Like many editors, I worry that our subscribers do not read widely in the journal, focusing on those articles are in their specialty areas. Articles may not be assigned in graduate seminars and still less in undergraduate classes. Perhaps this speaks to the high technical gloss of the papers that we publish and this sophistication is comforting. However, we need to be a journal for readers: generalists, trainees, and undergraduates.
We are trying to meet this challenge: an innovation I call SPQ Snaps. These are shortened, lightened, and focused versions of the papers that SPQ publishes that are available on our website. Each article is ten to twenty pages of manuscript text (about half the length of the published article) with only the most central tables and figures included, and with the major theoretical and substantive points emphasized. All the good stuff. We start by making available one article/issue, but hope to expand.
Turn to these articles, read them yourself, and then assign them to your undergraduates and graduate students in social psychology classes. Our serious and best scholarship needs to be read widely and be made available to our students in ways that are clear and usable. This is my goal. Should we expand SPQ Snaps, and, if so, which articles should we include? Let us make our journals teaching tools, not just research archives.
