SUBMISSIONS MUST BE RECEIVED VIA E-MAIL (spr at sccs.swarthmore.edu).
Guidelines for SPR articles
Style and Form
SPR is a journal of public discourse—its aim is to foster intellectual and political discussion at Swarthmore. It is not an academic journal: the purpose of the magazine is not to provide a forum for the advancement of technical claims of interest only to those in a specific field of inquiry. A good rule of thumb is that your writing should be clear and accessible to the educated lay reader. But, that is not to say that your submissions can't draw upon academic work you've done. The ideal submission contains an original thesis or perspective, is strongly argued, and displays a high level of writing.
For examples of this type of writing, you might want to check out the following periodicals: The New Left Review (http://www.newleftreview.net), Commentary (http://commentarymagazine.com), Dissent (http://www.dissentmagazine.org), Boston Review (http://bostonreview.net), and The New York Review of Books (http://www.nybooks.com).
Length
While short columns have their purposes, it is often difficult to make a convincing argument in such a brief medium. Conversely, very long essays can often lose the interest of the reader—especially in the case of general publications which few people are required to read. An ideal SPR submission will be between 2000 and 6000 words in length. We anticipate book reviews to be of somewhat shorter length.
Subject-Matter
SPR accepts essays and reviews on a broad range of topics—American politics, world affairs, and political thought as well as culture, society and the arts.
ARTICLE PROPOSALS
For planning purposes, we ask that you provide us with a brief proposal discussing the essay you intend to submit. Your proposal only needs to be a short paragraph. If you have a few different ideas, it is okay to include more than one in your proposal—we just want to have an idea of what to expect. Please submit your proposal by email (spr at sccs.swarthmore.edu) no later than Wednesday, October 25. While we strongly suggest that you send a proposal, failing to do so will not prevent you from later submitting an article for consideration.