Submission Guidelines

TEACHING Exceptional Children

TEACHING Exceptional Children (TEC) is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal designed specifically for teachers, administrators, paraprofessionals, and other practitioners who work with children and youth with disabilities or who are gifted. As the largest print journal for practitioners involved in special education, TEC has a circulation of about 40,000, including all members of The Council for Exceptional Children as well as other individuals, organizations, and libraries around the world.

The following information is designed to assist authors in preparing materials to submit to TEACHING Exceptional Children. This document replaces all earlier versions.

Is TEC the appropriate journal for publishing my work?

The purpose of TEC is to advance the professional development of practitioners in the field and to provide useful information, resources, and tools for improving education and services for children and youth with disabilities or who are gifted at the preschool, elementary and secondary school levels.

Consistent with this purpose, we publish articles that share innovative and successful methods and materials for use in a wide variety of educational programs and settings. TEC has an open submissions policy and seeks manuscripts from the field on a wide variety of topics and issues related to professional practice and relevant to special education teachers, general education teachers, related services specialists, and administrators in support of their work with students with exceptionalities. We encourage submissions that include multiple authors representing the diversity of professional roles within the field.

We seek to publish original scholarly work that describes: specific instructional and management interventions; action research or research with an applied focus; discussions that help readers understand under-represented points of view (including those of children, youth, and families) concerning exceptionality and schooling; strategies for the reform of service delivery, curriculum components, and professional roles; strategies for fostering and/or improving the professional development of practitioners; information pertaining to state and federal legislation, rules, and regulations; and current and emerging issues related to the effectiveness of programs or specific practices. Manuscripts on these and similar topics will be accepted at any time.

Authors are encouraged to be mindful that the purpose of a professional journal is not to publish all manuscripts that have merit but to select those that represent the most timely and important information according to the aims and scope of the journal within the limitations of available space.

What should I know about TEC before I prepare my manuscript?

Prospective authors are encouraged to review previous issues of this journal to gain a sense of the content and style of articles that have been published and use one or more of these articles as an exemplar in preparing their own work. A sample issue is also available on the TEC web site at:

http://www.cec.sped.org/Content/NavigationMenu/Publications2/TEACHINGExceptionalChildren.

Authors who have any questions about the suitability of their work for TEACHING Exceptional Children should contact the editor for advice.Authors should also consider the following guidelines relative to type of submission, style, format, length, and person-first language in the development of material for TEC.

Type of Submission

Any of the following materials may be submitted for consideration in TEC:

Feature Articles: These manuscripts address topics or issues related to current evidence-based practice in the education of students with exceptionalities at the preschool, elementary or secondary levels with specific suggestions that can be adopted by practitioners.
Media Presentations: These manuscripts present information using nonprint media such as narrated presentation slides, video segments, or downloadable forms.

Style

The hallmark of manuscripts accepted for publication in TEC is their focus on the practical application of knowledge to improve programs or services for students with disabilities or those who are gifted. We encourage authors to write in an easy-to-read style that engages our practitioner audience and avoids academic prose and jargon. As suggested by the literature on improving practice with research, we seek manuscripts that impact how teachers think about their work and provide teachers with tools for improving their practices. We ask that all manuscripts provide an explicit connection to the current professional literature on evidence-based practice in the field.

We look for manuscripts that have a simple message with immediate application to practice, and we strongly encourage the use of sidebars, gray boxes, or supplementary multimedia content ( e.g. video or sound files) that contain valuable supplementary information (i.e. websites, frameworks, guidelines, readings for further study, profiles of the participants, quotes or viewpoints of individuals with a major stake in the intervention described). The editorial staff views these design elements as essential for three reasons:

Gray boxes and sidebars allow authors to feature quotes, viewpoints, or profiles of individuals from groups that have been under-represented in the literature. We are particularly interested in increasing the number of voices in TEC to reflect the diversity of the children and youth we serve as well as the diversity of professional roles that provide services.
Research on adoption of innovation indicates that individuals are at a variety of levels in their interest and understanding of an innovation. As a result, we want to encourage authors to recognize this continuum of knowledge and skill and use gray boxes and sidebars to provide information that will enable self-directed readers to advance their knowledge and skill about the topic whether they are a novice or already fairly well-informed about the topic.
These tools are essential in preparing visually interesting layouts that allow information to be easily understood and readily applied by readers.

