JCSCD Style Guide for detailed guidance on formatting your manuscript prior to submission.
Accessibility: The journal is designed to be a platform to bring together researchers, activists, disabled people, and others to develop the depth and breadth of understanding communication and disability. To facilitate this collective joint query, accessibility is a critical priority for the journal. Authors are required to use language that is readable and accessible to all constituents involved in the presented scholarly query and to make sure alternative text is added for all images. Articles that are not written in the traditional, academic style are welcomed and submissions from around the world are encouraged. However, all manuscripts should be submitted in English.
Anonymity: Submissions must have all identifying information redacted from the manuscript. A separate cover sheet must be included (see below) with information about the authors.
Bias in language and ideology: The editors of JCSCD are committed to critically interrogating the ways in which the work featured and language used in the journal reflect ideological stances, especially those that reproduce the pathologization of disability, persons, and language practices which this journal was founded to oppose. We therefore require authors to reflect on the use of ableist and other discriminatory language and perspectives, which will not be accepted in this journal.
For additional guidance on using bias-free language, see the APA Manual.
Cover page: Include information for all authors (name, title, affiliation, email, ORCID iD) in order of authorship on a separate cover page and submit as a supplementary file. The cover page should include positionality statements, a conflict of interest disclosure, and a funding statement. An Acknowledgements section may be added here as well.
Document format: MS Word (.docx)
Title and keywords: The title of the article is up to 15 words and you have prepared 4-7 keywords related to your manuscript submission.
Abstracts: For some papers, JCSCD requires a plain language abstract in addition to a standard or formal one. The plain language abstract should be no longer than 200 words and the formal abstract should be no longer than 300.
Style: Manuscripts should conform to the 7th edition of the American Psychological Association Manual. Note: To ensure that citation style is not a barrier for publication, scholars from various disciplines may submit a paper that uses other citation styles. When doing so, add an explanation to the cover page. However, accepted papers will need to be formatted using APA 7th edition style guidelines and be edited to conform to the journal’s article format template by their authors. The Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) is an excellent source for guidance on style details related to citations, references, and figures.
We would like to highlight the following guidelines:
Text: 11 pt. Helvetica for body, double spaced, and 10 pt. Helvetica for notes, single spaced.
Length/word count: Traditional manuscripts should be no more than 40 double-spaced pages (including figures, tables, references and abstract). Reflection papers and book reviews should be no more than 20 double-spaced pages.
Sections: In general, papers should include the following sections in the following order: title, abstract, keywords, positionality statement (submitted on cover page), article text, literature review, findings, discussion, conclusion, references, ethics statement, funding reporting.
Figures and images: Figures, tables, and images should appear in the body of the work where referenced. They should be sequentially numbered and have clear titles.
Statements: All papers should include the following statements in the cover sheet:
- Author(s) Positionality Statement (200-300 words) unless these are mentioned in earlier parts of the paper (see Boveda & Annamma, 2023)
- Conflict of interest disclosure and statement of approval by IRB or equivalent ethics committee(s)
- Funding report (if applicable)
Supplementary files: JCSCD can publish supplementary files alongside the main text when appropriate. Examples include data sets, survey instruments, and high resolution images. A link will be placed on the article's landing page and the PDF file of the article.
Multiple submissions and redundant publications of the same work will not be accepted by the editors.
