Journal Analysis #4: Rhetoric Society Quarterly

Title:  Rhetoric Society Quarterly

Editor:  Gregory Clark, Brigham Young University

Publication Information:  RSQ is the official journal of the Rhetoric Society of America, whose aim is to gather and disseminate the current knowledge of rhetoric and to identify those lacunae where research needs to be done.  It publishes articles on all aspects of the field, including history, theory, pedagogy, criticism, etc.  The audience of RSQ is equally broad, as it includes not only members of the field of rhetoric and composition but also historians, communication scholars, philosophers, political scientists, and others who work with rhetoric in their scholarship.  Published quarterly.  Submissions:  online form, the manuscript should exhibit new knowledge and clearly identify how it is contributing to current or past scholarship.  Subscription fee:  $48 per year.

Accessibility:  Available since 1982 in hard copy format, and in digital format from Jerome library.

Analysis:  RSQ is similar to other journals in its wide scope–it attempts to bring together scholarship from all areas of the field.  It does focus exclusively on issues involving rhetoric, thus more historical and rhetorical modes are used in these articles rather than empirical studies.  Overall, the journal is of about the same quality in research as that of Rhetoric Review, but RSQ has a higher acceptance rate (over 10%), thus, this journal does try to publish a higher number of articles per year.

Journal Analysis #3: Rhetoric Review

Title:  Rhetoric Review

Editor:  Theresa Enos, University of Arizona

Publication Information:  Rhetoric Review is a peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary journal investigating a wide variety of topics within the field of rhetoric.  It is more focused on rhetorical and historical modes than empirical studies, and is more interested in theory than praxis.  It publishes articles as well as discussions on issues in the field.  It also publishes essay reviews and book reviews.  Published quarterly.  The audience is for scholars in rhetoric and composition with an interest in rhetorical analysis and theory.  Submissions should be in hard copy format, including a cover letter, and manuscripts should be no longer than 7500 words.  Subscription costs:  $26 per year.

Accessibility:  Archived from 1982-present online, also available in both hard copy format and digital from 1982-present at Jerome library.

Analysis:  This journal is very reliant on theory, and also has a very low acceptance rate (about 5%).  Scholars published in this journal most often are using library-based research rather than experimental, and issues with theory and history take precedence over pedagogy.  An excellent journal for the best current rhetorical scholarship done in the field.

Journal Analysis #2: KAIROS

Title:  KAIROS:  A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy

Editors:  Douglas Eyman, James A. Inman, Cheryl Ball, Beth Hewett

Publication information:  KAIROS is an online refereed journal focusing on the intersections between rhetoric, technology, and teaching.  Each issue has a special topic, most recently (Fall 2007) the topic was “Scholarly Webtexts.”  As it is a journal created exclusively for the Internet, articles published here make use of the available technology, including the frequent use of hypertext and embedded media.  The audience is meant to be scholars from the entire field interested in technology and composition, as KAIROS attempts to extend its reach to graduate students as well as seasoned professionals.  Published semi annually.  Submissions dealing with pedagogy and technology from scholars at all levels in the field are encouraged, but they stress the articles must conform to their web-centric style.  Subscription:  none (online archive available to anyone).

Accessibility:  Available online as well as through the Library (1996-present).

Analysis:  KAIROS explains that they try to focus on the marginalized voices in the field, and publish work by adjunct, part-time, and graduate student scholars.  They note that they attempt to push the boundaries of the definition of academic writing, and do so in their online environment.  Indeed, KAIROS’s website is impressively “techie,” and often their articles are useful and engage with the current issues of technology in the field.  Still, looking at a few recent articles, there is clearly more that can (and should) be done with the genre of online article…in 2007, mere hypertext (in the majority of the articles) just doesn’t cut it as “pushing boundaries” anymore.  Some of their articles do make greater strides, though, still one notes the reliance on printed text in several other articles.

