Instructions to Authors
Introduction
For information regarding the scope and aims of the AJLH, please visit the About the Journal page. The AJLH publishes original articles and book reviews.
Submission
Manuscripts must be submitted online through Scholar One manuscripts once prepared according to the instructions below. Instructions on submitting manuscripts online.
Each manuscript must be accompanied by a statement that it has not been published elsewhere and that it has not been submitted simultaneously for publication elsewhere.
How to contact the editorial office
The editorial office can be contacted at AJLH.EditorialOffice@oup.com.
Book reviews are a regular feature of the American Journal of Legal History, and the journal welcomes books for review. The AJLH has three Book Review Editors representing different jurisdictions; please use the appropriate contact details below when sending books for review and for book reviews correspondence.
For books related to Europe:
Andrew Cecchinato
University of St Andrews
School of History
71 South Street
St Andrews
KY16 9QW
United Kingdom
ac355@st-andrews.ac.uk
For books related to the United States:
Elizabeth Katz
Washington University in St. Louis School of Law
One Brookings Drive
Campus Box 1120
St. Louis
MO 63130
United States
elizabeth.katz@wustl.edu
For books related to the Rest of the World:
Emily Whewell
Max Planck Institute for European Legal History
Hansaallee 41
Frankfurt am Main
60323
Germany
whewell@rg.mpg.de
Peer review process
All submissions to the journal are initially reviewed by one of the Editors. At this stage manuscripts may be rejected without peer review if it is felt that they are not appropriate for the journal.
Manuscripts that pass the initial editorial read are sent out for peer review, usually two anonymous independent reviewers. Based on the feedback from these reviewers and the Editors' judgment, a decision is given on the manuscript. Notification of first decision – acceptance, rejection, or need for revision – will generally be given within 10 weeks of receipt of the manuscript. In the case of revision, the manuscript may be sent out for further peer review after consideration by the editors.
Pre-submission Language Editing
Language editing, particularly if English is not an author's first language, can be used to ensure that the academic content of a paper is fully understood by the journal editors and reviewers. Please note that edited manuscripts will still need to undergo peer-review by the journal. Further language editing resources.
Ethics
Authors should observe high standards with respect to publication ethics as set out by the Commission on Publication Ethics (COPE). Plagiarism, including duplicate publication of the authors' own work without proper citation, and misappropriation of the work are unacceptable practices. Any cases of ethical misconduct are treated very seriously and will be dealt with in accordance with the COPE guidelines. Further information about OUP's ethical policies.
Copyright and permissions
Contributors will retain the copyright in their work. They will however be required to grant Oxford University Press an exclusive licence to publish the article in electronic form. Authors will be sent a link to an online licence form when their article is accepted.
In order to reproduce any third party material, including tables, figures, or images, in an article authors must obtain permission from the copyright holder and be compliant with any requirements the copyright holder may have pertaining to this reuse. When seeking to reproduce any kind of third party material authors should request the following:
- non-exclusive rights to reproduce the material in the specified article and journal;
- print and electronic rights, preferably for use in any form or medium;
- the right to use the material for the life of the work; and
- worldwide English-language rights.
It is particularly important to clear permission for use in both the print and online versions of the journal, and we are not able to accept permissions which carry a time limit because we retain journal articles as part of our online journal archive.
Third-party content in Open Access papers
If you will be publishing your paper under an Open Access licence but it contains material for which you do not have Open Access re-use permissions, please state this clearly by supplying the following credit line alongside the material:
Title of content. Author, Original publication, year of original publication, by permission of [rights holder]
This image/content is not covered by the terms of the Creative Commons licence of this publication. For permission to reuse, please contact the rights holder.
Further guidelines on clearing permissions.
Crossref Funding Data Registry
In order to meet your funding requirements authors are required to name their funding sources, or state if there are none, during the submission process. For further information on this process or to find out more about CHORUS, visit the CHORUS initiative.
Conflict of interest
Oxford University Press requires declaration of any conflict of interest upon submission. If the manuscript is published, conflict of interest information will be communicated in a statement in the published paper.