Format

Manuscripts should be well-organized and concise. They should be written in a direct, clear, and conversational style.
All material must be double-spaced, including quotations and references, using a standard 12-point in a standard font such as Times New Roman in an appropriate font, with one-inch margins using a current version of Microsoft Word.
Preferred positions of tables and figures should be indicated in the manuscript.
For rules explaining general format, headings, citations and references, and other components, authors should consult the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed., The American Psychological Association, 2010).

Length

Manuscripts published in TEC generally are at least 12 pages and do not exceed 18 double-spaced pages, including the cover page, abstract, figures, and references. Supplementary materials that are published in an interactive format may exceed this page limit or may be submitted in formats such as audio or video files) that cannot be measured in pages.

Person-First Language

Authors are encouraged to write using "person-first" language: we focus on the person even as we acknowledge the exceptionality, both figuratively and literally. This standard will result in terms such as "people with disabilities" rather than "the disabled" or “students who are gifted” instead of “gifted students.”

What should I know about submitting my manuscript to TEC?

Manuscripts will be accepted for review provided that:

The cover letter indicates that the manuscript has not been published in whole or substantial part by another publisher and that the manuscript is not being considered concurrently in whole or substantial part by another publisher.
The journal has the exclusive option on possible publication for a period of 6 months following receipt of the manuscript.
The author assumes responsibility for publication clearance in the event the manuscript was presented at a professional meeting or is the direct product of a project financed by a funding agency.
The author is prepared to grant property rights to CEC for the purpose of publication.
Authors are responsible for the authenticity of all quoted material and bibliographic citations from the original source for quotes in excess of 150 words or for tables or figures reproduced from published works.
The Council for Exceptional Children and the Editors assume no responsibility for statements or opinions expressed by contributors in articles published in TEACHING Exceptional Children.
The Council for Exceptional Children retains literary property rights on copyrighted articles appearing in TEACHING Exceptional Children.

Manuscript Submission Checklist

Prior to submitting your manuscript to TEC, authors should review the following checklist.

Have you:

Prepared a cover letter?: Authors must provide assurances that the manuscript is an original work that has not been previously published and that the manuscript is not being considered concurrently in whole or substantial part by another publisher. Include the name, address, phone number, fax number, and E-mail address (if available) of each author.
Included an abstract?: The first page of the manuscript should repeat the title of the manuscript and include an abstract of no more than 150 words. (The abstract is not printed with the published article but is used for descriptions and marketing.) The name(s) of the author(s) should not appear on this or any subsequent page of text.
Provided a reasonable list of keywords?: Keywords are often used by search engines to identify articles that address specific topics. Authors are encouraged to be prudent in identifying keywords. Carefully consider the terms that would likely be used by a reader who was seeking an article on a topic of interest. For example, an article on teaching reading skills to adolescent students with autism might use the keywords “autism”, “reading”, and “adolescent” but would not be helped by terms such as “disabilities” “secondary” or “language arts”. If all of these items check out, submit your material on-line via the "SUBMIT AN ARTICLE" link. However, PLEASE DO NOT submit duplicate copies of the same article via mail and on-line.

What happens to a manuscript once it is received in the TEC offices?

When material is received at the TEC office, the editor reviews it and decides whether or not to accept the material for peer review. Some of the reasons material may not be accepted for review are: (a) the manuscript is on a topic outside the focus of either journal; (b) the author failed to follow the manuscript guidelines concerning length, format, and style; or (c) articles on this topic were published within the past two years or are slated for publication in the near future. Authors will be promptly notified when manuscripts are not accepted for peer review so that authors can seek other avenues for publication.

Each manuscript accepted for peer review is assigned a unique identification number that is used for tracking the manuscript through the review and publication process. Each manuscript accepted for peer review is acknowledged in an e-mail with the manuscript ID number and detailed information about the expected timelines for the peer review. Authors can expect to receive an acknowledgement e-mail within 2 weeks of the receipt of their manuscript. Authors are encouraged to contact the editorial offices any time during the review process if they have questions about the status of their manuscript.

What should I know about the peer review process used by TEC?

Manuscripts submitted to these journals go through a blind review process (that is, the author's identity is unknown to the reader) for selection. Typically, at least 3 reviewers with expertise in the areas addressed by the material will evaluate the material on the basis of (a) the importance of the topic, (b) originality, (c) clarity, (d) accuracy and validity of the content, (e) value of the contribution to the professional literature, (f) implications for special education, and (g) quality of the writing. Typically, this process takes about 6 to 8 weeks.

