Submitting to ProMarket
Who We Write For:
Our readers are not just academics. Many are policymakers, journalists, business professionals, and students. A lot of our readership comes through organic search from the general public who are researching topical issues. As such, we design our articles to be accessible to a non-specialist, college-educated readership.
Who We Publish:
The majority of our articles are written by academics and scholars. However, we also publish articles from policymakers, practitioners, journalists, and students. Most important is that your ideas are comprehensive and insightful.
What We Publish:
• Summaries of new and relevant academic research papers with a high potential impact
• In-depth analyses of current issues related to market functioning
• Debates and responses to other ProMarket articles
• Book review and excerpts
Submissions should be submitted here or sent to: promarket@chicagobooth.edu. In your submission, please include your name, affiliation and a brief summary of your pitch. ProMarket’s editors will retain absolute discretion in determining whether to accept a submission for publication. We retain the right to no longer consider a submission at any point in the editorial process from conditional acceptance up until publication. We aim to respond to all initial pitches and submissions within five business days.
Submission Guidelines:
-Our publication is designed for all readers with an undergraduate understanding of economics, law, and politics. Our readers are not just academics, but journalists, policymakers, students, and the broader general public. Your article should be written in plain, conversational English as much as possible. Avoid complex, stilted, and jargon-laden sentences (jargon must be justified, not defaulted to). Submissions that fail to make themselves accessible may no longer be considered for publication.
-Articles should be between 1,500–2,000 words. We find articles that come in above that cap generally repeat themselves or stray from the core argument. We are unlikely to consider articles longer than 2,500 words.
-Real-world examples, including policy connections, are encouraged. Not only do examples help to clarify high-level concepts, but they also help to elucidate the article’s relevance.
-In the tradition of the Chicago School, we encourage the use of data and statistics to defend arguments where appropriate.
-Figures are always appreciated. If you can, please send them as separate image files.
-Titles should be concise and gripping. We cover academic work, but we are not an academic journal. Please, no “academic” colons with overly vague first clauses. Think news headlines. The purpose of your title is to convey its content as plainly as possible and expand its reach. Remember, you are not just writing for other academics, but journalists, policymakers, professionals, students, and the broader general public. Help them find your work.
-Your opening paragraph is, in many ways, the most important. You should find a way to explain your argument, either in your very first sentence or immediately thereafter in the introductory paragraphs.
-Please link references as hyperlinks in your article. Hyperlinks provide readers with a faster, easier route to your reference materials and are more accessible to the general public. Authors should not use footnotes, and we will ask the author to convert any footnotes in their submission into hyperlinks.
-Submissions containing content that could be considered offensive, racist, or defamatory will not be considered. Ad hominem attacks will also be cause for disqualification.
-Please disclose any possible conflicts of interest and any outside sources of funding behind your research or article. See below for our disclosure policy.
-We do not publish paid advocacy, marketing, or promotional material.
-We allow original work on our site to be republished 48 hours after publication. Please see below for our content licensing policy. We rarely republish content from other publications but will consider republications on a case-by-case basis.
AI Policy
We do not consider work substantially written by artificial intelligence. We find the language to be too stilted and vague. Often, it amounts to a lot of words saying nothing. There also remain concerns of AI inventing facts and scholarship.
We are okay with writers using AI to proofread and outline their work. If you have used AI to draft your work or write substantial portions of it, please let us know.
We are more lenient with contributors using AI to help write their articles when they are not fluent in English. We will help rewrite where necessary. However, we will still need to be able to identify an idea and substance worth publishing.
Disclosure Policy
ProMarket requires that authors disclose any potential conflicts of interest in advance. A conflict of interest depends on the situation, and not the character or actions of the individual in question. In keeping with the AEA disclosure policy, authors should report any personal, professional, political, institutional, or other associations that a reasonable reader would want to know about in relation to the submitted work. These include:
- Authors should identify by name each party with a financial interest in the output of their article from whom they have received significant financial support in the form of consultant fees, retainers, grants, income from lectures and the like over the past three years;
- Authors should identify in-kind support received from third-parties, such as access to data. If the support in question comes with a non-disclosure obligation, that fact should be stated, along with as much information as the obligation permits;
- Authors should disclose any relationship with an organization—such as non-profits, think-tanks, research centers, consultancies, companies or other entities—that might have a stake in the subject of their article and/or if they are aware that an organization they are employed by received funding from interested parties;
- If the author is employed by an organization that received funding from interested parties, they must identify those interested parties. If the author cannot legally disclose the names of those interested parties, that fact must be stated, along with as much information as the obligation permits;
An “interested” party is any individual, group, or organization that has a financial, ideological, or political stake related to the article.
The disclosures required above apply to the spouse or partner of any author.
Contributor Agreement
In making a submission to ProMarket, contributors agree that:
- ProMarket’s editors will retain absolute discretion in determining whether to accept a submission for publication;
- The submitted piece is an original work to which they own the copyrights and includes no plagiarism;
- Headlines, as well as abstracts, will be determined by the editors in consultation with the authors. All headlines will be mutually agreed upon;
- The piece will be considered for publication on a date decided by ProMarket’s editors;
- Authors consent that the piece may undergo edits prior to publication. Edits will be made in consultation with the authors, but authors accept that the editors have discretion when it comes to the choice of headline;
- ProMarket can publish the author’s name, position, and affiliation, and also when promoting the piece via social media and in our newsletters.
Disputes will be handled as follows:
- A complainant may initiate the process of editorial board review by contacting ProMarket with a minimum 500 word submission explaining why the piece violates the COPE Retraction Guidelines. To avoid being inundated with retraction requests, a complainant should expect to pay a $100 fee for our time to review any complaints after the first one that the person submits. The fee will be refunded in the case of a successful retraction. We will also collect contact information, but the complainant will remain anonymous unless they want to be identified.
- The editorial board will review the complaint and determine whether it should be elevated to a referee. If so, the editorial board will ask if an advisory board member can serve as referee, or if they can suggest another expert in the article’s subject matter to be the referee.
- The author(s) will be made aware that their piece is under review.
- The ProMarket editorial board will follow the advice of the referee with regard to retraction.
- The author and complainant will be notified of the result of the review. If a major problem is found, the author will be given the opportunity to resubmit the article. The resubmission will be evaluated by the referee.
- If retraction without resubmission is the outcome, the editorial board will agree on language that communicates the reason for retraction. This reasoning will replace the text of the article, and will note that the original can still be found at https://archive.org/web/
Regarding corrections: If a small factual error is detected in a piece, ProMarket will correct the piece and include a correction note at the bottom of the article.
Content Licensing Policy
Third parties are allowed to republish the first paragraph of our articles with links back to our website. If you are interested in republishing one of our articles in its entirety, please email us for a republication request form and send it to the ProMarket editors at promarket@chicagobooth.edu. If you wish to enter a syndication agreement, please email the ProMarket editors.
Email us at: promarket@chicagobooth.edu
