• If you wish to submit a paper for possible publication in Open Inquiry Archive, please send the Editors a short Letter of Inquiry via our contact form or emailing us. Please include your paper’s topic, a brief abstract (150-200 words), contact information, author academic background, and current title and affiliation, if applicable. Please do not submit full papers prior to communicating with an Editor.

• Open Inquiry Archive also welcomes proposals for Guest Edited/Special Issues of the journal, and our Editorial Board closely collaborates with guest editors in their publication.  Guest Edited Issues usefully address key or emergent issues in the humanities, arts or social sciences with a consistent theme and editorial direction. We are keen to involve colleagues from outside OIA to expand our range and sensibilities. Each issue of OIA—SIS is devoted to a specific area of the humanities, arts, and social sciences. Papers may be scholarly investigations that focus on specific aspects of culture and the arts, or they may be speculative or conceptual explorations of culture-related topics. Please send the Editors a short Letter of Inquiry via email or our contact form. Please include your issue’s topic, a brief abstract (150-200 words), contact information, author academic background, and current title and affiliation, if applicable. Please do not submit full papers prior to communicating with an Editor.

OUR MISSION

Open Inquiry Archive publishes papers on culture and the arts, and especially pieces that explore areas that cross disciplinary boundaries, or that offer new insights into aspects of the author’s own discipline and beyond. Articles that examine or reframe topics in new ways, or that explore connections between areas that are usually treated separately, or that offer reasoned critiques of prevailing perspectives are among the types of work that will be considered. Papers treating topics in the humanities, arts, and social sciences are welcome. Some articles may have been presented previously in a conference or symposium setting, while others may have not before been made public. The ultimate aim is to further scholarly investigation and foster dialogue.

All papers submitted to Open Inquiry Archive are subject to a review process. Papers are considered in terms of OIA’s publishing mission, as well as for quality of scholarship and presentation. The main purpose is to make new ideas and investigations available to interested readers. Please see below for more information.

Specifications

There is no specific requirement as to the length of an article. It is presumed that an article should be of sufficient length to adequately treat the topic, and so there may be wide variation.

OIA accepts articles written according to any of the standard style guides, such as Chicago, MLA, or APA. Authors should indicate to the Editors the style guide they have used.

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THE REVIEW PROCESS

The editors will accept inquiries and initially review submissions for appropriateness to OIA’s mission. Submissions judged by the Editors to warrant serious consideration will be sent to be reviewed by at least two people, usually selected from some combination of the editors, members of the advisory board, or outside readers.

Open /closed review options

Papers submitted to OIA are subject to professional peer review. As a new-model and experimental publication, OIA uses a process that is generally more open than traditional scholarly journals, however.

In most cases, OIA does not take any special measures to shield the identities of authors or reviewers, presuming that openness of this aspect of the peer review enhances and simplifies the process. However, should the author of a work submitted for review wish to remain anonymous to external reviewers during the review process, the editors will respect that request.

Therefore, in usual cases, which use the open review model, both authors and reviewers identities will be made available to each other.

In those cases where anonymity has been requested by a paper’s author, the identities of both the author and external reviewers will be shielded from each other.

Papers submitted without stipulation will be subject to the open review process. This is usually a quick turnaround time with regard to a publication decision. Papers submitted for closed (blind) review take much longer to process, and authors should be aware of that at the time of submission.

Reviewer recommendations

If the two reviewers agree that an article should or should not be published, then the editors will take the recommendation under advisement. If the two readers reach different conclusions, however, then the editors will solicit the opinion of a third reader before making a determination. Thus, the general requirement will be that a paper receive two positive recommendations for publication. Final decisions as to publication are made by the editors at their sole discretion.

Any qualified scholar is invited to inquire about submitting a paper. Should any member of the editorial staff of OIA submit material, that person will be excluded from the review process. We similarly ask that persons with a conflict of interest excuse themselves from reviewing in such a situation.

Other details

Normally, OIA does not use images within articles due to the legal restrictions on the use of copyrighted material. (Please see OIA’s “Statement on Image Use” for more information.) Exceptions to this policy, which are at the sole discretion of the editors, will only be made when authors have written documentation that they have secured the rights to images for publication in this venue.

These policies are subject to change at the discretion of the editors.