Editorial Policies

Focus and Scope

Stream: Culture/Politics/Technology is a peer-reviewed graduate e-journal for students in communication studies and cognate fields. Its focus is on the three often-overlapping “streams” of concentration in communication: culture, politics, and technology. Papers should fit into one of the proposed streams, but we invite contributors to challenge their conceptions of these subjects with innovative takes on these fields. We hope that this student initiative will become a space for graduate students to publish new work and expand upon new ideas, contributing to a thriving graduate intellectual culture.

 

Section Policies

Articles

Academic articles should be 15-20 pages in length and offer a unique contribution to academic knowledge. In order to be considered for publication, the articles should already be in an advanced editing stage, having been meticulously proof-read by their authors. Articles with significant grammatical, typographical or citation errors should be returned to authors for correction prior to being sent out for peer review. Students are especially encouraged to submit revised chapters from their theses.

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Reviews

Editors
  • Fiona MacGregor, School of Communication, Simon Fraser University
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Critical Essays

Critical essays are a hybrid of criticism, academic writing, journalism, and creative writing, and reflect an older tradition of popular intellectual criticism as found in literary supplements, feuilletons, and editorial writing for newspapers. Critical essays should engage their topic with insight, creativity, and rigour, but are not required to elaborate on their methodology, sources, or theoretical frameworks to the depth that is expected of academic essays. Thoughtful, well- articulated and supported arguments are required in critical essays, which should be between 15 and 25 pages in length. Formatting and citations should conform to the guidelines for "Academic Essays."

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Creative Works

We are accepting creative writing and multi-media projects that contain a significant connection to or exploration of topics relevant to communication scholarship. Broadly conceived, these span technology, culture, and media. All projects should begin with a brief artists' statement of no more than 1 page in length, identifying the works' location within the discursive field of communications. Multi-media projects can be or include: creative writing, photography, video, and sound art. If the project is a creative writing piece, photography series, or combination thereof, the total length of the work should not exceed 15 pages and must be submitted in a format consistent with standard journal layout and typesetting. Video and sound works should be submitted in an easily readable format, and run no longer than 30 minutes. Citations are not necessary, but if relevant to the work, should conform to the "Academic Articles" guidelines.

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Interviews

Stream accepts interviews conducted by graduate students with academics or other public intellectuals who are working in the field of or are relevant to communication. Submissions should be no more than 15-20 pages in length, include a brief introduction to the interview (under 1000 words), and the interviewer and interviewee's comments should be indicated with their initials. Any works referenced in the interview should be cited with endnotes, which should contain the information that is normally cited intext in brackets in the APA style (i.e. Author, year, page#). A reference list should follow in APA style (follow the guidelines for academic articles). We accept interviews on a continuous basis, but prospective interviewers can contact Rebecca Scott (bscott@sfu.ca) with questions or inquiries.

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Responses

We accept and consider for publication response pieces to any of the articles, commentaries, interviews, etc. that we publish. Responses should be under 10 pages, and should conform to the same guidelines as academic articles. We accept responses on a continuous basis, but prospective authors can contact Rebecca Scott (bscott@sfu.ca) with questions or inquiries.

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Nelson Conference 2010 Special Issue

Editors
  • Bojin Traykov
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Communication & Global Conflicts

Editors
  • Arsalan Butt
  • Rob McMahon, Simon Fraser University
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Political Economics 2010

Editors
  • Rob McMahon, Simon Fraser University
  • Heather Morrison, Simon Fraser University
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Memory and Reconciliation

Editors
  • Rob McMahon, Simon Fraser University
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Peer Review Process

Submissions will be selected through a double-blind review process in which both a blind, graduate student editor and two graduate student reviewers assess submissions for their contribution to knowledge and their relevance for the journal.

Following are Stream's guidelines for peer reviewers:

Stream Peer Review Guidelines

Process and timelines

Please review the abstract, log in to Stream, and indicate whether you will accept the article for review, or not, within a week of receiving the abstract. Normally, you should plan to complete your review within four weeks. If you are interested in doing the review but are unable to work with the 4-year timeframe, you can either decline to review, or get in touch with the editor to find out if additional time would be possible. Prompt reviewing is critical to publishing in a timely manner.

Purpose of the Review

The main purpose of the review is to provide the editor with an expert opinion regarding the quality of the manuscript under consideration. The review should also supply authors with explicit feedback on how to improve their papers so that they are acceptable for publication. This is especially important for a grad student journal. This is a peer exercise, we are here to help each other out.

Writing the Review

Stream is all about grad students helping each other to learn how to write so that we will succeed in having our work published – and connect with readers. The overall tone of the review should be friendly and encouraging; even if it is necessary to reject an article, the author should feel that they have good tips on how to approach their next paper to succeed in having their work published.

Format: there are several options for writing reviews. A brief review can be copied and pasted into the journal management software, or a word document can be uploaded, either a written review or a copy of the article with track changes. Please choose the option that is most comfortable for you.

Although confidential comments to the editors are respected, any remarks that might help to strengthen the paper should be directed to the authors themselves. Editors may choose to pass these comments along to authors. The journal management system makes it possible to blind copy reviewers on comments sent to the author, so that the peer reviewers can compare their contributions with those of the other reviewer and the final decisions of the editor.

A good review would answer the following questions:


  • What are the main claims of the paper?
  • Are the claims properly placed in the context of the previous literature?
  • If the paper involves empirical research, do the data support the claims? If not, what other evidence is required?
  • Is the choice of methodology appropriate? Do you see any problems with the application of the writing or how it is written?
  • Who would find this paper of interest? And why?
  • In what further directions would it be useful to take the current research?


Do not worry if you cannot answer all of these questions. For example, if you know the field well enough to speak to coverage of the literature, but are not expert in the methodology, just let the editor know.

Other Questions for Consideration

In the case of manuscripts deemed worthy of publication, we would appreciate additional advice from the reviewer on the following:


  • Is the manuscript written clearly enough that it is understandable to non-specialists? If not, how could it be improved?
  • Have the authors provided adequate proof for their claims without overselling them?
  • Have the authors treated the previous literature fairly
  • Does the paper offer enough details of its methodology that its research could be reproduced?
  • Stream encourages authors to publish detailed protocols and data as supporting information online. Do any particular methods used in the manuscript warrant such a protocol?


These draft guidelines are based on the Reviewer Guidelines of PLoS One, which can be found at: http://www.plosone.org/static/reviewerGuidelines.action

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Canada License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/ca/ or or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.

Last updated June 14, 2010

 

Publication Frequency

Stream is published biannually.

 

Open Access Policy

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