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Author Guidelines

Emerging Historians | Article types | Structure | Permissions |Language & text | Notes| Data & Symbols | Figures & Tables 

Update Spring 2023: Welcome to our new website! Please enjoy our archive of previous issues as we prepare our next call for papers!

Submissions should be made electronically through this website. Once submitted, the author can track the submission and communicate with the editors via the online journal management system.

Please ensure that you consider the following guidelines when preparing your manuscript. Failure to do so may delay processing your submission.

Emerging Historians

Essays in History publishes scholarship by “emerging historians.” We consider emerging historians to be scholars who have received their PhD within the last five years, graduate students, or occasionally an accomplished undergraduate. If you fall under one of these categories, we encourage you to submit your work to us. EiH publishes scholarship in all areas of historical inquiry. Authors do not need to be trained in a history department.

Article types

• Research articles should make an original argument that constitutes a contribution to a historical field or subfield. They should use original research to execute that argument effectively. Research articles are peer-reviewed and should be in the range of 5,000-10,000 words.
• Book Reviews are a chance for authors to evaluate scholarship published with the last two years. Before submitting their review, authors are encouraged to supply the Managing Editor with a CV and the book they intend to review. The review should focus on the author’s argument, the evidence used to support it, and how it fits within the historiography of the relevant field. Book reviews are not peer-reviewed. The Editorial Team will prioritize clear writing and analysis, as well as the diversity of the issue, when selecting which book reviews will be published. Reviews should be in the range of 700 to 1,200 words.
• Historiographical Essays should be broader in scope than book reviews, but need not be full “state of the field” essays. Instead, we ask our authors to write more targeted essays which review two or more recent monographs on a similar historical subject. The author should evaluate the monographs for argument, methodology, and sources, describing trends and points of contention within the (sub)field. Historiographical essays should be between 2,500 and 5,000 words.

All word limits include referencing and citations.

Structure

Title page
To ensure anonymous peer review, please only list the title and abstract on the submitted manuscript file.

The names of all authors, affiliations, contact details, biography (optional) and the corresponding author details must be completed online as part of the submission process. All authors must fit within the journal's definition of an author, available here.

The affiliation should ideally include ‘Department, Institution, City, Country’. However only the Institution and Country are mandatory.

Abstract
Research articles must have the main text prefaced by an abstract of no more than 250 words summarising the main arguments and conclusions of the article. This must have the heading ‘Abstract’ and be easily identified from the start of the main text.

A list of up to six key words may be placed below the abstract (optional).

The Abstract and Keywords should also be added to the metadata when making the initial online submission.

Main text
The body of the submission should be structured in a logical and easy to follow manner. 

Headings may be present. Headings must be clearly identifiable using different font sizes, bold or italics.

Acknowledgements
For the sake of the anonymous peer review, do not include any acknowledgements in your original submission. If selected for publication, you will have the opportunity to add any acknowledgements.

Funding Information (if applicable)
Should the research have received a funding grant then the grant provider and grant number should be detailed. 

Competing interests
If any of the authors have any competing interests then these must be declared. A short paragraph should be placed before the references. Guidelines for competing interests can be found here. If there are no competing interests to declare then the following statement should be present: The author(s) has/have no competing interests to declare.

Authors' contributions
If your manuscript has multiple authors, include a sentence or a short paragraph detailing the roles that each author held to contribute to the authorship of the submission. Individuals listed must fit within the definition of an author, as per our authorship guidelines.

Permissions

The author is responsible for obtaining all permissions required prior to submission of the manuscript. Permission and owner details should be mentioned for all third-party content included in the submission or used in the research.

Language & Text

Capitalization
For the submission title:

Capitalize all nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs and subordinate conjunctions (i.e. as, because, although). Use lowercase for all articles, coordinate conjunctions and prepositions.

• Slip-Sliding on a Yellow Brick Road: Stabilization Efforts in Afghanistan

Headings within the main text:

First level headings in the text should follow the same rule as the main title.

For lower-level subheadings, only capitalize first letter and proper nouns.

Headings should be under 75 characters.

Spelling
Submissions must be made in English. Authors are welcome to use American or British spellings as long as they are used consistently throughout the whole of the submission.

• Colour (UK) vs. Color (US)

When referring to proper nouns and normal institutional titles, the official, original spelling must be used.

• World Health Organization, not World Health Organisation

Grammar
American or English grammar rules may be used as long as they are used consistently and match the spelling format (see above). For instance, you may use a serial comma or not.

• red, white, and blue OR red, white and blue

Font
The font used should be commonly available and in an easily readable size. This may be changed during the typesetting process.

Underlined text should be avoided whenever possible.

Bold or italicized text to emphasize a point are permitted, but please use sparingly.

Lists
Use bullet points to denote a list without hierarchy or order of value. If the list indicates a specific sequence then a numbered list must be used.

Lists should be used sparingly.

Quotation marks
Use double quotation marks except for quotes within another speech, in which case single quotation marks are used.

Quotations that are longer than three lines in length must be in an indented paragraph separate from the main text.

The standard, non-italicised font must be used for all quotes.

It must be clear from the text and/or citation where the quote is sourced. If quoting from material that is under copyright then permission will need to be obtained from the copyright holder.

Acronyms & Abbreviations
With abbreviations, the crucial goal is to ensure that the reader – particularly one who may not be fully familiar with the topic or context being addressed – is able to follow along. Spell out almost all acronyms on first use, indicating the acronym in parentheses immediately thereafter. Use the acronym for all subsequent references.

