Submissions

Author Guidelines

Last update: March 2025

1. EDITORIAL POLICY

1.1. Journal description. JES is the journal of the English Studies Division at the University of La Rioja. It accepts for publication, after favourable reports from two anonymous referees, original scholarly contributions in all research areas within the domain of English studies (linguistics, literature, literary theory, cultural studies, film studies, etc.). Proposals for publication may fall under one of the following two categories:

A. Research papers involving empirical investigations and methodological or theoretical studies within the field of English Studies (min. 6,000 and max. 10,000 words in double-spaced pages).

B. State of the art reports of recent books covering issues relating to the area of interest of the journal (max. 3,000 words in double-spaced pages).

Exceptionally, and with a positive report by the Editorial Board, contributions which exceed these maximum lengths may be considered for publication on the grounds of their scientific relevance.

Authors must explicitly express in their manuscripts if their research data takes into account the sex factor in order to account for possible differences depending on sex and gender.

There are no author's submission fees nor any other publication-related fees.

This journal will be published exclusively online from volume 17 (2019) onwards.

1.2. Language. JES only accepts for publication contributions written in English. The language used in the manuscript must be an inclusive, non-sexist one.

1.3. Evaluation. Contributions for publication will be sent to two anonymous referees proposed by the members of the Editorial Board and/or Advisory Board. In order to be accepted for publication in JES, contributions should be informed positively in relation to the following criteria:

• Originality and interest concerning the subject-matter, methodology, and conclusions of the study.
• Relevance concerning current research in the field.
•  Knowledge of previous research in the same field.
• Scientific rigour and depth of analysis.
•  Accuracy in the use of concepts, methods, and terms.
• Relevance of the theoretical implications of the study.
• Use of updated bibliography.
• Correct use of language and correction in the organization of contents and other formal aspects of the text.
•  Clarity, elegance, and conciseness in the exposition.
• Suitability to the range of topics of interest for the journal.

Evaluation reports will be carried out anonymously within five months from their reception. Once the evaluation process is completed, authors will receive a statement of the editorial decision together with an anonymous copy of the reports on which the decision is based. The editorial decision will be considered final.

1.4. Revision and proof-reading. Should any formal or content aspect of the contributions be improved and/or modified, it will be the authors’ responsibility to return the new version within the deadline established by the Editor. Failing to do so will result in the non-publication of the contribution. Likewise, authors are responsible for proof-reading their contributions and returning the revised versions by the deadline established by the Editor.

1.5. Copyright. The authors guarantee that their contributions are original works which have not been published previously and are not currently being considered for publication elsewhere. All articles in which plagiarism or self-plagiarism is detected will be immediately rejected.

The authors retain copyright of articles and authorize JES the first publication. They are free to share, redistribute, and/or reprint the article without obtaining permission from the publisher as long as they give appropriate credit to the editor and the journal.

Self-archiving is allowed too. In fact, it is recommendable to deposit a PDF version of the paper in academic and/or  institutional repositories.

2. SUBMISSION OF PROPOSALS

Proposals should be sent online via  https://publicaciones.unirioja.es/ojs/index.php/jes/submission/wizard

In order to be sent off for evaluation, proposals must follow the guidelines below.

3. INSTRUCTIONS FOR CONTRIBUTORS

3.1. What to send. Authors should send  their proposals using the journal platform. In their submission, authors should upload two Word or RTF documents, as follows:

1. Author Information [link]: authors should complete this document with the required information.
2. Article text: this document includes the full proposal to be sent off for evaluation. Anonymization: In this document, authors should be extremely careful to avoid any kind of information which might reveal their identity. Any instances of the author(s) name in in-text citations or in the reference list should be replaced with "Author (xxxx)" or “Author, xxxx”. These references should be placed at the beginning of the Reference list.

3.2. Artwork, tables, figures and images. These should be included in the text file. Tone art, or photographic images, should be saved as JPG or TIFF files with a resolution of 300 dpi at final size.

