Publishing in Criminology and Criminal Justice: A Guide for New Researchers Professor David Wilson, Co-editor of The Howard Journal of Criminal Justice Anita Dockley, Research Director of The Howard League for Penal Reform Violeta Ribarska, Publishing Manager of The Howard Journal of Criminal Justice
Contents Introduction Making an impact • Why publish? • The Howard League’s Early Career Academics’ Network • Conferences • What is impact? Publishing options • Peer review journal articles • Book reviews as an intermediary step • Monographs • Book chapters • Publishing in the media, electronic journals and beyond the academy
Preparing a peer review article • Which journal? • Ethical practice • The peer review process A publisher perspective • Production of the manuscript • Distribution • After publication Information about the Howard Journal Information about the Howard League
Introduction
This short guide is aimed both at PhD students who are researching in the general areas of criminology and criminal justice, and at early career researchers who are starting out on a career teaching, researching and writing about criminology or criminal justice in Higher Education (HE), non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and other research organisations. It is based on our different, but complementary experiences of, among other things: editing the Howard Journal of Criminal Justice; developing an early career academic network for criminologists and others with an interest in the penal system; writing books and articles; commissioning research for the Howard League for Penal Reform; teaching and researching criminology within an university; and, finally, supervising PhD students. Our guide is not intended to be prescriptive, but has been written so as to offer some very general and practical advice about why and how to publish. And, chances are, if you have bothered to pick up this guide, it will not have escaped your notice that the old American adage of “publish or perish� has never been more relevant particularly to British academics. In the guide we consider such issues as why you should choose to publish, and the various forms in which you can publish, although our discussion is heavily biased towards publishing peer review journal articles. Other issues covered include deciding in which journal to publish your research, and what happens when an article is submitted to a journal. Throughout the guide we are mindful of the importance of public engagement as the first step to demonstrating the impact of your research1. This guide also offers some general advice about how to get your research out of the academy and into other public arenas, which is a growing concern for academics.
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A useful guide is the Panel criteria and working methods document published by REF 2012.
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Making an impact
Why publish? In one sense this is a simple question to answer. Increasingly academics are recruited into higher education not only on the basis of having a PhD that has been completed, or is about to be completed, but also on the likelihood that the candidate has, or will be able to publish their research or articles based on their research. This pressure to publish has become even more insistent in the UK as a result of the Research Excellence Framework (REF)2 which uses publications as the key measure of research excellence. And, on the basis of this assessment, significant monies are allocated to universities. Quite simply a candidate who has completed a PhD and who has perhaps one or two journal publications (or has these publications planned) is more likely to be recruited than a candidate who has not completed their PhD, or who does not plan to convert their PhD into a monograph or into a series of journal articles. This important, but fundamentally instrumental line of reasoning masks a number of other more academic – intellectual, if you would prefer – reasons why you should publish your work. After all, how do you get your work noticed if you do not publish? How do you contribute to the development of criminology as an academic discipline if you do not seek to publish your ideas? Your PhD supervisor, peers and perhaps even several others within the university department or faculty where you completed your thesis are likely to be very aware of the nature of your research. Indeed, you should seek out any opportunity to talk about your research in graduate seminars organised at your university and attend relevant academic, or practitioner, conferences where you can again discuss your work. You should also consider joining the Howard League for Penal Reform’s Early Career Academics’ Network (see page 5). However, beyond this small group of people, and the temporary connections or contacts that might be made at a seminar or at a conference, your research is unlikely to reach a wider audience. Publishing not only facilitates a wider audience for your work, but also
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n assessment in the UK of research in universities. The current cycle of assessment is due to complete in 2014. A See www.hefce.ac.uk/research/ref for more information.