Journal Analysis #1: College Composition and Communication

Title:  College Composition and Communication

Editor:  Deborah H. Holdstein, Columbia College Chicago

Publication Information:  Part of NCTE, CCC is a journal focusing on teaching and scholarship exclusively at the college level.  It publishes articles on the field of composition studies which range from pedagogy issues to rhetorical analysis.  Broad in scope, it uses a wide range of humanistic methods from many disciplines, and supports sub-disciplines within composition studies, such as technology and writing, composition history, basic writing, WAC, etc.  CCC is often referred to as the flagship journal for rhetoric and composition.  Wide range readership, very diverse, as it includes scholars within the field and outside the composition field as well.  Submissions must be “clearly relevant to the work of college writing teachers and responsive to recent scholarship in composition studies” (“CCC submission information”).  Published quarterly.  Subscription fee:  $75 nonmember, $25 with NCTE membership, $7.50 student membership.

Availability:  Hard copies from 1950-present available, online database of articles (JSTOR III) available from 1950-2003.

Analysis:  Generally this is a very accessible journal, printing useful scholarship that is quite representative of the field.  One big positive to this journal is its diversity, it is able to adequately represent the ever-increasing scope of the rhet/comp field.  It is conscious of its prominent place in the field, and attempts to engage scholars in conversations going on, in special sections of the journal.

If you understand this, then please explain it to me…

I’m doing a study of cookbooks which explores the way they reflect the transfer from primary to secondary orality, as it is demonstrated through new media texts and how they address the audience and interact with them. Using feminist theory–body studies/material culture focus. Perhaps also the theory can be applied in the larger scale, to develop a new theory to apply to material rhetoric. Somehow I want it to do more than just “rewrite women into the rhetorical tradition” and “value cookbooks as rhetoric.” They seem very simplistic.

OK. That was a lot of writer-based prose. But it’s where I am right now. If you’d like to read more of it, let me know and I’ll add you as a member of my other blog, http://thedaily10.blogspot.com. You can’t go there now because it’s set to private, unlike this blog. Invite only

–Elizabeth

Research Narrative

Hello and welcome to my blog! For the past year, I’ve been working on a project involving a historical study of cookbooks and recipes. I first did a genre study of cookbooks, looking at community cookbooks and the ways in which they are like conversations between female authors and readers. I analyzed the language used in these types of recipes and argued that their discourse formed a women’s community. While this project was interesting, it wasn’t an especially new or innovative approach to the text. Much has been written on community cookbooks, and most of those arguments are concerned with the way these texts build community. Also, I hadn’t read Ong yet and didn’t have the theory background needed.

Once I did read Ong’s Orality and Literacy, I also picked up his earlier work on Ramus which gets into how the printed text has influenced our ways of thinking. His last chapter in Ramus is similar to chapters 4 and 5 of O&L, in that he discusses the influence of the printing press. At this same time, I became more interested in early printed versions of cookbooks, as I was observing the formatting changes (from paragraph format to list and numbered step by step format) over time. In this seminar paper (that I will also present at Fems Rhet in October), I re-write women into the rhetorical tradition through the printed cookbook. I focus on the late 19th-early 20th century time period, as this was the birth of mass-produced cookbooks as well as the cookery reform movement. I look at the ways the cookery reform movement used print technology (in the form of charts, tables, lists, and the like) to revise societal misconceptions about housework. I argue the reform movement used the spatial qualities of print to value women’s work. For more details, see the attached abstract.

In fact, these reformers were able to use the print medium to blur the boundaries between private and public spheres of rhetoric. This is a point that I am currently interested in, and want to continue to pursue. However, I also realize that this area can be quite broad and interdisciplinary (I’m already incorporating sources from print culture, oral/literacy studies, food studies, folklore, gender studies, body studies, visual rhetoric, just to name a few outside rhetoric, women’s rhetorical practices and history of rhetoric). I’m also trying to focus on what methods I want to use, and what audience would be most helped by my research.

I currently have a blog that I began this summer when I was writing my specialized prelim and doing research for the initial reading list. If you would be interested in being a member of that blog, let me know–currently it’s set to private because I don’t want people I don’t know reading my ideas. But it’s OK, I trust you

–Elizabeth

Feminism(s) and Rhetoric(s) 2007 abstract