SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

UNESCO OBSERVATORY E-JOURNAL

MULTI-DISCIPLINARY RESEARCH IN THE ARTS

  1. Articles and bibliographic essays should be up to 8,000 words in length (including the Notes/Bibliography section). Reviews should be between 800 and 3000 words.
  2. Longer documents should be emailed as attachments in Microsoft Word (.doc), RTF (.rtf), or “text only” (.txt) format. Do not use PDF or HTML. Attachments should be encoded as either Base68 or Appledouble, to ensure readability across platforms. If you’re using snailmail, send a CD formatted for both Mac and PC machines.
  3. Submissions should be typed in double-line spacing on single-sided numbered pages.An electronic version (attached to an email as a Word file only) of the article may be submitted.  Papers identified as appearing to be in an early draft or in the form of an unrevised conference paper will be returned to authors and removed from the review process. The e-journal uses a double-blind, peer review process where authors and referees remain anonymous throughout the process. We ask that authors ensure their identities are not revealed in any way within their submitted articles.
  4. In Word documents, make sure that you turn off functions such as ‘smart quotes’, and refrain from using special characters, such as em-dashes.
  5. Title page: The title of the article, author’s name and contact details, word length and date of submission or when the paper was last updated should appear on a cover page; the title only should appear on the first page of the article.  Where more than one author is involved the lead author’s contact details only should be provided.
  6. Abstracts: Abstracts of up to 150 words, on a separate sheet, giving a concise statement of the intention, results and conclusions of the paper should be attached to the article.  Authors should also include 6 keywords in order of importance.
  7. Dates: should be in the form ‘3 December 1970’.
  8. Numbering: The least number of figures should be used in page numbers, dates etc. (e.g. pp. 22-4; 105-6 and 1948-9). In text and tables, decimals should be presented as: 0.012, 1.01 etc.
  9. Spelling: Spelling should be consistent throughout the article: acknowledgment (not acknowledgement); judgment etc.; organize, recognize etc.Except analyse not analyze; focusing, focused; co-operation; in so far as (four words), inasmuch as (two words), none the less (three words), nevertheless (one word).
  10. Abbreviations: Full stops should follow abbreviations e.g. pp., p., ed. (not for eds), vol. (not for vols), no. (not for nos), and full stops should not be used for Dr, Mr or in acronyms such as NATO or UN, or well-known abbreviations, BBC, USA, MP.
  11. Quotation marks: Always use single quotation marks except for a quote within a quote: ‘Parliament “ought” to approve the legislation’.
  12. The words ‘per cent’ and not ‘percent’ or ‘%’ should appear in the text. ‘%’ may be used in the Notes, figures and tables.
  13. Authors must avoid the use of sexist and racist language.
  14. Images: Tables, figures and all other images (with explanatory titles) should be submitted in a separate word file (electronic), with their position in the text clearly indicated in the manuscript.They should be numbered consecutively using Roman numerals (Table I, Table II etc.) and tables should contain the minimal number of lines with no boxes.
  15. Notes section: All the material relating to notes cited in the text should be typed in double-line spacing and placed in a ‘Notes’ section at the end of the article before the Bibliography.
  16. Acknowledgements should be noted by the use of a superscript number ‘1’ following the title of the article and the acknowledgement itself included in the Notes section.
  17. Bibliographical referencing in text: Authors should use the Harvard version of the author-date system for bibliographical references where the author and year of publication appear in the text and the full reference appears in the ‘Bibliography’ section at the end of the article.  Please ensure all quotations are correctly referenced in the text and entered in the Bibliography. Footnotes should not be used.

The following is an example of the Harvard system:

    • ‘experienced based nature of arts practice’ (White 2006: l59-60).
      ‘for example, South (2004) …’
      ‘a new view of operations (Jermyn 2001; Thomson 2000; South 2004)
      in the case of two works by the same author referred to in the article published in the same year the reference should be as follows ‘see, for example Smith (1990a)’, and if both are to be included in the one reference:  ‘Smith (1990a, b)’, or if published by same author in a different year: ‘Smith (1990, 1994)’
      where several references are cited together in the text they may be placed in alphabetical or chronological order or in order of importance and separated by semi-colons.  Whichever style is adopted should be applied consistently throughout the article.
    • Where there are four or more authors for a work, the first name should be used, followed by et al.: (‘Smith et al. 1969: 235-6)’
      for mention of first editions and translations within the text, authors should cite the edition to which they are referring followed by the original publication date placed in square brackets e.g. ‘(Marx 1970[1844]: 333)’. op.cit., ibid., idem. etc. should not be used – the author, date and page reference should be cited in full.

The following is an example of a Bibliography: 

    • The Bibliography should appear as a separate section, printed in double-line spacing, after the Notes.
    • Authors should be organised alphabetically. Where more than one article by an author appears these should be placed in chronological order and the name/s repeated and not replaced by a long dash (-).
    • Entries should follow the following form.  Please note the emboldening:
        • Antonio, A., Astin, H., & Cress, C. (2000). Community service in higher education: A look at the nation’s faculty. Review of Higher Education, 23(4), 373-398.
        • Baldwin, R. G. (1996). Faculty career stages and implications for professional development. In D. Finnegan, D. Webster, & Z. F. Gamson (Eds.) Faculty and faculty issues in colleges and universities (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Custom Publishing.
        • Morison, S.E. (1936). Harvard College in the seventeenth century. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
  1. Appendices: Should be located after the text of the article, before Notes and Bibliography sections.Tables and figures appearing in this section should be labelled AI and follow the same rules applying to tables and figures given above.
  2. Publishing Agreements: All authors whose papers have been accepted for publication in the e-journal will be sent publishing agreements for signature. The agreement must be signed and returned to the Associate Editor, Professor Naomi Berman, naomi.berman@gmail.com within a 14 day period from receipt. Contributions cannot proceed to publication without a signed agreement.  In the case of multiple authors, only the lead author is required to sign on behalf of the other contributors.