Views from the World of ‘Tourism Geographies’
Welcome to ‘Tourism Geographic’ — Introduction & Guidelines
[Updated September 9, 2021] We make academic research on travel & tourism accessible to the general public.
Published in
11 min readMar 1, 2021
INTRODUCING ‘TOURISM GEOGRAPHIC’
Tourism Geographic (TGx) is an online and open access publication that seeks to break down the latest research and opinions on travel and tourism. TGx is sponsored by the academic journal, Tourism Geographies (TG) (published by Routledge/Taylor & Francis).
Tourism Geographic welcomes contributions from anyone who identifies in some way as a geographer of tourism (we define “geography” broadly), and who wish to share their studies with a broader audience.
TGx Covers the World
We have authors from every corner of the globe. And we are open to scholarly contributions from academics regardless of their university or other higher education affiliation.
Medium.com writers/bloggers are also invited to share their work when it aligns with our content.
In Tourism Geographic, readers will explore the world of tourism research in a more engaging format than is the case with academic journals.
Join us for a deeper exploration and understanding of the world of travel and tourism.
INSTRUCTIONS FOR AUTHORS:
Who Can Write for ‘Tourism Geographic’
Tourism Geographic (TGx) accepts articles in the following categories:
- Articles base on Published Tourism-related Research
- Articles based on Tourism-related Research in Progress
- Tourism-related Thought & Opinion Articles
(including from Medium.com bloggers/writers) - Graduate Student Tourism-related Research Articles
For all the categories:
— Authorship of the TGx article is flexible but you must include at least one author from the original research that the TGx article is based on. You can also add new authors.
— The new article may include information that is updated or was otherwise not included in the original journal article.
— Authors are encouraged to create their own Medium account (see below). However, that is not required to submit and publish an article with Tourism Geographic.
How to Write for ‘Tourism Geographic’
Carefully follow these guidelines. Note that we abbreviate Tourism Geographic as “TGx” and Tourism Geographies as “TG”.
- The length should be about 750–1250 words, excluding author bio notes and other miscellaneous end-material.
- TIP: One way to write your article for Tourism Geographic is to start with the abstract from your academic research paper and expand from that. This might be easier than starting with the full paper and trying to shrink it down to 1000 or fewer words — although you can also do it that way if you want to.
- Avoid academic jargon. Your paper is for a non-academic audience. (if you must use jargon, please define what the concepts mean. This tool helps you de-jargonize your writing.
— Write for a secondary-education level audience. - Write in a Newspaper style format.
— Assume that your readers will skim the article, rather than read every sentence. When people skim an article, they often read the first sentence only in each paragraph.
— Keep sentences short and simple (break up complex and run-on sentences into two or more sentences; the Hemingway Editor, below, will help with that.)
— Keep paragraphs short (mostly 1 or 2 sentences per paragraph, and never more than 3)
— Make keywords and phrases either bold or italic
— Think about how newspaper articles are written with many single-sentence paragraphs every time a new idea is introduced.
— Look at recent articles in TGx for examples. - IMPORTANT: YOU MUST USE THESE TWO WRITING TOOLS BEFORE YOU SUBMIT YOUR ARTICLE to the TGx Editors:
(1) Hemingway Editor (https://hemingwayapp.com/)
— This free online tool will check your paper for complex sentences, passive voice, and complex phrases.
— Copy and paste your paper into the Hemingway editor web page. Make sure that “Edit” is selected in the upper right corner.
— Edit your paper to address the issues that it finds. Try to remove most of your “hard to read” sentences. A few is OK.
— After you have done that, then copy and paste your text into:
(2) Grammarly (https://app.grammarly.com/)
— This is a very good and free online grammar checker. You will need to register to use it.
— Be sure to select either American or UK English from the setting menu (we allow both).
— After you have made your grammar corrections, copy and paste your text back into MS Word or into Medium.com, if you created a Medium account (optional). - The Title should be engaging for a general audience.
— Use this tool to convert your title to Title Case: https://capitalizemytitle.com/
— Medium prefers a subtitle that is in the form of a sentence, with only the first word capitalized and ending with a period (.) — If you cannot think of a good subtitle, do not worry about that, the TGX Editors will come up with one for you. - References must be in the form of URL links, as is common in online news sources. Do not include a list of references, as is common in academic papers.
— The exception to this is that you may list some of your own academic articles, as a form of self-promotion.
— For articles based on papers published in Tourism Geographies, please include a clear reference to that article, including the full URL link on the Routledge website. - Include a Biographical Note for each of the authors at the end of the article. You may include an email address, and links to your website(s) and social media accounts with your bio note.
— TGx is not bound by SSCI rules and so we encourage promoting yourself and your own research. - For articles based on graduate/post-graduate student theses and dissertations, please include:
— the title of the original thesis or dissertation, if it is completed (a draft title is acceptable if it is not completed, but please indicate that it is a draft)
— the names of your principal advisor, your department, your college, and your university (you may also choose to include any other advisor names) - Please minimize first-person (I, we, our) usage. A few times is OK.
- Try to include at least one photo or image that captures the theme of the article. If you do not have a good image, the Editors will find one for you.
— You may include as many photos/images as you wish but make sure you have legal copyright authority to use them. This means: (1) you own it; (2) it is public domain; or (3) it is CC-BY or CC-BY-ND copyrighted (see below).
— Each photo/image included must have a source with copyright information (see recent articles for examples).
— A striking image, especially with a person in it, is an important selling point for potential general public readers. The editors will make sure that such an image leads off the top of your paper.
