About the Journal

Focus and Scope

Writing across the University of Alberta (WAUA) publishes undergraduate and graduate student writing from writing studies courses and courses focused on writing studies practices and scholarship at the University of Alberta. Texts explore any topic of interest to the discipline of writing studies and to work in writing studies courses. The journal is edited and published by instructors and students in writing studies courses at the University of Alberta.

The journal accepts submissions from the following courses :

• WRS 101: Exploring writing
• WRS 102: Writing in the disciplines
• WRS 104: Writing persuasive arguments
• WRS 206: Writing special effects: Rhetorical grammar and style
• WRS 210: Intro to professional communication
• WRS 301: Intro to writing centre practice
• WRS 601: Composition theory
• WRS 603: Writing centre theory
• NS 190: Academic writing and research in the context of Native Studies
• Anglais 122: Texts and contexts  (Campus St. Jean)
• Anglais 126: Exploring writing studies (Campus St. Jean)
• AUIDS 242 - Introduction to writing centre practices (Augustana)
• AUIDS 244 - Introduction to peer tutoring and second-language learning practices in the writing centre (Augustana)

Writing studies instructors will encourage students to submit suitable texts to the journal. If a student has written a text that they believe to be suitable, they should discuss their intention to submit it to the journal with their instructor. Their instructor may suggest additional revisions to the student’s text in order to improve it.

Due to time and budgetary constraints, the journal will only consider submissions from writing studies courses and courses focused on writing studies practices and scholarship at this time. We may expand the scope of the journal to include writing from other courses in the future.

The development of this journal was funded by a Teaching and Learning Enhancement Grant from the University of Alberta. The Faculty of Arts provides additional funding.

Roles and Responsibilities

Editorial Board

The Editorial Board consists of any permanent faculty members or contract instructors in writing studies who wish to participate.

The Editorial Board will:

• Develop and review journal policies
• Provide the overall editorial direction and scope for the journal
• Support the Editor-in-Chief and the Editorial Team in the publication and marketing of the journal
• Mediate any disputes involving the Editor-in-Chief
• Review any appeals that cannot be resolved by the Editor-in-Chief
  

Editor-in-Chief

The instructor of the course WRS 311 Editing Texts will act as the Editor-in-Chief for the publication of the journal if this course is offered. If this course is not offered in a given year, an instructor in the Writing Studies program may act as the Editor-in-Chief.

The Editor-in-Chief will:

• Select submissions for peer review and respond to authors about the status of their submission.
• Guide the peer review process in WRS 311 and provide support to peer reviewers
• Guide the copy editing and publication process
• Review appeals from authors whose submissions have been rejected
• Mediate any disputes involving the Editorial Team
• Make final decisions on the acceptance or rejection of any submission to the journal based on the reviews and feedback of the editorial team and peer reviewers.
  
• The Editor-in-Chief may appoint a member of the Editorial Team to act as Journal Manager. The Journal Manager will support the Editor-in-Chief in the administration of the journal.

Editorial Team

Instructors and students in writing studies will form the Editorial Team. If the course WRS 311 Editing Texts is offered in a given academic year, the students in this course may form the editorial team. If WRS 311 is not offered, student and faculty volunteers from writing studies courses across campus may serve as members of the Editorial Team.

The Editorial Team will:

• Peer review the student writing submissions and provide feedback on the submissions
• Choose submissions for publication based on criteria developed by the editorial team
• Copy edit and layout the chosen submission for publication
• Publish and market the annual issue of the journal

Publication Frequency

Writing across the University of Alberta publishes one issue annually at the end of the fall semester in December.

We will review papers in two cycles: 

1. Submissions received between September 1 and January 31 will be reviewed in the winter term for potential publication in December of that year.
   
   
2. Submissions received between February 1 and June 30 will be reviewed in the summer for potential publication in December of that year.

Submissions received after June 30 may not be considered for that year's volume. We may hold these submissions for the next volume.

Peer Review Process

Writing across the University of Alberta is edited and published annually by writing studies instructors and students.

All submissions to Writing across the University of Alberta are subject to editorial review. Texts featured in the Student Writing section are reviewed by instructors and students in writing studies in a double-blind peer-review process. Submissions are carefully anonymized by the Editor-in-Chief before being shared with the Editorial Team for review.

