Anonymity, Abstract, and Title Page

Given the journal’s use of the double-blind review process, authors must prepare their manuscript anonymously. Aside from the title page (see below) please remove all identifying references: this includes both direct references to yourself and indirect references to colleagues, co-authors, and collaborators that would make it easy for a reader to deduce your identity. If the argument of the manuscript depends upon the citation of your own previous work, then please voice those citations in the third person and include the works in the reference list as you would for any other author.
The manuscript should be one single document, beginning with a title page that contains the following:

  • the names, full addresses, and institutional affiliation of all authors
  • an abstract of 150 to 200 words
  • a list of up to 6 keywords for indexing and abstracting

Please make certain to repeat the title of your essay on the first page of the text (after the title page) so that reviewers reading the anonymous version of the text will know its title.

Length

We strongly encourage authors to keep original submissions to fewer than 8,500 words (a total that includes all notes and references). This target is in keeping with our overall publishing goals, and it offers successful authors the freedom to increase the word count during the revisions process. We will allow original submissions of up to an absolute maximum of 10,000 words (all inclusive).

Citations

All submissions should follow the Harvard style of in-text parenthetical citations followed by a complete list of works cited at the end. For any needed clarification of the Harvard style, please consult one of the many online guides to the Harvard style or see previous issues of the journal. Please make certain that the list of works cited includes all works cited and has complete bibliographic details; do not simply import citations from an outside program without editing and proofing the list of works cited.

Notes

Explanatory notes should be kept to an absolute minimum. Final versions of articles must use endnotes, not footnotes.

Style

The primary style goals are clarity and consistency. Authors may use either UK or US spelling, but they must do so consistently. For punctuation, please follow the standards for UK English. This entails:

  • using single inverted commas (rather than double quotation marks) for quotes
  • placing all inverted commas within other punctuation
  • for the grammatical dash, using an en dash with a single space before and after the en dash (rather than an em dash without spaces)

Authors should strive for clarity and concision and should assume a broad, interdisciplinary audience of intelligent non-specialists. Therefore, manuscripts should explain complex concepts, clarify and introduce special terminology, and avoid gesturing allusively to broad and dense literatures that are not explicated fully in the text.

Finally, to ease the job of the reviewers, manuscripts should be double-spaced, with clear delineation of new paragraphs (please use either a double paragraph break [i.e. carriage return] or a single paragraph break followed by an indented first line, but do not use both), and with pages numbered consecutively.