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creates a permanent record of the research that you have undertaken. This latter issue is no small matter in the social sciences, where work that has been completed five, ten or perhaps many years previously often only slowly emerges into academic consciousness, perhaps when funding priorities or academic fashions change. Indeed, in our own careers, we note that academic work that we published over a decade ago has only recently started to be cited, when issues which were at one stage seen to be irrelevant have now been deemed to be important. By its very nature, publishing your research also involves that work being reviewed and assessed. This can often be quite frightening, even painful, for a PhD student, or for an early career academic, who might feel exposed, disheartened or, more bluntly, put off by the criticism that is at the heart of the peer review process. But remember, we have all had articles rejected, or had to bear harsh, unreasonable (or so it seemed) criticism. However, publishing your research forces you to expose your ideas to the scrutiny of others, and this in itself can be a valuable learning experience. Indeed, you will be given feedback, both good and bad, from the peer review process, which you can use to further develop your thinking and writing. The key thing to remember throughout this publishing guide, and something which is all too often ignored, is the audience that will want to read your research. After all, the audience for your PhD is likely to be one or two specialists in your particular field who will expect you to engage in some very specific arguments in a detailed way. The audience for a monograph or for a journal article is very different; most obviously it will be more general and less specialised so you should cover only that level of detail that will best reach this more general, academic or practitioner reader. Here too, writing style is important if you want to engage your intended audience, and as one of us has recently written about how to engage in “public criminology”:
“Some of the tools that I have used have been the different writing styles that I have had to develop to reach the audiences that I want to reach… it would probably be more accurate to say ‘styles’, given that how I write is dictated by a number of factors such as whether the piece is for a journal or a book, a particular newspaper, or commissioned as a TV or radio documentary” Wilson, 2011 Looking for Laura: Public Criminology and Hot News, Winchester: Waterside Press, p.xviii
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The Howard League’s Early Career Academics’ Network As already suggested, you should take whatever opportunity to speak about your research, which will allow you to test out your ideas, hear alternative viewpoints, and perhaps begin to develop a network of like-minded researchers, prior to publishing. One such network is the Howard League for Penal Reform’s Early Career Academics Network (ECAN). ECAN was developed in 2009 as part of the charity’s commitment to supporting innovative, radical and influential research but also its commitment to supporting new thinkers. Since that time the network has grown with more than 1000 people receiving information and a bi-monthly bulletin which includes feature articles from new and established academics; member profiles; as well as, first looks at PhD research. ECAN is an internet based network that aims to provide a regular channel of communication and information about research relating to penal reform. It also aims to promote closer working and an interface between the academic community, campaigners and the NGO communities. Although ECAN is primarily an internet based network, the Howard League also organises periodic events aimed at members that have included an exclusive screening of a documentary on supermax prisons in the United States and a pre-publication seminar to research on men’s short term imprisonment. More information about joining ECAN can be found at http://www.howardleague.org/ecan/.
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Conferences Do remember that attending academic conferences remains an invaluable method of identifying specific themes that are emerging in your subject area. And, when you feel confident enough, offering a paper at a conference also allows you to test out your ideas with your peers, and to receive some feedback. This process can often be the beginning of building a paper that you would like to see published. More than this – and something that is often overlooked – attending conferences allows you to network, and to build up a sense of some of the “key players” in your field. It also allows those academics who are more established to identify younger academics who are interested in their research, or who have something new to offer to the subject area. Perhaps one example of this process can be allowed. The December 2011 Special Edition of the Howard Journal of Criminal Justice, for example, was guest edited by Drs. Helen Johnston and Michael Fiddler, and who were both approached to become guest editors as a result of their attendance at an academic conference at Lincoln University in late 2009.
What is impact? Once your research is in the public domain you will want as many people as possible to read what you have written, to take on board what you have argued and ultimately for there to be an impact or change as a result of your work. Making an impact with your research goes beyond public engagement, but nonetheless it is a crucial first step. Impact is an increasingly important and debated concept. The evaluation of research excellence has, for the first time, included research impact in its assessment along with the research outputs and the research environment. Your university departments will be looking for case studies to demonstrate the impact of their department. We believe that this type of exercise and measure of the worth of research, and ultimately the extent to which research will be funded, will increasingly look to the impact or the change that has been brought about by research. What does “impact” mean? At a conference about impact at the London School of Economics in the summer of 2011, Patrick Dunleavy described impact as “a recorded or otherwise auditable occasion of influence from university research upon another actor or organisation”.