The editorial team may develop specific review criteria for each issue, which they use to evaluate submissions to the journal. The editorial team will evaluate manuscripts using typical review criteria such as:

• Is the manuscript structure well organized?
• Does the manuscript structure reflect the title, abstract, introduction and conclusion?
• Is the writing easy to follow, informative, and interesting?

Any questions about the review process should be directed to the Editor-in-Chief.

Section Policies

Editorial Team’s Introduction

This section will include an introduction to the issue from the editorial team. This section will be indexed.

Student Writing

This section invites student writing from writing studies courses across campus. Texts may be up to 5000 words in length and may explore any topic of interest in writing studies and writing in general. Multimedia elements may be included; however, the author must ensure that copyright permission is not required or has been obtained for all multimedia elements and that multimedia elements are suitable to be published in PDF files. Note that there may also be technical constraints that limit the publication of complex multimedia compositions. This section will be open for submission, indexed, and peer-reviewed.

Editors for this section will be instructors and students in writing studies.

News and Announcements

What went on, what’s going on and what’s happened to whom. A News & Announcement article briefly describes things such as an award received, new publication opportunities, new courses, and other items of interest to the readership of the journal. Writing studies students, instructors, and other interested parties may submit news and announcements to this section. Items are subject to the approval of the editorial team. This section will be open for submissions and will be indexed.

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research and writing freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

Writing across the University of Alberta does not charge submission or any other form of author fees.

Indexing

Once Writing across the University of Alberta has an established publication schedule and record, we will apply to be included in suitable indexing services, including the Directory of Open Access Journals. WAUA is also discoverable through Google Scholar and is available for harvesting via OAI-PMH. If the journal is not indexed by your preferred service, please let us know by emailing [contact email].

Archiving

The contents of Writing across the University of Alberta will be preserved through the Public Knowledge Project (PKP) Preservation Network.  This LOCKSS program offers decentralized and distributed preservation, seamless perpetual access, and preservation of the authentic original version of the content. 

Copyright

Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication. The work will be simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Licence of the author’s choosing. Writing across the University of Alberta encourages authors to publish their work under either a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence (CC BY 4.0)  that allows others to distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon the work, even commercially, as long as they credit the author(s) for the original creation or under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license that allows others to share the unaltered work for non-commercial purposes, with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal. More information about the full range of Creative Commons licenses is available here: https://creativecommons.org/about/cclicenses/.

Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion

Writing across the University of Alberta acknowledges that underrepresented and minority communities (women, ethnic or racial minorities, people who identify as LGBTQ+, Indigenous peoples, first-generation university students, persons with disabilities, international students, English-as-subsequent-language learners, and people from lower socio-economic backgrounds) encounter harmful bias in traditional writing pedagogy practices, the development of language standards, and publication processes.

We aim to address these inequities at Writing across the University of Alberta through the following actions:

• Affirming our authors’ right to their own language, including their home dialects and dialects in which they locate their identity and style.
  
  
• Affirming our authors’ right to write with an accent by valuing the unique formulations and insights that speakers of other languages bring to their writing in English.
  
  
• Acknowledging that challenging standard forms and conventions in English is a legitimate and important form of critique.
  
  
• Recruiting a diverse and inclusive editorial team.
  
  
• Committing to represent diverse authors, voices, and styles in our publication.
  
  
• Using photography that represents the diversity of the University of Alberta community.
  
  
• Publishing in formats that meet the basic guidelines for web accessibility.
  
  
• Educating and training our editorial team, peer reviewers, and copy editors about the relationship between language and power and about implicit bias.
  
  
• Informing ourselves of the harm caused by biased writing instruction, language standardization, and publication practices and actively seeking to improve them.
  
  
• Humbly listening to any critique of our practices from underrepresented and minority communities with the intention of making our pedagogical and publication practices as equitable as possible.

Code of Ethics for the Editorial Team and Authors

Writing across the University of Alberta is a peer-reviewed journal that welcomes undergraduate and graduate student writing from writing studies courses at the University of Alberta. There is no charge or fee to authors for article submission or processing. All manuscripts received by the Editor-in-Chief will be judged for suitability, contribution, accuracy, and interest before being reviewed by a minimum of two anonymous peer reviewers. Final decisions on all manuscripts are made by the Editorial Team under the supervision of the Editor-in-Chief.

