Contributors' Guidelines
BC Studies is a peer reviewed scholarly journal which welcomes the submission of manuscripts dealing with all aspects of British Columbia's political, economic, and cultural life, past and present. The average article length is 25 to 30 double-spaced pages, although shorter and longer submissions will be considered.
BC Studies accepts manuscript submissions online through the Open Journal System (OJS).
To submit an article, please visit: www.bcstudies.com/ojs
You must first register as an author and then follow the submission instructions.
Ensuring a Blind Peer Review
To ensure the integrity of the blind peer-review for submission to this journal, every effort should be made to prevent the identities of the authors and reviewers from being known to each other. This involves the authors, editors, and reviewers (who upload documents as part of their review) checking to see if the following steps have been taken with regard to the text and the file properties:
The authors of the document have deleted their names from the text, with "Author" and year used in the references and footnotes, instead of the authors' name, article title, etc.
With Microsoft Office documents, author identification should also be removed from the properties for the file (see under File in Word), by clicking on the following, beginning with File on the main menu of the Microsoft application: File > Save As > Tools (or Options with a Mac) > Security > Remove personal information from file properties on save > Save.
With PDFs, the authors' names should also be removed from Document Properties found under File on Adobe Acrobat's main menu.
Style
Authors are advised to conform as closely as possible to suggested guidelines for consistency of style. Text and footnote style should follow The Chicago Manual of Style or its summarized version: Manual for Writers of Term Papers and Theses, Kate Turabian.
Only original articles are accepted for publication. Submitting manuscripts to BC Studies implies authors' commitment to publish in BC Studies. Authors must certify in writing that neither the article submitted nor a version of it has been published, nor is being considered for publication elsewhere; such certification must accompany the manuscript. Authors thereby agree to transfer their copyright to the publisher of BC Studies.
Please consult the Oxford English Dictionary to confirm correct spellings. If the dictionary recognized alternative spellings, the first one listed is preferred.
The following examples are provided to illustrate general rules. However, the Manual should be consulted for detailed comments on exceptions to these rules.
Format
all text doubled-spaced (including footnotes/endnotes, if possible)
footnotes are preferred, but endnotes are acceptable
margins: justify, except quotes
block quotes: indent one tab (0.5 inches) and single-space; right margin not justified
italicize (not underline) titles of books, foreign words, etc.
Punctuation
do not hyphenate a word ending a line unless it is a hyphenated word (co-editor but not manu-script)
dashes within sentence: double dashes with one space on either side ( -- )
insert a comma before the last item in a series: apples, oranges, and pears
periods and commas at the end of quoted matter: to be placed inside the closing quotation marks e.g. He said the legislation was "hopelessly inadequate."
spaces: one space after p. ( p. 7.)
leave one space between the initials of personal names: R. W. B. Lewis
Dates
Examples: 18 July 1976 (day precedes month); 27 September; September 1940 (no comma); 1960s (no apostrophe); nineteenth century (spell out).
Numbers
Spell out numbers less than 100 that indicate quantity: eighteen miles; ninety years; 127 citizens. Express with figures numbers that do no indicate quantity: grade 6; 8 percent; 2 o'clock.
Abbreviations
Acronyms, omit periods: e.g. bc, cpc; nato; ubc.
Scholarly abbreviations: do not underline the following: ibid, et al., ca., i.e., e.g.
Capitalization
Generally, only proper nouns and formal titles should be capitalized, except when capitalization is necessary to avoid ambiguity.
Quoted Matter
quoted matter less than four lines long is generally run into the text
block quotes: indent one tab
spelling mistakes will be assumed to be typist's errors and will be corrected before typesetting unless followed by [sic]
References
in reference to articles or books the title is italicized: A Crossroad in the Forest: The Path to a Sustainable Forest Sector in BC; The Resettlement of British Columbia.
in references to newspapers, the city name is italicized, the article omitted: Vancouver Sun, 7 July 1990; Victoria Colonist, 17 April 1989.
page references are not preceded by "p."
Geographical Terms
North Atlantic, northern Atlantic; the Continent, continental Europe
Nationalities, Tribes, and other groups of people
Specific racial, linguistic, tribal, and other groupings of people are capitalized: American Indian, Asian, Aborigine, Native American, Caucasian, Indo-European
Artwork
BC Studies welcomes the addition of illustrations, maps, graphs, or photographs to your article. BC Studies has a preferred style for illustrations and maps, and may request illustrations and maps be reworked by a cartographer familiar with this style. If your article includes graphs, please be prepared to provide either the original data, eps or tiff files. We encourage the inclusion of photographs with manuscripts. If you would like to use photographs, we require prints (or slides) from which to scan the image (or tiff files, provided they meet our specifications). The author is responsible for obtaining permission (copyright) and any costs associated, but BC Studies will assist where necessary. Please note that BC Studies is a non-profit organization, thus not-for-profit rates and discounts apply when seeking permissions or prints.