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So, how can you ensure that your published, peer reviewed article has the greatest chance of making some impact on other “actors” (by which we mean not simply other academics), or other organisations (by which we mean not simply other universities)? Guidance has been published (REF 2012) by HEFCE regarding the general principles around which impact will be judged. Criminology may be submitted to any of three separate supanels for assessment (law; social policy and administration; and, sociology) and each panel has identified examples of impact types and examples of evidence/ indicators of impact. These are merely examples which are neither exhaustive nor prescriptive.
Examples of impact • Impacts on creativity, culture and society Could include: production of cultural artefacts like films or documentaries; influential contributions to campaigns for social, economic, political and/or legal change; or, enhanced cultural understandings of issues and phenomena, shaping or informing public attitudes and values • Impacts on practitioners and professional services Could include: influence of professional standard, guidelines or training; use of research findings by professional bodies to define best practice, formulate policy, or to lobby government or other stakeholders; or, practitioner debate informed or stimulated by research findings • Impacts on public policy, law and services Could include: legislative change, development of legal principle or effect on legal practice; shaping of influence on policy made by government, quasi-government bodies, NGOs or private organisations; or, changes to the delivery or form of any service for the public. Taken from a more extensive table published in REF(2012) Panel criteria and working methods.
Nonetheless there are some practical pointers which can improve the potential for good public engagement and thereby giving it a better chance of translating your work into research that has an impact. First, articles need as good a title as possible. It should catch the eye and draw a reader in. Titles need to relate to the subject area but that does not omit the potential for creativity in relation to what you call your work. You might think that this is too banal even to consider. But you should read through the article titles in a 7
journal you would wish to publish in and decide for yourself if some simply sound more appealing and interesting than others. Allied to naming your article, it is important to think very carefully about the abstract and your chosen key words. Often it is only the abstract, or the key words, that get read or get searched online by others interested in your academic territory. A good abstract can really encourage other people to read and engage with your work. What about your name? This might seem like a silly point, but consistently naming your work in a specific way is also going to ensure that you have a distinct publishing identity, which in the long run will draw attention to your work. In criminology, for example, there are two Richard Sparks, two Rob Mawbys and two David Wilsons who are professors – although only one of these is a Professor of Criminology. How can they differentiate themselves from each other? The use of initials or middle names is one obvious way to do this, and you should be aware if there are other criminologists working in your field that have the same, or similar, names. So, try to be distinct. Finally, consider how your university’s press and marketing teams might be able to promote your work. Some journals, like the Howard Journal of Criminal Justice, will press release a statement about articles that are going to appear in their next issue. Regardless of the journal’s practice, you should be proactive with your university’s press team to try and get wider, media, coverage of your work. In our experience, this process will allow consideration of how the research, and its necessarily academic format for a peer review journal, might be translated into a format that can generate the widest possible audience; bridging the gap between academia and the wider community. And, should your research generate a news media story, this is the most immediate way of demonstrating, as Patrick Dunleavy has argued, a “recorded or otherwise auditable occasion of influence from university research upon another actor or organisation.”
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Publishing options
This guide is largely concerned with peer review journal articles, although there are obviously other forms of publication. These range from monographs (an authored, research-based book), book chapters, review articles and various forms of electronic publication, which might not necessarily be peer reviewed. Our main focus is on peer review journal articles because, by and large, these will be the form in which you are most likely to publish at the start of your career.
Peer review journal articles There are a number of advantages which come from publishing peer review journal articles. The most immediate of these is visibility, especially if you choose the journal to which you are going to send your article wisely. Converting your research into one, or indeed several book chapters means that you run the risk that your research will get lost if the book fails to find an audience. On the other hand, a journal article not only has the built–in audience of that journal’s readership which is enhanced by various consortia deals undertaken by publishers with academic libraries in this country and abroad, but also an audience that can come through a number of marketing activities that some journals undertake. For example, the Howard Journal of Criminal Justice press releases the lead article in each issue of the journal, and given the links that the journal has with the Howard League for Penal Reform, this can often result in the article generating news coverage in the print and broadcast media.