This journal is committed to upholding the highest standards in research publication ethics. The editors are committed to eliminating plagiarism and other forms of publication misconduct and fraud within our journal. Any detected cases of misconduct are vigorously pursued and will be reported to the Dean of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Alberta.

There are a number of responsibilities that all stakeholders are expected to uphold relating to the publication process. These responsibilities include, but are not limited to, the following:

Editorial Team

• All communication among the Editorial Team and between the Editorial Team and Authors will take place in a clear, respectful, timely and transparent manner.
  
  
• Members of the editorial team who wish to submit a paper to the journal will submit it directly to the Editor-in-Chief. The Editor-in-Chief will anonymize the paper and direct it through the publication process for the following issue. The Editorial Team will determine whether or not to accept the paper under the guidance of the Editor-in-Chief.
  
  
• The Editor-in-Chief will remain neutral and treat all possible breaches of these ethical responsibilities confidentially. The Editor-in-Chief will take action against any individual(s) who do not adhere to their responsibilities outlined here. This may result in declining a manuscript or dismissing a peer reviewer.
  
  
• Appeals may be directed to the Editorial Board for resolution.
  
  
• In the event of a dispute involving the Editor-in-Chief, the matter will be directed to the Editorial Board for resolution.
  
  
• These rules of governance are applicable to any individual involved in the production of the journal.

Peer Reviewers

• Peer Reviewers will respect the confidentiality of peer review and not reveal any details of a manuscript or its review, during or after the peer-review process, beyond those that are released by the journal.
  
  
• They will not use information obtained during the peer-review process for their own or any other person’s or organization’s advantage, or to disadvantage or discredit others.
  
  
• They will declare all potential conflicting interests, seeking advice from the Editor-in-Chief if they are unsure whether something constitutes a relevant interest. A peer reviewer shall declare knowledge of the author if he or she detects this in the manuscript.
  
  
• They will not allow their reviews to be influenced by the origins of a manuscript, by the nationality, religious or political beliefs, gender or other characteristics of the authors, or by commercial considerations.
  
  
• They will be objective and constructive in their reviews, refraining from being hostile or inflammatory and from making libellous or derogatory personal comments.
  
  
• They will decline to review if they feel unable to provide a fair and unbiased review.
  
  
• Peer reviewers will take into consideration the ethical standards required of authors when submitting their papers. They will assess whether the paper may be plagiarized if informed consent ought to have been obtained, if authors have declared competing interests, and if there is any indication the data has been fabricated or inappropriately manipulated.

Authors

• Authors will conduct their research in line with best practices and regulations of the University of Alberta. The paper complies with the ethical requirements of Informed Consent and any conflict of interest has been declared.
  
  
• Authors will declare any conflicts of interest.
  
  
• All authors must be named on the manuscript in the order in which they would like to be acknowledged at the point of submission.
  
  
• The submission cannot have been previously published, nor can it be before another journal for consideration.
  
  
• The author retains copyright of their work. The author will acknowledge Writing Across the University of Alberta as the first place of publication in subsequent use, such as placement in an Institutional Repository.
  
  
• The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines.
  
  
• The author must obtain the permission of the copyright holder for the inclusion of any third party material, including images, in the text.
  
  
• There has been no falsification or fabrication of research findings.
  
  
• The paper includes no instances of plagiarism, such as verbatim copying of another’s work and submitting it as one’s own, or changing words and phrases while retaining the essential content of another’s work.
  
• Publication has been approved by all co-authors and responsible authorities at the organization where the work has been carried out.
  
  
• Anonymous manuscripts will not be accepted.
  
  
• Authors will sign the WAUA Author Agreement before the publication of their work.

Disclaimer

• The opinions of our Authors do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Editorial Team of Writing across the University of Alberta. The Authors are solely responsible for the content of their submitted material.
  
  
• The Editorial Team and peer-review process will typically identify and reject submitted material with serious ethical, legal, and academic issues. However, it must be recognized that like any other process, mistakes can be made. Therefore we state:

• By submitting written material to Writing across the University of Alberta, the Author hereby agrees to assume full legal responsibility in any matter that may arise due to the publication of their submission(s). This can include, but is not limited to, issues of data falsification, libel/slander, moral misconduct, academic misconduct and plagiarism.