Updated: 2/10/09
Instructions to Readers
When assessing a manuscript, we would be grateful if you would use the following categories.
1. Objectives and main arguments
Is the subject of the article within the scope of the journal? Does the title clearly and sufficiently reflect its content? What are the manuscript's objectives and main arguments? Are the interpretations/conclusions sound and justified by the data? Is this a new and original contribution? What does the manuscript add to our understanding of British Columbia? What larger conceptual or theoretical points does it make?
2. Soundness of scholarship and methodology
How well is the manuscript researched, argued and organized? Are the illustrations and tables necessary and acceptable? Are the references adequate and are they all necessary?
3. Significance
How important is it that this manuscript be published? How significant is its contribution to understanding aspects of British Columbia? How broadly based will its readership be?
4. General judgment
Do you have any suggestions for improving the manuscript? How accessible is it to readers? Can you suggest brief additions or amendments (words, phrases) or an introductory statement that will increase the value of this paper? Can you suggest any reductions in the paper, or deletions of parts? Would the manuscript be more effective if reconceptualized, reorganized, shortened, or tightened up? Please be as explicit as possible.
5. Recommendation
Please let us know whether, in your best judgement, the manuscript should be:
- published as it stands,
- published subject to satisfactory revision,
- returned as unsuitable for publication in BC Studies, or
- returned as unsuitable for publication.
Book Reviewer Guidelines
REVIEW PREPARATION AND SUBMISSION
Thank you very much for agreeing to review for us. Please be in touch with any questions or concerns, and keep in mind the deadline for submitting the review. It is important to all of us, as readers and as authors, that reviews appear in a timely fashion. If events intervene, please let us know when we can expect the review.
If using a word processor, Word for Windows is preferred, but we will accept reviews using a word processing program for PC or Macintosh.
We encourage submission via e-mail to reviews@bcstudies.com, either by attachment or within the body of the message. We will also accept reviews on CD/DVD with hard copy included, or, as a last resort, on paper only. If you send the review by email, there is no need to send a hard copy by regular mail. Please make sure that we acknowledge the review.
CONTENT
- Describe clearly and concisely the nature, scope, and argument of the book, locate it in the relevant literature, and indicate its contribution to scholarship. Your review should not consist entirely of a summary of the book's contents.
- Discuss the extent to which the book achieves its stated objectives, draws on relevant source material, and is well organized and well written.
- We are of course particularly interested in the value of the book to British Columbia. But please bear in mind that the authors of many of the books we review are not writing only about British Columbia and may have intended a wider, or simply a different, audience. It is appropriate to indicate the extent to which a book may interest readers of BC STUDIES, but it is less appropriate to condemn or praise a book primarily for the extent to which it suits the needs of the journal's readers.
- Make the length of the review indicative of the book's importance. It is always permissible to write a shorter review than is suggested; do not undertake a (substantially) longer review without checking with the editors. In the extreme case, please let us know if, after reading a book, you believe that it does not merit a review.
STYLE
- When quoting from the book under review, please cite the page number. It should appear in parentheses at the end of the sentence, before the period but outside the quotation marks, hence (95). We do not use p. or pp.
- If you quote from, or refer specifically to, another book, please provide the author's name (first and last), the full title of the book, and the book's date of publication. If you cite a journal article, include the author's name, journal title, volume, and the month and year of publication. You may include the article title or not, as you wish It is always permissible to work the information into a sentence, as "In his recent article in the Canadian Historical Review (80, 2 [1999]), Peter Baskerville concluded that......"
- Do not use footnotes, except in review essays.
- Avoid cliffhanger references, such as: "The present book can best be understood in conjunction with Wickwire's seminal study of......" It is fine, even desirable, to make comparisons; but please explain them. Also provide author's full name and other information, as indicated above.
- Include the first name (or initials, for those authors, like R.A.J. McDonald, who are known that way) in the first reference to any person you mention.
- You may use personal pronouns rather than "the reviewer." In general, it is preferable to refer to the author by name rather than as "the author." In referring to the author or other people, do not use titles, either professional or social.
- For dashes within sentences, use double dashes, with one space on either side ( -- ).
- Insert a comma before the last item in a series, hence Victoria, Duncan, and Nanaimo.
- Do not use periods in abbreviations, thus UBC, SFU, CBC
- Spell out numbers less than 100 unless being used comparatively in a sentence or paragraph, hence ninety-five years; 127 voters; grades 6, 8, and 10
- Capitalize racial, linguistic, and other groups of people and specific geographical areas, thus Aboriginal, White, the Interior and Coast
- We follow either the Chicago Manual of Style or APA style.
Reviewer Database
Coming Soon. Please contact us if you would like to be added when the database is available.