Book reviews as an intermediary step One good way to begin the process of learning how to write for a journal is to volunteer your services as a book reviewer. This simple process not only gives you a free book, but also gets your name known to the Editorial Board that runs a particular journal. Building up your contacts in this way might seem laborious, but the more you volunteer your services, the greater the willingness of that journal to consider your work. However, there is an obvious danger too. If you fail to deliver on your book reviews, or deliver these reviews after they had been asked for, you will create a reputation for yourself that is less than flattering! 9
Monographs It remains rare (although not unheard of) for a PhD in criminology to be converted into a monograph. This reality should not be taken to imply that PhDs in criminology are not worthy of publication in this form, but rather reflects the commercial value that is placed on publications of this kind by publishing houses.
Book chapters The most commercially successful form of publishing in criminology remains contributing chapters for student textbooks and, while this form of publishing is extremely important for teaching purposes, it is viewed least favourably by the REF. As a result you should be careful about spending too much of your time and attention in writing textbooks, or chapters for textbooks, no matter how tempting these are to do. Writing of this kind clearly gets your name better known, and what you produce will clearly have an impact with students (both good reasons in themselves not to be too dismissive of this activity) but you do need to get the balance right between writing in this genre and writing peer review articles.
Publishing in the media, electronic journals and beyond the academy One way of demonstrating impact is to write about your subject matter in a broadcast or in a print news outlet. Here the important thing to remember is that if you are approached to write for a newspaper, or for a web page hosted by Sky News or the BBC, for example, keep in mind our advice about your audience and your writing style. You are not “dumbing down�, but simply finding different ways of expressing your ideas so that
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they can reach and be understood by the widest possible audience. Indeed this “reach” is one of the most attractive consequences of choosing to write for these outlets. Quite simply, more people will read an editorial or comment piece that you have written in a newspaper or magazine than will hear you speak at an academic conference, or will read what you have written in a peer review journal. However, we can offer you a few tips when writing in the media, based on our extensive experience of having done so: • A lways ask for “copy approval”. In other words insist that you see and approve of the text that is going to be published. Often you will have been asked to provide 750 words, but this might be edited down to 600 depending on space in the newspaper. By asking for copy approval you get to see how your article has been edited, and the right to demand that changes should be made if that editing has changed, even slightly, how you wanted to express yourself; • S ometimes you will be interviewed by a journalist, who will then turn that interview into the text that is to be published in your name. Again you should ask for copy approval, so that any material that goes out in your name genuinely reflects what you wanted to say. However, there are also advantages to engaging with a journalist in this way. For example, the journalist knows the outlet’s house style, and of course giving an interview is always much quicker than sitting down to write; • A sk to be paid! There is always a budget for this type of writing, and you should not be afraid to ask for payment. Of course we live in the age of electronic publishing and all of the criminology or criminal justice journals that you might be considering sending an article to are now available online in an electronic format. One added advantage of this has been that online-beforeprint services ensures electronic publication once the editorial process has been
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completed, and therefore authors no longer have to wait for the paper publication of their work. The Howard Journal of Criminal Justice has also published a number of online student readers, although these have been selected journal articles in electronic format, based on the theme of the student reader, and in keeping with the Howard Journal of Criminal Justice most electronic journals are offshoots of long established paper journals. However, the Internet Journal of Criminology, www.internetjournalofcriminology.com, largely based in Nottingham Trent University, is a free access online criminology journal, which not only publishes peer review articles, but also PhD and Masters theses which “are considered by the Editorial Board to be worthy of publication�. All submissions to the Internet Journal of Criminology are peer reviewed, and so our earlier advice remains as above, but this might be one way of getting a PhD or Maters thesis into wider circulation. You might also consider writing about your subject area for an NGO, such as the Howard League for Penal Reform, or for a charity which is concerned with an aspect of your work. This has the added advantage of making your research relevant within the policy arena, which is also important for the REF, and is again an excellent way of getting your work known to a wider audience. Above all, if you write for an NGO you will begin to see how academic work can be shaped to create influence outside of the academy; a process that remains exciting, if at times baffling!