— Do not include any figures that are copyrighted by academic journals or other commercial publishers. We want to encourage people to copy and republish the text from TGx articles freely. So we wish to avoid anything that will prevent that. - For images that you own, please tell us how you want to copyright them. The options are:
— © All rights reserves = you own all rights and no one can use the photo or figure without your permission. This means people can copy the text of your article (which is CC-BY-ND), but they cannot copy photos or figures without your written permission.
— CC-BY = Creative Commons-Attibution. This means anyone can copy and use your photo or figure, but must cite you as the creator and copyright owner.
— CC-BY-ND = Creative Commons-Attribution-No Derivatives. This adds a restriction to CC-BY that other cannot change a photo or image. This is the copyright that we apply to the text of your article so no one will change it (see below for more about this). It is probably not as important for photos.
— There are other CC (Creative Commons) designations, but we do not recommend them. - Submit your article by email to one of the TGx Managing Editors. You can also contact the editors if you have any questions.
— Patrick Brouder <patrick.brouder@viu.ca>
— Alan A. Lew <alanalew@gmail.com>
Editing Your Article After Submission
- As the author, we recommend that you create a free Medium.com account with your name and personal photo or another avatar image. You can write your article on the Medium website platform (it is user-friendly, though here are some tips). You can also either import MS Word documents or copy and paste your document into your Medium account.
— If you do this, contact a TGx Editor when you finish for more instructions on submitting your article to Tourism Geographic.
— Also, we recommend that you do not publish your article, but keep it in draft format until the TGx Editors have reviewed it. If you publish it, that is OK, we can still work with that. It is just a little more complicated.
— Authors who have a Medium account can edit and update their article at any time before and after it has been published. - Instead of creating a Medium account, you can email your article to a TGx Managing Editor who will upload it for you. We will upload it under a generic Tourism Geographic Editor account, but will show your name.
— If you submit an MS Word version of your paper, and then later create a Medium account, there are some options we can use to link the article to your account. But this is not the preferred way to do this and Medium.com discourages it. - The TGx Editors have full rights to edit your article as they see fit for publication in Tourism Geographic. We edit your paper to (1) make the article more readable for a non-academic audience, and to (2) correct typos and other errors.
— Unless the edits are large, we will not inform you of the changes made before we publish the article. But you can request corrections and updates at any time after we publish it.
MORE ARTICLE GUIDELINES
- Papers can be submitted, accepted, and published online at any time. There is no issue number or due date, as with academic journals. There is only the article publication date, which cannot be changed after the article is published.
— We generally attempt to publish your paper as soon as possible after you have submitted its original version. Revisions and publishing often take less than a week, although we cannot guarantee that.
— There is no charge for publishing in TGx.
— TGx is not indexed by academic indexing services. You can add your article to you personal Google Scholar account. To do so, we recommend using the Year as the Volume, the Month as the Issue, and enter “online” for the pages. - For Tourism Geographies (TG) papers only: the publisher (Routledge/Taylor & Francis) will make your original paper in Tourism Geographies available for free downloads for one month after we publish your Tourism Geographic (TGx) article. (If you do not see this, please contact the TGx Editors.)
- Tourism Geographic articles will not be “metered”. This means the articles will not be behind Medium’s paywall and will be accessible to anyone free of charge. (Unfortunately, it will not be accessible in China, Vietnam, and some other countries that block Medium.com articles.)
— This does not apply to Medium.com bloggers/writers who may select metered or not metered based on how they use their Medium account. - Tourism Geographic articles are promoted on social media by the TGx and TG Editorial team. We also encourage you to share your article with friends and on social media as much as possible.
— Please provide your TGx Editor with any social media profile links you may have, especially for Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. We will use these to link the articles to you when we promote them online. You can also include these in the About the Author part of your article. - COPYRIGHT — We publish all article in Tourism Geographic under the Creative Commons — Attribution — NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC-BY-ND). Attribution (BY) means that you must be cited as the author. NoDerivatives (ND) means no one can change your article’s text without your permission. (Note that the TGx Editors can change the text, as noted above, on the TGx website, for minor editorial amendments.)
— This copyright only covers the text of the article only. Images, maps, diagrams, and other figures are copyrighted based on their source. As much as possible, we will use Public Domain, CC-BY, or CC-BY-ND sources for these.
— This policy is the same as that used by The Conversation. It allows the widest possible access and use of our articles, including copying by websites that have advertising and sell subscriptions. Click Here to see The Conversation’s full policy.
—This policy does not apply to Medium.com bloggers/writers who are free to remain with the default copyright (“all rights reserved”) of standard Medium articles.
For more on our copyright policy, see:
Here are two good examples of a Tourism Geographic article that authors created on their personal Medium.com account. They were then edited by the TGx Managing Editors:
Here are two examples of a Tourism Geographic article that authors wrote and submitted to the TGx Managing Editors as MS Word files. They did not create a Medium.com account. They were then both edited by the TGx Managing Editors:
The ‘Tourism Geographic’ Editorial Team
- Alan A. Lew, Co-Managing Editor <alanalew@gmail.com>
- Patrick Brouder, Co-Managing Editor <patrick.brouder@viu.ca>
- Manuela Gutberlet, Assistant Editor
Related
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Tourism Geographic is sponsored by Tourism Geographies (TG) (published since 1999 by Routledge/Taylor & Francis, UK) is an academic journal highlighting social science research on travel and tourism. TG covers a wide range of disciplines, including geography, anthropology, sociology, and economics. We are now bringing these research insights to a broader audience through Tourism Geographic.
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