Call for Nominations and Applications

Editor, Rhetoric Society Quarterly

Call for Nominations and Applications:
Editor, Rhetoric Society Quarterly

Job Description

The editor of RSQ produces four issues of the journal per year. This entails the following activities:

1. Receiving manuscripts, supervising their review, deciding whether or not to accept them for publication, and writing decision letters to authors.
2. Selecting a set of accepted manuscripts to comprise each issue of the journal.
3. Submitting that issue to the editorial and production staff at Taylor and Francis 120 days before the publication date for the issue.
4. Reviewing and approving copy and format for each issue prior to publication.
5. Forming and maintaining an Editorial Board.
6. Directing the annual review of each volume of the journal by a subcommittee from the Editorial Board to decide the Kneupper Award winner for the best article published that year in RSQ.

Manuscript load

During the last four years, RSQ has received an average of about 100 submissions a year. The number of submissions each year seems to be increasing slowly. The majority of those submissions are rejected by the editor in an initial screening. A minority are sent out for review. The acceptance rate has held at about 20%.

Other editorial duties

As an officer of RSA, the editor is expected to attend two board meetings per year, and to participate in the ongoing deliberations among the officers.

Institutional support

Because production of the journal is now the contract responsibility of Taylor & Francis, and because submission and review processes are now almost entirely electronic, much less institutional support is needed than in the past. In the past, editors have used a student editorial assistant for 10 hours per week, and have relied on institutional support for computer, mailing, and telephone facilities.

Under the new system, the editor would need travel support for two meetings of the RSA officers per year. Beyond that, the work of editor merits a course release if that is available, and about five hours a week from a student editorial assistant would be helpful. RSA provides an annual stipend of $4,000 to the institution to defray some of these expenses.

Nomination materials

Nominations for RSQ Editor should include:

• A statement accepting the nomination.
• A statement about editorial plans and projections for the journal, including the ability to meet editorial deadlines.
• A current curriculum vita.
• At least two letters of support from persons qualified to assess the candidate's ability to edit the publication.
• A letter from the responsible administrator confirming that institutional support (including released time, administrative support, and costs of supplies, copying, etc.) will be covered.

The editorial search committee consists of David Zarefsky (Chair), Patricia Bizzell, Janet Atwill and Edward Schiappa. Nominations and supporting information should be sent to:

David Zarefsky
President Elect, Rhetoric Society of America
Department of Communication Studies
Northwestern University
1815 Chicago Avenue
Evanston, Illinois 60208-1340

Nominations received by March 15, 2006 will receive full consideration. Inquires may be made to d-zarefsky@northwestern.edu.