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Preparing a peer review article
The article is likely to be based on your PhD thesis, therefore it is vital to remember that the article has to be re-shaped most obviously in relation to its size, but also with regards to its content and structure. Put simply it has to stand alone as a distinct piece of scholarship. As such it needs to explain its relevance to the secondary literature; the approach that has been adopted; its methodology and it has to come to a conclusion that can be sustained by its internal argument. Often the best way to think about this is to identify the key question that the article is seeking to answer. Sometimes this key question is also known as the hook of the article, and it is this hook which will give your article a focus. You can often discover this hook by thinking about how you reply when a friend asks you “so, what’s your research about?” How do you answer that question, especially if your friend is not an expert in your particular area of expertise? But the work in re-shaping your PhD thesis into an article does not stop there. You need to consider the answers other questions: “Why is this hook important?” “How does this article relate to other work that has been published?” And, most important of all, “How am I going to answer the question that I have posed in a way that will convince the reader?” The answers to these questions are for you to decide, but do remember the importance of the audience in relation to what you are writing. In the same way that you would answer a question differently depending on whether or not you were asked that question during your PhD viva, or by a friend in the pub, so too you should think about the readers of the journal that you have sent your article to. All too often, for example, articles will be sent to the Howard Journal of Criminal Justice which are clearly based on a PhD thesis, but which have not been re-shaped to suit a more general audience, or are not in our house style, or worst of all, have obviously been written for another journal and from which they have been rejected. All of this underscores the importance of choosing the right journal to which to submit your work.
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Which journal? The UK academic community is currently preparing for the assessment of its research excellence: REF. It is notable that the guidance provided by REF suggests that no use will be made of citation data, sometimes described as a bibliometric analysis and that there is no “hierarchy of journals”. In other words, the gold standard for publications being assessed within criminology in the REF remains articles published in peer review journals, which also explains the particular focus of this guide. And, the advice that there is no hierarchy of journals also means that the much talked about impact factors of competing journals is less relevant as far as REF is concerned, and which therefore allows you to choose a journal on different criteria, so long as the journal is peer reviewed (and therefore see our comments above about the Internet Journal of Criminology). Given REF’s advice that in criminology there is no hierarchy of journals, how should you go about choosing which journal you to submit your work? In some ways this is another easy question to answer. After all, you will have been reading academic journals throughout your postgraduate careers, and you will have already found a journal, perhaps even several journals, that you enjoy reading. Obviously it is to these journals that you should first submit your work. But there are other ways of choosing a journal and their often subtle differences are usually to be found in each journal’s editorial policy. Another basic, but more practical difference between journals is the expected word length of the articles published. The Howard Journal of Criminal Justice accepts articles that are between 6,000–8,000 words long. While The British Journal of Criminology will accept articles between 6,000–10,000 words. Given that the average PhD is about 80,000 words, these accepted word lengths indicate the level of re-shaping required when submitting to each of these journals. There are other also other practical issues to consider, such as the house style of the journal (e.g. does it accept footnotes or endnotes, does it use the Harvard style of referencing?) and how long it takes for an article, once it has been accepted, to then appear in print? An article that has been accepted for publication, but is waiting in a queue to be published is generally not going to be visible until publication date.
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The longest that we have had to wait for an article to be published is 16 months, and obviously there are many disadvantages in having to wait for that length of time. After all, research can often become out of date and sometimes quite quickly. So some journals advertise their waiting times between acceptance and publication and most journals now have various mechanisms that publish some articles online prior to publication in the hard copy of the journal. At the Howard Journal of Criminal Justice this is referred to as Early View. This means that the article, and your research, can quickly become visible prior to the formal publication date.
