The Rocks & Shoals of Academic Publishing

There are a number of academic publishing houses that are situated on and associated with University campuses. Some of these publishers have achieved a good reputation and outstanding track record of published texts. One must be wary of the inside politics in such publishing contexts that may influence great who edits, how and what gets edited and finally published. Authors from such contexts often become a local who's who gallery. One must also be careful because these houses often publish only very narrow and specific kinds of genres or niche literature.

I've personally found the politics, arrogance and conceit associated with academic avenues in publishing too great to be attractive or very rewarding. There are numerous professional journals with which one can get started in one's academic career. The genre of academic journal article writing has its own set of headaches one should consider, as well as something of an established and embedded hierarchy. For many Academics, nothing that is not published within credible academic forums or major publishing houses is worthy or considered credible. Standards of "peer review" are supposed to ensure professional quality, but tend also to provide a form of selective censorship, hen-pecking and paradigmatic gate-keeping or "border patrol" to the boundaries of an academic discipline.

For thesis and dissertation writing, style guidelines are usually based upon the Chicago style manual, published in Thurabian. Each journal and each discipline tends to have its own style guideline specifications, some more restrictive than others.