Author Self-archiving/ Public Access policy
For information about this journal's policy regarding making article versions available on personal websites, institutional and other repositories, etc., please visit our Author Self-Archiving policy page.
Preparation of Manuscript
Manuscript format and structure/style
- This journal operates double-anonymised peer review, meaning that the authors identity is hidden from reviewers, and the reviewers’ identities are hidden from authors. The Editor has oversight of the reviewers and the authors names. For full details about the peer review process, see Fair editing and peer review. OUP author FAQs.
- We suggest a maximum length of 250 words for the Abstract. Reference citations and abbreviations should be avoided in the Abstract.
- Tables and figures should be accompanied by a legend. A common image format for figures (e.g. pdf, eps, gif, tif, jpg) should be used. The initial submission can have figures and text in one file, rather than separate files if desired. Further information on figures.
- The AJLH uses both British and American English, as long as contributions are internally consistent. Manuscripts must follow the OSCOLA style guide;
- While References may be formatted in any readable style at submission, authors are responsible for preparing the citations to comply with OSCALA format before final acceptance. Moreover, authors are responsible for insuring the accuracy of their authorities.
- Acknowledgements and details of funding sources should be included at the end of the text. Authors should refer to their funding organizations to acknowledge their support.
- Authors should define non-standard abbreviations at the first occurrence and number figures and tables consecutively.
- The word count should be between 10,000-12,000 words for an article. Manuscripts submitted that go over the word count will be returned to the author to reduce the length of the article to meet this requirement.
Upon revision papers should be submitted in an editable file format (i.e. not PDF) and figures should be submitted as separate, high-resolution, files.
Preprint policy
Authors retain the right to make an Author’s Original Version (preprint) available through various channels, and this does not prevent submission to the journal. For further information see our Online Licensing, Copyright and Permissions policies. If accepted, the authors are required to update the status of any preprint, including your published paper’s DOI, as described on our Author Self-Archiving policy page.
Charges
Open Access
American Journal of Legal History offers the option of publishing under either a standard licence or an open access licence. Please note that some funders require open access publication as a condition of funding. If you are unsure whether you are required to publish open access, please do clarify any such requirements with your funder or institution.
Should you wish to publish your article open access, you should select your choice of open access licence in our online system after your article has been accepted for publication. You will need to pay an open access charge to publish under an open access licence.
Details of the open access licences and open access charges.
OUP has a growing number of Read and Publish agreements with institutions and consortia which provide funding for open access publishing. This means authors from participating institutions can publish open access, and the institution may pay the charge. Find out if your institution is participating.
Proofs
Authors will receive a link to the PDF proof of their manuscript on our online system by email - as such it is essential that a current email address is supplied with all manuscripts. Proofing instructions will accompany the PDF file but the proof should be checked immediately upon receipt and uploaded in accordance with covering instructions. Only essential corrections should be made at the proof stage.
Advance Access
For American Journal of Legal History, manuscripts arrive at OUP and go through the production process until the final versions are ready to publish. These are then published on an Advance Access page. They will remain on the page up until the issue that they are assigned to is published.
Author Toll Free Link and Discounts
All corresponding authors will be will be provided with a free access link to their article upon publication. The link will be sent via email to the article’s corresponding author who is free to share the link with any co-authors. Please see above for OUP’s Author Self-Archiving policy for more information regarding how this link may be publicly shared depending on the type of license under which the article has published.
All authors have the option to purchase up to 10 print copies of the issue in which they publish at a 50% discount. Orders should be placed through this order form. Orders must be made within 12 months of the online publication date.
Availability of Data and Materials
Where ethically feasible, American Journal of Legal History strongly encourages authors to make all data and software code on which the conclusions of the paper rely available to readers. We suggest that data be presented in the main manuscript or additional supporting files or deposited in a public repository whenever possible. Information on general repositories for all data types, and a list of recommended repositories by subject area.
Data and Software Citation
American Journal of Legal History supports the Force 11 Data Citation Principles and the recommendations of the FORCE11 Software Citation Implementation Group. When data and software underlying the research article are available in an online source, authors should include a full citation in their reference list.
For details of the minimum information to be included in data and software citations see the guidance on Citing research data and software.