• Research completed by the World Health Organization (WHO) shows …

A number of abbreviations are so common that they do not require the full text on the first instance. Examples of these can be found here.

Abbreviations should usually be in capital letters without full stops.

• USA, not U.S.A

Common examples from Latin origin do not follow this rule and should be lower case and can include full stops.

• e.g., i.e., etc.

Use of footnotes/endnotes
Use footnotes rather than endnotes (we refer to these as ‘Notes’ in the online publication).

Please insert the footnote marker after the end punctuation.

Data & Symbols

Symbols
Symbols are permitted within the main text and datasets as long as they are commonly in use or have explanatory definition on their first usage.

Hyphenation, em and en dashes
There is no set rule on the use of hyphenation between words, as long as they are consistently used.

Em dashes should be used sparingly. If they are present, they should denote emphasis, change of thought or interruption to the main sentence and can replace commas, parentheses, colons or semicolons.

• The president’s niece—daughter of his younger brother—caused a media scandal when…

En dashes can be used to replace ‘to’ when indicating a range. No space should surround the dash.

• 10-25 years
• pp. 10-65

Numbers
For numbers zero to nine please spell the whole words. Please use figures for numbers 10 or higher.

We are happy for authors to use either words or figures to represent large whole figures (i.e. one million or 1,000,000) as long as the usage is consistent throughout the text.

If a sentence starts with a number it must be spelt, or the sentence should be re-written so that it no longer starts with the number.

• Fifteen examples were found to exist…
• The result showed that 15 examples existed…

Do not use a comma for a decimal place.

• 2.43 NOT 2,43

Numbers that are less than zero must have ‘0’ precede the decimal point.

• 0.24 NOT .24

Figures & Tables

Figures
Figures, including graphs and diagrams, must be professionally and clearly presented. If a figure is not easy to understand or does not appear to be of a suitable quality, the Editor may ask to re-render or omit it.

All figures must be cited within the main text, in consecutive order using Arabic numerals (e.g. Figure 1, Figure 2, etc.).

Each figure must have an accompanying descriptive main title. This should clearly and concisely summarise the content and/or use of the figure image. A short additional figure legend is optional to offer a further description.

• Figure 1: 1685 map of London.
• Figure 1: 1685 map of London. Note the addition of St Paul’s Cathedral, absent from earlier maps.

Figure titles and legends should be placed within the text document, either after the paragraph of their first citation, or as a list after the references.

The source of the image should be included, along with any relevant copyright information and a statement of authorisation (if needed).

• Figure 1: Firemen try to free workers buried under piles of concrete and metal girders. Photo: Claude-Michel Masson. Reproduced with permission of the photographer.

If your figure file includes text then please present the font as Ariel, Helvetica, or Verdana. This will mean that it matches the typeset text.

NOTE: All figures must be uploaded separately as supplementary files during the submission process, if possible in colour and at a resolution of at least 300dpi. Each file should not be more than 20MB. Standard formats accepted are: JPG, TIFF, GIF, PNG, EPS. For line drawings, please provide the original vector file (e.g. .ai, or .eps).

Tables
Tables must be created using a word processor's table function, not tabbed text.

Tables should be included in the manuscript. The final layout will place the tables as close to their first citation as possible.

All tables must be cited within the main text, and numbered with Arabic numerals in consecutive order (e.g. Table 1, Table 2, etc.).

Each table must have an accompanying descriptive title. This should clearly and concisely summarise the content and/or use of the table. A short additional table legend is optional to offer a further description of the table. The table title and legend should be placed above the table.

Tables should not include:

• Rotated text
• Colour to denote meaning (it will not display the same on all devices)
• Images
• Vertical or diagonal lines
• Multiple parts (e.g. ‘Table 1a’ and ‘Table 1b’). These should either be merged into one table, or separated into ‘Table 1’ and ‘Table 2’.

NOTE: If there are more columns than can fit on a single page, then the table will be placed horizontally on the page. If it still can't fit horizontally on a page, the table will be broken into two.

Submission Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.

1. The submission has not been previously published, in part or in whole, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
2. All third-party-owned materials used have been identified with appropriate credit lines, and permission has been obtained from the copyright holder for all formats of the journal. Authors acknowledge their responsibility to gain all permissions prior to submission.
3. All authors qualify as "emerging historians," as defined in the Author Guidelines.
4. All authors qualify as authors, as defined in the authorship guidelines, and have given permission to be listed on the submitted paper.
5. The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines. Every effort has been made to ensure that the submission is ready for peer review according to the journal's review policy (following the instructions to ensure anonymous peer review).
6. The corresponding author is submitting an ORCID identifier in their author data and co-authors have been recommended to also provide an ORCID, as per the journal policy.

Copyright Notice

Copyright Notice

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms. If a submission is rejected or withdrawn prior to publication, all rights return to the author(s):

1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).

Submitting to the journal implicitly confirms that all named authors and rights holders have agreed to the above terms of publication. It is the submitting author's responsibility to ensure all authors and relevant institutional bodies have given their agreement at the point of submission.

Note: some institutions require authors to seek written approval in relation to the terms of publication. Should this be required, authors can request a separate licence agreement document from the editorial team (e.g. authors who are Crown employees).

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Publication Fees

Unlike many open-access publications, Essays in History does not charge any author fees. This is only possible due to generous financial support from the Corcoran Department of History at the University of Virginia.

Waiver Information

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