3.3. Copyright information. If a preliminary version of the proposal has been presented at a conference, information about the name of the conference, the name of the sponsoring organization, the exact date(s) of the conference or paper presentation and the city in which the conference was held should be provided in a footnote in the first page of the document. Seeking permission for the use of copyright material is the responsibility of the author.

4. MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION

FORMAT

4.1. Formatting. Minimum formatting should be used. Indentation, underlining and tabulation should be avoided unless absolutely necessary.

4.2. Document. All margins in the document should be of 2.54 cm. Paragraphs should be fully justified. The main text of the proposal should be written in 12-point Garamond. Quotations will be in 11-point Garamond when they appear in an independent paragraph. Abstracts, keywords, footnotes, superscript numbers, tables and figures will appear in 10-point Garamond.

4.3. Title. The title of the proposal should be centred and written in 12-point Garamond bold. Capitals should be used for both title and subtitle.

A Spanish translation of the title of the proposal should also be included. For those contributors who do not handle Spanish, a translation will be provided by the Editor.

4.4. Abstract and keywords. Each title should be followed by a brief abstract (100-150 words each): the first one should be written in English, while the second one should be written in Spanish. For those contributors who do not handle Spanish, a translation of the abstract will be provided by the Editor. Abstracts should be single-spaced, typed in 10-point Garamond normal characters (titles of books and keywords will appear in italics), justified on both sides, and indented 1 cm. from the left-hand margin. Abstracts should have no footnotes. The word ABSTRACT/RESUMEN (in normal characters and capital letters), followed by a full-stop and a single space, will precede the text of the abstract.

Abstracts will be followed by a list of six keywords, written in normal characters in the corresponding language, English or Spanish, so that contributions can be accurately classified by international reference indexes. The word Keywords/Palabras clave (in italics), followed by a semi-colon and a single space, will precede the keywords.

4.5. Paragraphs. Paragraphs in the main text should not be separated by a blank line. The first line of each paragraph will be indented 1 cm. from the left-hand margin. Words will not be divided at the end of a line either. There should be only one space between words and only one space after any punctuation.

4.6. Italics. Words in a language other than English should be italicized; italics should also be used in order to emphasize some key words. If the word that has to be emphasized is located in a paragraph which is already in italics, the key word will appear in normal characters.

4.7. Figures, illustrations, and tables. They should be numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals and referred to by their numbers within the text (e.g. as we see in example/figure/table 1). They should be accompanied by an explanatory foot (in 10-point Garamond italics, single-spaced).

4.8. Headings. Headings of sections should be typed in Small Capitals, and separated with two blank spaces from the previous text and with one blank space from the following text. They must be preceded by Arabic numerals separated by a full stop and a blank space (e.g. 1. Introduction).

Headings of subsections should be typed in italics, and separated with one space from both the previous and the following text. They must be numbered as in the example (e.g. 1.1., 1.2., etc.).

Headings of inferior levels of subsections should be avoided as much as possible. If they are included, they should also be numbered with Arabic numerals (e.g. 1.1.1., 1.1.2., etc.) and they will be typed in normal characters.

4.9. Hyphens

For compounds, use hyphens: 

“fifteenth-century architecture”

For asides other than parenthetical asides, em dashes–and not hyphens–should be used. No space comes before and after the dash:

“Teaching in English–as many subjects as possible–seems to offer a second-best solution insofar as it entails much more exposure to the foreign language”.

4.10. Punctuation. Authors are requested to make their usage of punctuation as consistent as possible. Commas, full stops, colons and semi-colons will be placed after inverted commas (”;).

Capital letters will keep their natural punctuation such as accents, etc. (e.g. PUNTUACIÓN, LINGÜÍSTICA, etc.).

Apostrophes (’), not accents (´), should be used for abbreviations and the saxon genitive.

4.11. Footnotes. Footnotes should only be explanatory (references should be provided only in the main text). Footnotes will appear at the end of the page. Superscript numbers will be separated from the main text of the footnote by a blank space.

References to footnotes should be marked in the text with consecutive superscript Arabic numerals, which should be placed after all punctuation (including parenthesis and quotation marks).

