Our Readers, Preferred Topics, and Designated Formats of Articles
Like the field that we address, the IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication is a reader-focused journal that tries to meet the needs of our audience by publishing topics relevant to them in formats that present the material in a usable way to them.
Our Readers | Preferred Topics | Designated Formats | Questions and Submission
About our readers
Our readers are engineers, who need to communicate on the job, the professionals who communicate on behalf of engineers, and the educators who train all of these professionals. Our primary audience is members of the IEEE Professional Communication Society, a highly educated group (most have graduate degrees), of which a significant portion work either as engineers who have a communication responsibility or as practicing professional and technical communicators. Only about one third of our members work in academic institutions.
Our secondary audience is academics and graduate students in Professional and Technical Communication, professional and technical communicators who are not members of the IEEE, and engineers who are members of IEEE but not of the Professional Communication Society.
To address the needs of our many readers who are practicing professionals rather than researchers, and work outside of the field of professional and technical communication, we ask authors to follow some specific formats to ensure that readers have the background they need to follow the articles and to provide readers with a consistent reading experience, so they can anticipate the types of material provided by different types of articles.
Topics of interest to our readers and reviewers
- Communications technologies and their impact on the workplace
- Design, techniques, and impact of communications materials in various genres
- Design, techniques and readability of communication materials in various media
- Management of groups that produce professional and technical communication materials
- Social impact of communications and related technology to engineering efforts
- Reports on the effectiveness and limitations of research methodologies used to study these issues
- Also, check out the Calls for Papers
Formats preferred by our readers
As noted a moment ago, to provide our readers—many of whom are practicing professionals (not researchers) and work outside of the field of professional and technical communication—we ask authors to follow particular formats. Each format has a particular purpose, uses a particular set of standard headings, and presents those headings in a similar order. We specifically publish articles in these formats:
- Research report: a report of a quantitative, qualitative, critical, or mixed methods study and its results. Examples include experiments, textual analyses, content analyses, surveys, design research, interview-based studies, usability tests, and ethnographies. We publish critical, qualitative, and quantitative research. All research must fully disclose methods. The guidelines for research reports prompt authors for all of the information sought in the order expected by readers and reviewers.
To learn how to structure research reports and integrative literature reviews and for links to samples, click here. - Integrative literature review: an empirical research report that systematically collects, classifies, and analyzes a body of literature on a topic. As part of the research report, authors of integrative literature reviews describe the methodology used to search, choose and code studies, and focus on providing a critique or interpretation rather than just reporting data. Popular in other disciplines because they succinctly summarize and empirically assess all of the literature on a particular topic, these types of articles are actively recruited by the Transactions.
To learn how to structure research reports and integrative literature reviews and for links to samples, click here. - Case study: a report on a specific real-world communication project from start to finish, including results of the project. Examples of projects include a the use of content strategy techniques to redesign a major website, a complex engineering document that can be tailored to different audiences, a novel approach to customer documentation, and user- or Subject-Matter-Expert-generated documentation. The case can emerge from empirical research or experience; we only ask that authors clearly indicate the nature of the data. The project must be a real-world project.
To learn how to structure case studies and for links to samples, click here.Note: we do not accept case studies on teaching; those should be presented as teaching cases. - Tutorial: a report that synthesizes research and theory on a topic in such a way that readers can apply the content in their work. Examples of tutorials recently published in the Transactions include translating surveys, using search engine optimization, contrasting the difference between training and professional and technical communication, and integrating rich media into training modules.
To learn how to structure tutorials and for links to samples, click here.Note: we do not accept tutorials on teaching; those should be presented as teaching cases. - Teaching case: a report on a technique or approach to teaching communication either to engineers and technical professionals or majors in professional and technical communication. The teaching case can emerge from empirical research or experience; we only ask that authors clearly indicate the nature of the data.
To learn how to structure teaching cases and for links to samples, click here. - Book reviews: provide a brief overview of a publication as well as the reviewer’s assessment of the effectiveness of the publication.
To learn about titles approved for review, formatting information, and other instructions, and to link to sample reviews, click here.
To submit a query about a possible article or clarify guidelines
Contact the Editor-in-Chief. We welcome queries; we not only provide authors with a bit of assurance about their proposed article, but also with suggestions on how to approach the content so that it best meets the needs of the readers.
For contact information, click here.
To submit an article
Click here for more information.