SMU Discourse Constitution

1. The title of the e-journal will be "Discourse."

2. Mission Statement: By creating an e-journal with rigorous standards, we endeavor to emphasize the diversity of SMU's academic community and to create a dialogue between the four undergraduate schools at SMU.

3. Vision Statement: We envision that the e-journal will create an institutional forum for academic discourse that will reciprocally lend respectability to and gain prestige from student work, all the while adapting to changes in media and electronic technology. The e-journal's ensuing competitiveness with comparable journals at benchmark universities will raise awareness of SMU's academic community to parties outside of the university.

4. The Editorial Board shall consist of eight (8) students, subject to the following guidelines: (1) Breakdown across schools and programs will be as follows: 1 Cox, 1 Engineering, 1 Meadows, 3 Dedman, and 2 students from the University Honors Program (who may be culled from any academic major). (2) At least 50% of this board should consist of non-seniors who are not planning to study abroad the next academic year. (3) From this group of eight students, one (1) student shall be appointed to the position of Managing Editor. The Managing Editor is also the work-study student whose salary will be provided for by Provost Murfin's two-year development grant.

5. The Editorial Board shall meet monthly to select the highest-quality pieces from the current stack of submissions. Additional meetings may be called at the discretion of the Managing Editor.

6. The Managing Editor will carry on the day-to-day duties of the journal. This includes copy-editing of all selected pieces, clerical duties (making phone calls, coordinating with the webmaster(s), actively soliciting papers from professors, regulating the on-line discussion boards we envision to be a part of the e-journal website, and working through appropriate channels to promote the journal as a symbol of SMU's academic life.

7. The submissions model for the journal will be as follows: [student writes a paper independently or as part of a class] ----> [student finds a faculty sponsor to submit the piece OR professor for whom the paper was written earmarks the piece as worthy of submittal at the time of grading] ---- > [faculty sponsor submits the paper to the journal via e-mail OR calls the journal to acknowledge his or her support of a paper that the student submits via e-mail] ----> [managing editor receives the paper] ----> [Editorial Board reviews papers; selects those worthy of publication]

8. The Editorial Board will ask one faculty member to serve as sponsor / mentor each year. The faculty member will serve only to advise and help guide the Editorial Board at their request.

9. All papers will utilize endnotes, as opposed to internal documentation. (As most SMU classes do not utilize this model, some papers may need to be re-formatted before publication.)

10. Criteria for submission: (1) paper must be written by an SMU undergraduate at the time of composition; (2) papers under 10 pages must include a two-sentence "capsule summary" to be used in the electronic index of the website, and papers over 10 pages must include a one-paragraph abstract; (3) the paper must be an original work of argumentative non-fiction written in modern English; (4) Legal Affairs will help us draft a standard prohibition against libelous materials.

11. "Discourse" will be published twice annually: in mid-Fall and mid-Spring. Work submitted in the period between these publication dates will be eligible for consideration in the upcoming issue. Each edition will include as many articles as become available, provided they meet the rigorous quality considerations of the editorial board. There will be no "theme" issues; each edition will be general and interdisciplinary in scope.