What happens after material is reviewed by the peer reviewers?

The recommendations of the reviewers are sent to the editor. After reviewing these recommendations, the editor will make one of the following decisions concerning the manuscript: (a) decline the opportunity to publish, (b) request a revision with a stipulation for further peer review, (c) request a revision subject to additional review by TEC staff, or (d) accept as is.

Like most journals, almost all manuscripts submitted to TEC will involve some level of additional revision (b or c) prior to publication.

The editorial decision and rationale will be communicated in an e-mail to the first author. Copies of the peer reviews will also be accessible by this first author. Decisions to accept or decline a manuscript are informed by the reviewers’ comments, content analysis of previously published materials, and previous commitments to publish materials. The most recent data (2011) indicate that about 20% of the manuscripts submitted to TEC are accepted for publication.

Grievance Procedure

Authors who believe that their manuscript was not reviewed in a careful or timely manner and in accordance with CEC’s procedures should bring the matter to the attention of Stefani Roth, the Director for Publications, at STEFANIR@cec.sped.org.

What happens after material is tentatively accepted for publication?

If material receives favorable comments from reviewers and the editor concurs, tentative approval for publication is made. This approval is conditioned upon specific revisions that must be made as well as the submission of supporting materials (described below). Publication in TEC typically occurs several months after initial acceptance.

Revisions

The final decision to publish material is made after the satisfactory completion of revisions outlined by the editors. When a manuscript is accepted for publication, author(s) will be asked to provide a final-version electronic copy of their manuscript, including final versions of tables, references, web links, and all figures. When an article is accepted for publication in TEC, camera-ready copies of tables and figures may be requested prior to publication.

Technical Editing

The editorial staff of TEC reserves the right to make editorial changes that do not materially affect the meaning of the text. Usually, this will be limited to minor changes in wording or placement of figures, photos, and gray boxes. This is especially true of material accepted for print in TEC.

Production

To protect the works of authors and The Council for Exceptional Children, CEC copyrights TEACHING Exceptional Children. Once a manuscript is scheduled for print publication, the authors are notified in writing and sent a Copyright Release Agreement Form assigning literary rights to CEC. Rights and permissions regarding the use of CEC-copyrighted materials are handled by the CEC Publications Section of the Professional Development Unit. Authors who wish to use material, such as figures or tables, for which they do not own the copyright must obtain written permission from the copyright holder (usually the publisher) and submit it to CEC with their manuscripts. Signed releases must also be submitted from all individuals appearing in photos submitted for publication.

TEC publishes photographs and/or slides with many of its articles. CEC consults with authors to obtain appropriate visual images illustrating each manuscript. To obtain photo guidelines and release forms contact Meridee Mucciarone, CEC, 1110 North Glebe Road, Suite 300, Arlington, VA 22201-5704 (e-mail:merideem@cec.sped.org or 703/264-9420).

Accepted TEC manuscripts are copyedited, and manuscripts are typeset into page proofs. Editors read proofs for errors in typesetting and other defects. Authors are encouraged to proof their own material prior to its on-line publication. Publication After acceptance, manuscripts are placed in a publication queue. Themes for issues and date of acceptance determine the issue in which articles appear. About 4-6 weeks after the manuscript is scheduled for publication, CEC publication staff contact the lead author to finalize the process. Upon publication of an article in TEC, the lead author receives 5 copies of the journal plus 3 copies for each additional author to distribute to co-authors.

Who’s Who (and Where) at TEC

TEC Editor Barbara L. Ludlow, Ed.D.
West Virginia University
phone: 304-293-3450
Barbara.Ludlow@mail.wvu.edu

TEC / TECP Associate Editors Lisa A. Dieker, Ph.D.
University of Central Florida
ldieker@mail.ucf.edu

seanj@ku.edu

CEC Director of Publications Stefani R. Roth
Council for Exceptional ChildrenProfessional Services
1110 North Glebe Road, Suite 300
Arlington, VA 22201
phone: 703-264-9427
STEFANIR@cec.sped.org

TEC Senior Journal Production Editor Meridee Mucciarone
Council for Exceptional Children
1110 North Glebe Road, Suite 300
Arlington, VA 22201-5704
phone: 703-264-9420
merideem@cec.sped.org