Editorial Statement

Every post that you read on Sounding Out! goes through a rigorous editorial process that combines the aggressive prose editing of commercial print media with the careful fact checking and incisive content analysis of traditional academic publishing.  That’s why our posts are able to sound so good and blow your mind all at the same time.  And every post goes through a minimum of two drafts to ensure that the work on Sounding Out! stays that way.

By design, our editing process is not blind.  In addition to pieces I receive through Calls for Posts and reader submission, I regularly solicit posts from top sound studies scholars and artists concerning their areas of specialization, in particular searching for new research at the cutting edge of the field as well as responses to current issues through a sound-studies filter.  Once received, all posts are peer evaluated; every single post has my eye on it at some phase of the process, usually several times along the way.

Once the first draft is received, I work closely—via email and Skype—with our writers to help them craft the best blog possible.  I ask tough questions, suggest sources and additional research, identify inconsistencies and factual errors, demand multiple rewrites, and yes, I reject posts that don’t meet my exacting standards. Managing Editor Liana Silva (Ph.D. SUNY Binghamton, English) and Multimedia Editor Aaron Trammell (ABD, Rutgers, School of Communication and Information) occasionally edit guest posts and also carefully cross-edit the work of our editors and regular writers. Posts that have specialist concerns beyond SO!’s editorial scope are sent to members of our advisory board to review; the advisory board also generously makes themselves available for fact checking and quality control on an as needed basis.

I find that Sounding Out!’s  committed interpersonal approach has many valuable benefits. It increases writer accountability, boosts writers’ enthusiasm, sharpens ideas as well as prose, and sparks invaluable scholarly communication that resonates throughout–and integrates–other aspects of our collective scholarly labors: research projects, conferences, classrooms, podcasts, and artwork.  Many new scholarly endeavors and artistic collaborations have been launched via the Sounding Out! editorial experience.  While the blog is, first and foremost,  a high quality, citable online publication, it is also a dynamic intellectual hub that has helped grow the sound studies community.

I hope that our readers have found the Sounding Out! experience collaborative as well. Remember, after we press “Publish,” the editorial experience continues online in the open-access comments page, where lively discussions from you, our readers, push our writers to break new ground and to consider alternate ideas.  Thank you for joining our conversations and for sounding out your thoughts about the material we work so hard to offer you.

—Jennifer Stoever
Editor-in-Chief