DW/R has been published on a no-fee, open-access basis since 2011.

Information for contributors

Prospective authors should register and make electronic submissions through the online system: https://journals.sfu.ca/dwr/index.php/dwr/user/register. Authors are encouraged to acquaint themselves with previously published issues of DW/R. DW/R accepts Major Articles, shorter papers for the Writing in Practice section, and Reviews:

Major Articles (7,000–9,000 words): 

Papers submitted as major articles should clearly advance knowledge in discourse or writing studies in any context and/or discipline. We publish theoretical explorations of topics of interest to writing and discourse scholars as well as both quantitative and qualitative research studies. Manuscripts must not exceed a total of 9,000 words, including references and appendices. See author guidelines below.

Writing in Practice (2,000–3,000 words):

These are short articles describing strategies for using writing pedagogically in higher education. Articles should provide a brief description of a writing assignment, a method of teaching writing, or some other deployment of writing and discourse, with an emphasis on how writing is used to: 

• develop a writer’s effective participation in disciplinary discourse
• teach strategies for applying writing processes
• teach threshold concepts in any substantive area for any discipline
• teach the concept of genre or a particular genre form
• teach approaches to research writing and the presentation of findings
• supervise graduate students’ theses and dissertations

These papers are intended to be scholarly in nature, but the use of alternate voices to the academic voice are welcome. Authors should reflect upon the learning that transpired for the student writer(s). The goal is to present readers with a description of a writing pedagogy that can be replicated within or modified for another learning context. Citations should be limited to at most 10. Due to the limitations of this section and its reflective intent, it is not recommended that empirical studies describing research methods and findings be submitted in this category. Authors wishing to submit a qualitative or quantitative research study report  should submit under Major Articles. Authors uncertain of the fit of their teaching approach for this article category are welcome to email the editors. See author guidelines below.

Reviews (1,000-2,000 words):

DW/R aims to publish English and French reviews of books, websites, and other texts in the areas of writing and discourse studies/rédactologie. Reviews should critically engage with the subject matter to inform the DW/R readership of new practices, theories, and pedagogical resources within our research community; our goal is to increase engagement with DW/R among interdisciplinary researchers in the fields of writing and discourse studies/rédactologie. DW/R’s readers include graduate students, faculty, program administrators, writing centre professionals, and teachers. We are interested in publishing reviews of multimodal texts, and interested in publishing reviews that vary from the convention; authors are encouraged to read “The book review is dead,” by Letitia Henville for some ideas. See review submission guidelines below.

Author guidelines for major articles and Writing in Practice:

Major articles and Writing in Practice manuscripts must:

• include an abstract of 100–200 words and 3–5 keywords to facilitate electronic search
• be double-spaced throughout, including the abstract, block quotations, tables, figures, notes, references, and any appendices. Tables and figures should be placed in appropriate locations within the text, not in additional files
• be submitted in one electronic file in .doc or .docx format in the following order: acknowledgments, abstract, body of text, references, appendices
• include, where available, URLs for the references
• follow the guidelines of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA), 7th edition
• not include identifying information about the author in the text or file properties. References to specific institutions should be avoided. Blinding of self-citations is only necessary if it would be obvious to readers that the work belongs to the current submitting authors. For example, authors should avoid writing statements such as, “As we found in our previous work (Mitchell & Zwagerman, 2020) . . .”

Author guidelines for reviews: 

An effective review will:

• inform the reader about the focus and organization of the text (e.g., summarize its main arguments) and its intended audience
• show how the text is situated within the field of writing and discourse studies
• critically analyze the content of the text with a view to assessing the extent to which it contributes to existing scholarship
• provide a balanced overview of the text’s strengths and limitations

DW/R does not accept unsolicited reviews. For a list of texts we would like to have reviewed, see https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hCmVjNrJ-qkVZLwSm1geRw7JBNa9vJ0jVC9kWXD6cB0/edit?usp=sharing

• Once reviewers have confirmed their texts with the Review Editors and received their texts (if applicable), reviewers should submit a review within 4 to 6 months of receiving the text.
• Reviewers should send the review to the Review Editors in .doc or .docx format. Reviews should follow APA formatting (7th edition). The title of the review should include the name of the reviewed text and its author(s). Include as well the following applicable information for the text: website, publisher, number of pages, and DOI.
• Reviewers will be notified of acceptance and/or revisions within one month of initial submission.
• Reviewers will work with Review Editors on revisions.
• Once revisions have been finalized, reviewers will be notified and reviews will be submitted to theDW/R Editors for final review and publication.

Please send any questions you might have about the process to the Review Editors.