Can you recommend a journal to submit an article I wrote?

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Here is my abstract:

Here is the response from the editor of Armed Forces & Society



It took me a long time to write this, and to format it for this journal.

Does anyone have any ideas, maybe for a journal that deals with Aspergers or Autism?

When they say it's "not suited for an academic journal" it's code for "You have no credentials" Academic journals are the snobbiest, most elitist kinds of writing that exist. Unless you cite an "official" source (whatever the hell that means) you are wrong. Just like in college, you have to cite reputable sources, even if it's an opinion paper. Why should "fact" get in the way of an opinion paper? So unless you provided on official study sponsored by doctors and psychiatrists and other "smart" people that proves your point, then they can't accept it. Now sure, if they didn't have rules, everyone would write whatever they want, but A) they wouldn't have to accept it, and B) people are going to believe whatever they want anyway. So since I'm not a Ph.D, I can't help recommend anything.

Well, this journal did publish an article of mine last April.

http://afs.sagepub.com/content/36/3/558.abstract

My previous article was about how badly the Defense Manpower Data Center performed its personnel surveys.

My present article does cover details about how bad my supervisor was. I'm trying to offer some concrete suggestions for improving things.

Actually, I would wager that the article isn't desirable for an academic journal because it's a personal experience, not an academic study of any kind. There are no controls; there is no way of verifying the experience. While carrying a potentially important message regarding reformation of leadership, it is not an academic paper, and there's no reason it would be accepted by an academic journal.


Uh... "facts" are what belong in academic journals. Opinions based on fact are good for speculation, and can be included in something like the "future directions" or "further hypotheses" section of an otherwise factual paper. Personal stories are not unimportant (as I said previously), but they are unverifiable, cannot be replicated, and in general belong elsewhere. (The exception to this may be an editorial in an academic journal, but that is another matter altogether, and editorials are not considered "articles" in journals.)


Yep. That's what makes it something other than a story. That's what makes it academically acceptable - verification, replicability, confirmation that this is in fact significant (for instance, in your case, evidence that multiple people in multiple environments are having similar experiences due to toxic leadership, and that the effects of those experiences are similar and statistically significant).
And honestly (and said without bias, for I am neither doctor nor psychiatrist - who are, in fact, also doctors), it's a bit of an ad hominem to put the word smart in quotations when referring to "doctors and psychiatrists," et cetera. They may not all be smart, and they're certainly not by any means the only smart people around, but there's more than a little rancour in the comment. These people, in general, are smart; that's why they are where they are, and that's why they conduct and publish academic/clinical studies.

Just to make it clear, here - Pandabear, I'm not in any way criticizing your article (how can I? I haven't even read it, beyond your abstract). And I do believe you probably have a point to make that should assist the "powers that be" with leadership issues - it just might belong in a... publication more geared toward that type of writing. All I'm objecting to is Mindslave's open-handed panning of academia, which is not perfect, but certainly isn't as awful as s/he makes it out to be (and definitely not as awful as s/he is implying if the reason academia is being thusly insulted is because they didn't accept a personal-experience article for a journal).
As a side note, the first article you submitted (the one to which you linked) was not a personal experience, but a criticism of statistical methods used in a survey; therefore, it makes perfect sense that they would have accepted it, and not the other - and that their refusal of your second piece is not in any way a criticism of your writing or your opinions, but only of the appropriateness of the type of article you submitted for the venue you selected.

Okay, do any specific publications come to mind? My previous paper was hard to publish, too. First, I tried several statistical journals, but they weren't interested because I wasn't developing any new statistical theories--only describing how poorly a government agency executed its surveys. Finally, Armed Forces and Society took it. Now, I have another idea for a paper, whcih the editor may have found to be compelling. So, where to next? Different editors will have different reasons for accepting or rejecting a manuscript. Is there something, maybe in the autism area, that wouldn't necessarily be averse to a "personal experience" story?

Well, here is what the editor wrote back:

She does raise some good points. I might try to find Yin's book. Otherwise, are there any magazines that anyone would recommend?