Ethical practice Do remember that there are a number of ethical rules to guide you when you are publishing articles. First and foremost, it is widely considered unethical to submit the same article to more than one journal at the same time. You can, of course, submit your article to another journal if the article has been rejected. You can also publish articles in different journals which are based on the same research, or ideas, but these should have a distinctive take on the materials and thus not be too similar an earlier accepted article. This does mean that you can often get two (or more) articles out of the same research, but you should be careful that you do not become too repetitive, and which would therefore lessen your reputation for innovation. It is also ethical to acknowledge all of those people who have contributed to your research, or to your writing. If there is more than one author of the paper, but all authors have contributed equally, then the names on the article should be in alphabetical order. If not, the lead author’s name should go first, with the contributions of co-authors in descending order. And, do remember, in the REF, the same article cannot be “claimed� by more than one author working at the same institution. Finally, you should acknowledge at the end of your article if the research that formed the basis of what you have written was sponsored by a funding body.
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The peer review process Prior to an article’s being accepted for publication in a journal, its suitability will be assessed via the peer review process. This process can be regarded as having three distinct phases: • The pre-screening of the article. This is usually undertaken by the editor or sometimes by the editorial board (or a combination of both); • The refereeing itself; and, • The decision about whether to publish or not. The pre-screening of the article will usually involve a preliminary evaluation considering, for example, whether or not it was in the journal’s house style or if it was scholarly enough to go out for peer review. An editor does not want to annoy reviewers by sending them articles which are clearly not sufficiently well-written, clear, or, of an acceptable academic standard. So this pre-screening will often root out those submissions which are simply not up to the mark. Refereeing is the longest part of the peer review process and can take several months, depending on how busy the peer reviewer is and their other commitments. Occasionally the peer review process has to begin again after several months because the reviewer subsequently finds it impossible to complete the review, after having agreed to undertake the task. Understandably this can be frustrating for authors, but peer reviewers are not paid for this work, and have to find time in the course of their own research, writing and teaching to complete the review. Referees are usually drawn from the journal’s editorial board, or where this is not possible from a group of assessors who will be acknowledged within the journal. The editor will identify two people to review each submitted article based on their wider expertise and specific knowledge of the subject area. However, this process is blind: this means neither reviewer will know the identity of the other and, as far as possible, the editor or publishing editor will have removed any obvious references to the identity of the author from the submission. This is not always easy to do.
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For example, if you write in the body of the article, “as I have previously argued, (see Bloggs, 2010)” it is quite obvious that the author of the current article is in fact “Bloggs”. Due to the nature of the task, referees will be critical and some can be brutal. Perhaps this brutality is facilitated by the anonymity of the peer review process, or a particular reviewer might want to protect an academic turf that they have carved out from the criticism of new researchers. However, it is up to the editor to assess what has been said and ensure that there is fairness in the process. Thankfully in our own experience of the Howard Journal of Criminal Justice the vast majority of reviewers are very conscientious and encouraging in their comments that support the decision that is made. The reviewer has to make one of three decisions: • Accept with minor revisions; • R evise and re-submit with the author asked to respond directly to the reviewers’ comments; • Reject. In our experience, the most common decision is to revise and re-submit. In such cases, the author is sent detailed comments by each reviewer about the changes they think are necessary for the article to reach publication standard. It is then up to the author to respond to those suggestions in a positive way, re-submitting the article to the editor and pointing out how the article has been amended. Alternatively it is the author’s prerogative to decide that the reviewers have got it wrong and therefore to try and place the article elsewhere. Of course, on rare occasions, one reviewer might suggest that the article should be accepted and the second that it should be rejected. When this happens the editor will identify a third reviewer which, again, can delay a decision being made. Hard as it may be, if your article is rejected resist the temptation to argue with the editor! After all, the editor is hardly likely to go back on the recommendations of the reviewers and the best advice that we can give in these circumstances is to take a long, hard look at what has been said and, as best you can, try and accommodate these views and then submit your article to another journal.
