Instructions to Authors and Reviewers
Submission
All material to be considered for publication should be submitted in electronic form via the Journal's online submission system at:
http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/oup/cww
Once you have prepared your manuscript according to the instructions below please visit the online submission web site through the link above. Instructions on submitting your manuscript online can be viewed here.
Correspondence (editorial)
For any queries regarding your manuscript submission or Manuscript Central, please email the editorial assistant Stephanie Sacharov.
Manuscript preparation
Essays
All material should be double-spaced including notes, references, extracts, poetry, and figure legends. Please note that essays should not be longer than 7,000-9,000 words, inclusive of the works cited section. Notes should be kept short and to a minimum in number. Subheadings can also be very helpful in providing clarity for an essay.
Do not divide words at the ends of lines. The journal encourages the submission of suitable illustrations. (See below for details.)
Reviews and Review Articles
Contemporary Women’s Writing also features reviews and review articles. The limit for a review of a single book is 700 words, and that for a review of two books is 1,200 words. Review articles should be between 3,000-4,000 words. Contributors interested in submitting a review or review article should contact one of the Review Editors, either Clare Hanson (UK) or Edith Frampton (USA). Review Editors will arrange for complimentary review copies to be sent to reviewers. Publishers submitting books for review should send them to the Review Editors as detailed above.
For reviews, please give the title(s) of the book(s) reviewed at the head of the review in the following style:
Women and Race in Contemporary U.S. Writing: From Faulkner to Morrison. Kelly Lynch Reames. 2007. Palgrave, London and New York, pp. 200. £38, $68.95
The price of the book should be given in both pounds and dollars and, where relevant, details of both hardback and paperback editions.
Interviews
Contemporary Women’s Writing welcomes interviews with significant women writers.
It is recommended that you use this consent form, which makes it clear to the interviewee exactly the format of the interview and the understanding that their agreement will be sought before anything is published in the journal. CWW will also consider hosting a recording of the interview online and the editors also recommend that this is discussed beforehand to ensure the recording is of the best possible quality for hosting as a podcast.
Interviews should not duplicate material already available in earlier interviews that authors might have given. Explorations of the range and variety of a writer’s work are welcomed. Equally effective are interviews that have a sharp focus on, for example, a writer’s changing aesthetic practice, the relation of their work to academic theory and scholarship, a writer’s experience of literary institutions (reviewing, the publishing industry, book awards), a writer’s relation to their audiences and readership etc.
The interview should be prefaced with an introduction that situates the author and her work. Some overview of the oeuvre, its critical reception and relevant historical or geographical contexts would be helpful. Together the interview and the introduction should be, approximately, 5,000-7,000 words in length.
Style and Layout
Contemporary Women’s Writing follows the recommendations of the MLA Style Manual (3rd edition: 2008). As essays in the journal are double blinded, you will need to upload the title page as a separate file from that of the main manuscript and should include the names of all contributing authors, the contact details of the corresponding author (including postal address, email, fax and telephone numbers) and a biographical note of all contributing authors.
Assemble the sections in the following order:
title page
text
notes
works cited
figure legends
Prepare your figures at print publication quality resolution, using applications capable of generating high-resolution .tif files (600 d.p.i. for line drawings and 300 d.p.i. for color and halftone artwork).
The printing process requires your figures to be in this format if your paper is accepted for publication. For useful information on preparing figures visit http://dx.sheridan.com where you can also test whether your figures are suitable for production by using the proflight tool at http://dx.sheridan.com/onl/.
Acknowledgements and details of support must be included at the end of the text before references and not in footnotes. Personal acknowledgements should precede those of institutions or agencies.
The authorship of the paper should be confined to those who have made a significant contribution to the design and execution of the work described.
Permissions for illustrations and figures
Permission to reproduce copyright material, for print and online publication in perpetuity, must be cleared and if necessary paid for by the author; this includes applications and payments to DACS, ARS, and similar licensing agencies where appropriate. Evidence in writing that such permissions have been secured from the rights-holder must be made available to the editorial assistant Stephanie Sacharov. It is also the author's responsibility to include acknowledgements as stipulated by the particular institutions. Oxford Journals can offer information and documentation to assist authors in securing print and online permissions: please see the Guidelines for Authors section. Information on permissions contacts for a number of main galleries and museums can also be provided. Should you require copies of this, please contact the editorial office of the journal in question or the Oxford Journals Rights department.
Licences and offprints
It is a condition of publication in Contemporary Women's Writing that authors grant an exclusive licence to Oxford University Press. This ensures that requests from third parties to reproduce articles are handled efficiently and consistently and will also allow the article to be as widely disseminated as possible. As part of the licence agreement, Authors may use their own material in other publications provided that Contemporary Women's Writing is acknowledged as the original place of publication and Oxford University Press as the Publisher.
Authors will receive electronic access to their paper free of charge. Authors are entitled to a gratis copy of the issue in which their article is published. Rates for purchasing offprints are indicated on the order form which the author will receive with the proofs and must be returned with the corrections. Orders for printed offprints received after the deadline will be subject to a 100% surcharge.
Please note: Orders from the UK will be subject to a 17.5% VAT charge. For orders from elsewhere in the EU you or your institution should account for VAT by way of a reverse charge. Please provide us with your or your institution’s VAT number.
To download the copyright licence form please click here.
Ethics
Contemporary Women's Writing expects that authors will observe high standards with respect to publication ethics. For example, the following practices are unacceptable: (1) falsification or fabrication of data, (2) plagiarism, including duplicate publication of the authors' own work, in whole or in part without proper citation, (3) misappropriation of the work of others such as omission of qualified authors or of information regarding financial support. Allegations of unethical conduct will be discussed initially with the corresponding author. In the event of continued dispute the matter will be referred to the author's institution and funding agencies for investigation and adjudication.
Proofs
Authors are sent page proofs by email. These should be checked immediately and returned to the publishers by annotated PDF, email or fax (further details are supplied with the proof). It is the author's responsibility to check proofs thoroughly.
Self-archiving policy
For information about this journal's policy, please visit our Author Self-Archiving policy page.