Academic Writing – ConJunction

Submission Fees Are Coming: There Are Better Alternatives

Screenshot of journal submission fee announcment by California Management Review — Screenshot of the announcement by California Management Review to introduce submission fees

Journal submission fees are coming to organization and management research. California Management Review has just announced that it introduces submission fees of $75 to $150 per article submitted. Paying this fee is the precondition for even being considered for peer review, yet your article might still get desk rejected. The reason stated for this move is of course even higher submission numbers due to AI.

While submission fees are common in neighbouring disciplines such Economics, I still think they are a very bad idea: scholars from well-funded institutions (mostly situated in the Global North) won’t be affected but other scholars will be. It deepens the already enormous gulf in academic opportunity between well-funded and less well-funded research institutions, which is amplified by the self-reinforcing feedback loop of publication output and third-party funding input.

While submission fees might seem like a necessary fix to ever-increasing submission numbers outpacing reviewing capacities, there are alternative measures that could be taken:

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New Paper: “Dear vulnerability … writing toget-her to escape and resist the neoliberal university”

I – Ellen, Milena, Monica – wrote toget-her, becoming the Collective I. It is not just a paper. It’s love, pain, struggle, courage, connection and togetherness, navigating the challenges of academic writing as early career scholars. It’s an intimate, personal encounter of my vulnerabilities, embraced in and through a collective letter diary.

And it’s open access, open to all people interested in writing differently toget-her.

You can find it here.

Coffee – PuB – Peers and Beverages: Academic Writing as an Early Career Scholar

Join us for an open conversation on academic writing, its beauty and challenges, and the pressure of “you should be writing” as early career scholars over a coffee on March 14th!

Academic writing can be a fulfilling but also challenging and overwhelming experience for early career scholars. On March 14th from 13.00 to 14.30, please join us for an honest exchange on our struggles and great moments in writing. Daniela Rothe (Writing Center, University of Innsbruck) will talk about the practice of journalling in academia, the tinkering between the scientific object itself and writing, and the re-(production) of gender stereotypes in scientific writing. Monica, Milena, and Ellen (early career researchers at the University of Innsbruck & Leuphana University Lüneburg) will share their writing experiences based on a collective letter diary they wrote to each other over a couple of months to reflect on their writing practices.

We would love to hear about your experiences, too, and together question and discuss the norms and ways of academic writing.