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A publisher perspective
It is often somewhat unclear to authors, both in the early and the more advanced stages of their careers, exactly what the role of the publisher is beyond the printing of the hard copies of a journal or a book and hosting the electronic versions on a website. A publishing house is, however, far more than a printing press. Basic knowledge of the publishing industry would help you as an author in not only understanding the processes your manuscript would go through before it eventually reaches the public; it would also help you tremendously when you are looking for a home for your work, be it your next journal article, book chapter or monograph. In this section, we focus on the journal article publishing experience as this is the one that you will go through most frequently during your academic career. In addition to the peer review process, there are three main aspects of journal publishing, which you should be aware of: the production of your manuscript as an online and print product, its distribution and promotion worldwide, and its life beyond publication.
Production of the manuscript As explained in the earlier sections of this guide, when your manuscript is submitted to a journal, it will go through at least one round of peer review. Eventually, if your research is strong, new and relevant to the journal’s audience, it will be accepted for publication by the journal’s Editor(s). From that point, your manuscript will be handed over to the publisher for a complex series of polishing and re-formatting. Depending on the journal’s specific procedures, your article may be sent to a copy editor who would check that your text complies with the journal’s house style. At this point it becomes crucial that you have followed the author guidelines of this specific journal before you submitted your paper in the first place. Any deviation from the guidelines might result in delays in publication. While it is expected that there may be a small number of corrections necessary to the text at this point, your paper should be in good English, your references list should be complete and all your figures and tables should be present. A copy editor might make some suggestions regarding improving your style for clarity, however they will not change the meaning of your arguments.
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Your article will also be typeset into the journal’s individual layout and a PDF proof will be sent to you. You will be asked to comment on the corrections made to your article and clarify vague statements or provide additional information. The quicker you return your corrections, the quicker your manuscript will move on to the next stage of the process. Many publishers now offer journal authors access to an online system that would allow you to track your manuscript during the production process. You should always take advantage of such an offer as it makes the process your manuscript goes through so much more transparent and it also puts you in touch with the publisher directly. You should always feel free to ask questions if anything is unclear; the production editor working on your paper will be glad to help. Once your text has been edited and typeset, the final version of your article will be prepared for online and print publication. More and more often online publication happens much earlier than print. This is one of the many advantages that the Internet has brought to the publishing industry in recent years. Many journals offer an onlinebefore-print service which allows your article to be posted on the web as soon as it has completed the production process without it being allocated to a specific issue or volume. The electronic article would be considered the version of record and cannot be changed, even though it may often seem tempting to make a few final tweaks before print publication. Your article now has a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) which will remain constant through its life and can be used in future citations. The article will also eventually be allocated to an issue and may appear in print depending on whether the journal publishes a print version. It is worth keeping in mind that the Internet has become a predominant means of distribution very rapidly, so much so that many journals now are published exclusively in an electronic format.
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Distribution This brings us to the second main activity of the publishing house – that is making your article available to as many readers as possible around the globe. This process begins a few steps before the actual publication of the article. The World Wide Web is now so vast and the number of articles it contains so many, that it becomes more and more difficult to find relevant and reliable information in this giant pool of published content. Think of the millions of articles published every year that make this problem even worse as time goes by. It is the publisher’s job to make your article discoverable among everything else that has been officially published, unofficially posted or even accidentally appeared online. Your article would therefore be coded and tagged by the publisher during the production process specifically for the purpose of being found in the online world. Search engines such as Google and Yahoo, but also social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn, are becoming the main gateways to published research. Journals are also indexed by various abstract services which target specific audiences who might be interested in your work. Furthermore, the journal itself would be promoted widely by the publisher’s marketing team. If you are subscribed to email updates in your field of study or research, you would already have seen at least one email marketing campaign which promotes journal content relevant to you. Moreover, publishers often exhibit at conferences as well as funding various prizes and events. Don’t be afraid to visit the publisher stand at the conferences you attend and talk to them about your research and what publications you find relevant; they do want to know and might be able to give you some useful advice on publishing your work!
