Call for submissions: student section

Tizard Learning Disability Review – call for submissions

Student section

Students are the future of service development and research. TLDR is widely used in educational settings and we have published a number of articles based on work carried out by students. Nonetheless, students are often reluctant to submit their work for publication. They may be concerned, for example, about their work being rejected or receiving critical reviews. This is a shame. The new ideas and enthusiasm brought by students often mean that their work would be of great interest to others. Publishing success at the beginning of a professional or research career may be significant in terms of encouraging future work. The editorial board would like, therefore, to encourage the publication in TLDR of work carried out by students.

Initially, we seek submissions for an occasional “Student Section” of the journal. Articles of 2-3000 words are sought which describe work carried out by student professionals or researchers. This might include those undertaking professional training in clinical psychology, nursing, social work, speech and language therapy, occupational therapy, medicine, applied behaviour analysis and other relevant disciplines; existing professionals/practitioners undertaking courses related to their continuing professional development; and research students undertaking Masters or PhD degrees.

We are happy to consider a variety of contributions which reflect the kind of work that students might complete as part of their course, e.g.:

• Small-scale research project
• Systematic review of the literature
• Case study presenting and evaluating work carried out with an individual or group
• Policy analysis or review.

To be considered for the Student Section an article must include a brief summary of the course in which the work was carried out. It may be appropriate for the student’s supervisor to be a co-author. The article should reflect work completed no more than one year prior to its submission.

Although the work described may be somewhat slighter, articles will be expected to meet the same high standards for publication as other articles in TLDR. They will, however, be reviewed in a more straightforward way by the Student Section editor and one other. There will be an option for feedback on a draft to be given prior to formal submission.  There will be no accompanying, published commentary. The Student Section editor will ensure that feedback given to students is couched in positive terms and will provide assistance and encouragement for revision/resubmission where this is necessary. Articles will not be automatically accepted for publication. Where an article is rejected, however, the editor will pay careful attention to the way in which feedback is given to the student and provide encouragement for their future writing. The Student Section editor (Jill Bradshaw) would be happy to discuss ideas at an early stage and can be contacted by email [email protected]. The development of this section does not, of course, prevent students from submitting articles to TLDR in the normal way.