Focus and Scope

We publish work related to speech sound articulation and articulatory imaging (of any modality) as well as pieces that outline the contents of articulatory corpora. In the spirit of quarterly lab reports, the goal of IWPSSA is to encourage scholars to publish small, discrete portions of their research while they work towards full, archival journal papers. Too often, our work only sees the light of day when we publish in a peer-reviewed journal. This begs the questions: how much data sits somewhere in the cloud, inaccessible to other researchers? Much of our work may be relevant and interesting prior to being ready for final publication, and IWPSSA is designed to provide a platform for disseminating knowledge early and often.

The target audience is all scholars and students working in language sciences writ large, not only those who are working in articulatory imaging but also those who make use of articulatory imaging. For example, scholars pursuing a study of twenty speakers producing lateral sounds may require quite some time to complete the project, but a series of short papers in IWPSSA providing analysis of one or two speakers at a time would serve as a set of intermediate lab reports, preventing data from sitting idly in the cloud—entirely inaccessible to others—for the duration of the project. If the onset laterals in a corpus have been analyzed but the coda laterals have not, it may be appropriate to publish the onsets in IWPSSA. Similarly, scholars working with articulatory data from an underdocumented language might have an end-goal of analyzing much of the language’s inventory, but smaller pieces addressing specific elements (such as a review of the vowels, or a snapshot of the dorsal consonants or the laterals) are appropriate for publication in IWPSSA.

We especially encourage student participation, both as authors and as readers, in an effort to help student scholars develop a habit of publishing early and publishing often. We do not sacrifice quality: rather, we encourage all scholars to think hard about the work that they do and to identify pieces which, although too small for publication in larger journals, may nevertheless be of value to their fellow scholars. We seek to encourage dialogue about questions of scope and significance—between students and faculty, between lab members and colleagues—in order to foster an environment where data-sharing is the norm. Short-form papers should be written using our submission guide. Please consult the guide to gain a sense of the maximum length envisioned for IWPSSA, and contact the editorial staff with questions, at iwpssa@indiana.edu.

Peer Review Process

Editorial review

Publication Frequency

Quarterly

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.