Article submission

1) Any submission must be the original work of the author that has not been published previously, as a whole or in part, either in print or electronically, or is soon to be so published.

We will ask that in the case of acceptance for publication in Past and Present, there should be an interval of at least two years between the appearance of the article in the Journal and any subsequent publication (in the same or similar form) elsewhere.

2) Articles sent to Past and Present for consideration for publication shall not be submitted simultaneously to any other journal or journals for refereeing. Authors should never multi-submit.

3) Our reviewing process normally takes 3–6 months which we are working on reducing.

4) We do not review ‘blind’, so there is no need for authors to remove their names from — or otherwise disguise authorship of — the submitted copies of their texts.

5) Work may be submitted by standard mail/airmail (in which case, two hard copies of the text are required, for refereeing) or — to be preferred — by email to editors@pastandpresent.org.uk (as a standard Word attachment).

6) Article texts should be in English. We can exceptionally consider for publication articles in some western European languages, but prospective authors must in that case contact the Editors in advance.

A condition of acceptance of an article so submitted would be that the article be translated into English — and vetted by a native English speaker for fluency and idiom.

Content

Please bear in mind that any article in Past and Present has to be of interest, and fully accessible, to the non-specialist as well as the specialist reader, so:

Make clear what the interest of the article to the non-specialist is or may be: e.g., does it change debate on an issue, and if so, how? does it feature new data? and so on;

Keep technical/specialist expressions to a minimum and ensure that any expressions that are necessary are carefully defined;
Assume little linguistic knowledge. Avoid quotations in languages other than English; quotations from non-English sources must be translated into English (if essential, the full original text can be supplied in a footnote);

References to books or other sources in non-western-European languages should give the original title (transliterated as necessary), followed by an English translation of the title in parentheses.

Article length

The target length for an article is 8,000–10,000 words, excluding notes (and within this range, lower rather than higher). Longer than this, please contact the Editors before submitting. When submitting an article, an author must provide a word count for both their text and notes.

For a review article, the target length is 4,000–5,000 words, plus notes.

Debates

The Journal encourages the publication of constructive Debates on controversial topics and on controversial points made in the course of articles which it has published. In every case where a Past and Present article is the subject of a Comment in a Debate, the author of the article critiqued is invited to submit a Reply.

Style

1) For purposes of submission, an article may be formatted according to any standard journal publishing conventions (OUP, CUP, Harvard, etc.). In the case of acceptance, the author would of course be required to render it according to Past and Present’s own guidelines.

2) Notes should, wherever possible, be confined to necessary references, and not used for ‘sub-texts’. Wherever possible without confusion, references should be grouped together.

Graphs, Tables, Maps and other Illustrations

1) Graphs, Tables, Maps, etc., may of course be included in an article when they add materially to the substance or comprehensibility of the argument.

2) Illustrations may also be included where they add materially — up to a maximum of twelve (3–6 is more usual). It is the author’s responsibility to provide high-definition images of any illustrations they wish to include (good-quality prints if hard copy; jpgs etc. if electronic).

Please note the relatively small page-size of Past and Present (max. 6.75 x 4 inches) when considering possible illustrations for inclusion.

Please note:
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 office. It is also the author's responsibility to include acknowledgements as stipulated by the particular institutions. Further information on permissions can be found at http://www.oxfordjournals.org/access_purchase/permissions_guidelines.html

Accepted articles

Once an article has been accepted, the author(s) will be sent a style guide.

Authors have the option of seeing their article online before the published issue ('Advance Access publication'). Please see http://past.oxfordjournals.org/misc/papfaq.dtl for more information.

Proofs

Authors will receive a PDF proof of their article by email. Proofing instructions will accompany the PDF file but the proof should be checked immediately upon receipt and return as per covering instructions. Only essential corrections should be made at this stage. Alterations on proof are expensive and must be kept to a minimum; the Journal reserves the right to charge authors for excessive changes or additions at proof stage.

Offprints/Online access

Authors will be sent free online access to their articles as soon as they are published online. Authors will also receive 25 offprints, free of charge. An offprint order form will be sent with the proof and further offprints may be ordered at a charge as shown on the form. Orders must be returned with the proofs to Oxford Journals (late orders submitted after the journal is printed are subject to a 50 per cent surcharge to cover the additional printing cost). 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. In the case of Debates, offprints will be of the full Debate, not just the author’s contribution to it.

Copyright

It is a condition of publication in the Journal that authors assign their copyright to the Past and Present Society. 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. Authors may use their own material in other publications provided that the Journal is acknowledged as the original place of publication, and Oxford University Press is notified in writing and in advance.

The copyright form will be sent with the proof.