Published on January 14, 2021

Dear Colleagues:

We editors of publications in technical and professional communication thank you sincerely for your active participation in the two listening sessions we held on anti-racism and inclusion practices in publication editing and academic publishing.

The two sessions were held October 15 and 26, 2020, and moderated by Dr. Janine Utell, editor of The Space Between: Literature and Culture 1914–1945 and secretary of the Council of Editors of Learned Journals. Our goal was to flip the script of a traditional editors’ roundtable and listen to your concerns, queries, and comments about current publication practices. What we learned started important conversations and offered many ways that we might better serve our profession.

Since those sessions, publications involved have begun revising review guidelines, diversifying editorial boards, increasing transparency of guidelines across websites and via social media, updating diversity statements, making changes to staff, developing new mentoring policies, and more. We are committed to making change.

We have decided to make the actions we are taking more explicit. Too often, we think, work that helps us think about best practices, showcases differences among publications, and holds us directly accountable becomes invisible. And so we are making this thank you letter the introduction to a shared document where we commit ourselves to making explicit the changes that come out of our conversations—both past and in the future—and that will serve as a single, localized source to help our profession more easily navigate the sometimes bewildering world of submission, publication, and editing.

You will find our publications organized below, along with links and notes to our work as it evolves. Please feel free to share this widely. If you do share, please use #InclusiveTPC to help us continue this work.

Thank you again. We firmly believe that our work on anti-racism and inclusion practices is just beginning, and look forward to continuing this journey with you.

Full statement here

Sincerely,

Derek G. Ross, Editor in Chief, Communication Design Quarterly

George F. Hayhoe, Editor in Chief, IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication 

Charles H. Sides, Executive Editor, Journal of Technical Writing and Communication

Lora Arduser, Co-Editor, Programmatic Perspectives

Sam Dragga, Editor-in-Chief (retiring), Technical Communication

Miriam F. Williams, Editor-in-Chief (incoming), Technical Communication

Cheryl E. Ball, Editor, Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy

Lisa Melonçon, Editor, TPC Series WAC Clearinghouse/University Press of Colorado

Jo Mackiewicz, Editor, Journal of Business and Technical Communication

Steve Parks, Editor, Studies in Writing and Rhetoric

Chad Wickman, Editor, Written Communication

Rebecca Walton, Editor, Technical Communication Quarterly

Lee-Ann Kastman Breuch, Co-Editor, Programmatic Perspectives

Tharon W. Howard, Editor, ATTW Book Series in Technical & Professional Communication