After publication After publication, the life of your article will remain active for many years in the case of the social sciences. Naturally, it will be read and hopefully cited in other publications. This is something the publisher keeps a very close eye on, as authors whose research is highly downloaded and cited are very valuable to the journal and may therefore be invited to contribute in future. Therefore it is necessary for the publisher to monitor and analyse the performance of each article in each journal. This can be very beneficial to you as an author, as the publisher’s ultimate goal is to increase the impact of the journal you have published in. Furthermore, your article may be re-used wholly or partially either by yourself or others in future publications. In these cases, the publisher’s rights and permissions department is there to protect your work from any misuse in future. Ethics remains a key concern in the publishing industry and most journals you will come across are members of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). 20
Information about the Howard Journal This guide has mentioned The Howard Journal of Criminal Justice on several occasions, and so it is only right that we provide you with some basic information about the Journal – which in 2011 published its 50th Volume. After all, we hope that you will submit your work to us! The Howard Journal of Criminal Justice is a peer review journal which is concerned with all major aspects of the criminal justice process, penal policy and crime prevention, in Britain and overseas. The Journal is available through online subscription to over 3,600 institutions across the world and is the premier forum where academic theory, and the policy and practice of criminal justice meet. The Journal is proud to be associated with, but is editorially independent of The Howard League for Penal Reform – the oldest penal reform organisation in the World, and one which has UN and EU Consultative status. In fulfilling our editorial policy the Journal welcomes contributions not only from academics and researchers, but from practitioners, policy makers and those with relevant voluntary experience. It is especially pleased to publish work from serving, or former prisoners. The Howard Journal aims to publish material of a high academic standard but written so far as possible in a non-technical style, not over-burdened with statistical tables or specialist terminology. Each edition of the Howard Journal has a book review section and a Counterblast. The counterblast allows an author to engage more popularly with an issue about the criminal justice process, penal policy and crime prevention which is being reported on in the print or broadcast news, and the lead article in each edition is the subject of a press release. Authors should note that the members of the Editorial Advisory Group (EAG) are committed to a policy of anti-racism and anti-sexism in respect of the terminology used in articles in the Journal. The aim of the EAG is to have submissions peer reviewed in a timely manner, and typically the time taken from submission to publication is less than 12 months. In particular the Journal also utilises an online early publication system, with three months being the average time taken from receipt for production to publication on Early View. Authors can also follow electronically how often their article has been cited. Further details about our Editorial Policy may be found in our Notes for Authors, which you can access from the journal homepage, or by typing the following URL into your browser http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1468-2311/ homepage/ForAuthors.html Full information about the Howard Journal of Criminal Justice can be found at: http://wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/hojo.
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Information about the Howard League The Howard League for Penal Reform is the oldest penal reform charity in the world. It was established in 1866 as the Howard Association and was named after John Howard, the first prison reformer. It is a registered charity, company limited by guarantee and incorporated in England and Wales and a law firm regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority with both a public law and a prison law contract to provide legal services to young people in custody. It is governed by a constitution and memorandum and articles of association. The principal activity is that of a charity working for less crime, safer communities and fewer people in prison. The Howard League for Penal Reform has consultative status with both the United Nations and the Council of Europe. The main charitable objects for which the Howard League was established as described in its 1967 Memorandum and Articles of Association were:
“to promote the sciences of penology and criminology, social health, the welfare and constructive treatment of pre-delinquents and offenders, the education, further education and advancement and pursuit of knowledge relating to penology, criminology, social health and delinquency, the training of those who deal with offenders and pre-delinquents and the prevention and limitation of criminal and anti-social activities.�
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Today, this statement translates to the Howard League for Penal Reform: • Working for a safe society where fewer people are victims of crime • T he belief that offenders must make amends for what they have done and change their lives • T he belief that community sentences make a person take responsibility and live a law-abiding life in the community. T he Howard League is committed to achieving principles and radical change through the work it undertakes which includes: • Research, inquiry and monitoring • Exchange of ideas and provision of education • Legal intervention on behalf of young people • Demonstration projects inside prisons • Parliamentary and government relations • Multi-media, publications and campaigns • Links with international bodies, voluntary and statutory agencies • H olding the government to account for the way people are treated in the penal and prison systems. For more information about the range of work the Howard League undertakes visit: www.howardleague.org.
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