The de facto signature style of the Modern Language Association's "PMLA" magazine not only bores many readers (contributing to the decline in MLA membership), but mandates rejection of any papers stylistically distinct from previous "PMLA" articles. In addition, to judge from several rejection letters, "PMLA" subject matter bias proscribes even acceptably written articles when their field is modern drama. This deduction is supported by a statistical analysis of the subjects included in 146 scholarly articles published in "PMLA" between January 1978 and March 1983. The analysis shows articles on film and contemporary drama conspicuously absent, with such important playwrights as Beckett, Cummings, Miller, Osborne, and Pinter neglected completely. The authors most written about were Chaucer and Shakespeare (with eight articles each), followed by Dickens, Wordsworth, Blake, Keats, Milton, Moliere, and Twain. An additional paradigm, identified by an established traditional scholar, is that the number of footnotes in an article is an important indicator of its scholarly value, a pernicious view when contemporary drama is too new to have an established body of criticism. These observations suggest that "how to write a 'PMLA' article" does not include writing about subjects in the field of drama as a possibility, a self-fulfilling perception that discourages drama scholars from submitting articles to "PMLA." Further, certain referees' rejection comments suggest that expert knowledge of previous scholarship colors their assessment and disallows alternative views. (JG)