STYLE GUIDE

MLA Style (Ninth Edition) will be used.

4.12. Quotations. Quotations should normally appear in the body of the text, enclosed in double quotation marks. Single quotation marks will be used to locate a quotation within another quotation (e.g. “toward a unified policy that ‘natural’ English was altogether preferable”).

Quotations of four lines or longer should be set in a separate paragraph, without quotation marks, typed in 11-point Garamond and indented 1.5 cm from the left-hand margin. They should be separated from both the previous and the following text with one blank line.

Omissions within quoted text should be indicated by means of an ellipsis preceded and followed by a space. For example,

In the author’s opinion, “Karachi’s framed story of the circumstances … constitutes the kernel of Saroyan’s story”

Use three space periods when the ellipsis coincides with the end of a sentence. For example,

The Aktionsart type of Fail verbs and Try verbs is the Accomplishment, which can be defined as a dynamic, telic and durative event. . . In the logical structure of Fail verbs and Try verbs, the argument x performs the thematic role Experiencer and receives the macrorole Undergoer.

Punctuation marks, including periods, commas, and semicolons, should be placed after the parenthetical citation.

4.13. Most common in-text citations. References must be made in the text and placed within parentheses. Parenthetical citations should be placed immediately after each quotation, both when the quoted passage is incorporated into the text and when the passage is longer than four lines and needs to be set in a separate paragraph. Include this parenthetical citation after the quotation marks but before the comma or period when the quotation is part of your text. When the quotation is set off from the text in indented form, the parenthetical citation follows all punctuation.

Please, pay attention to the different contexts:

When no author is named in the sentence:

“The conventional romance plot is a construction of the ideology of patriarchy” (Brush 238).

When the author is named in the sentence:

Johnson has drawn our attention to the fact that we are aware of our bodies “as three-dimensional containers” (21).

When a source has two authors:

Public libraries have “adopted the role of the provider of access to technology” (Black and May 23).

When a source has three of more authors

A thesis can be generally defined as “the result of structured, original research that is produced for assessment” (Evans et al. 6).

When there are two different sources by the same author, include a short title to avoid confusion:

(Clark, Best Place 100) - Note that this is a book.

(Clark, “Radical Materialism” 12) - Note that this is an article.

When citing multiple sources in the same parenthetical citation, these are separated by a semi-colon. You can decide on the order in which authors appear.

Modern society is affected by the idea that reality is characterized by randomness (Smith 76; Johnson 5; Bergen 89).

Or

Modern society is affected by the idea that reality is characterized by randomness (Smith; Johnson; Bergen).

When citing more than one work by the same author in the same parenthetical citation, include a shortened version of the source's title.

If the author is mentioned in the sentence:

(Best Place; “Radical Materialism”)

If the author is not mentioned in the sentence:  

(Clark, Best Place; “Radical Materialism”) or (Clark, Best Place 43; "Radical Materialism" 3)

Works cited in another source:

According to a study by Sewell, “testimonial acts are better represented through narrative structure” (qtd. in Jones 32).

Works in verse:

Poetry

Edgar Alan Poe describes the noise of “some one gently rapping, rapping” at his bedroom door (line 4).

Play (Act.Scene.Line):

Hamlet’s companions believe he is mad as he states, “the body is with the King, but the King is not / with the body” (Hamlet 4.2.27).

A time-based source: In place of the page number, provide the time or time span for audio or video citations. Provide the hours:minutes:seconds as displayed on your player.

In films, either the director’s last name or the shortened title of the film can be provided:

(Pollack 00:05:30-06:47)

(Out of Africa 00:05:30-06:47)

In digital sources with no pagination include only the author:

“They did not question the rights of these individuals” (Miller).

In digital sources with no author include a shortened title of the work:

“Non-human animals have been used as moral symbols and metaphysical entities” (Animals).

4.14. Most common bibliographical references. All (and only those) books and articles quoted or referred to in the text (those quoted in the footnotes included) should appear in a final bibliographical list of references, which completes the information provided by the in-text citations provided in the text.

The heading for this list should be REFERENCES.

Hanging or reverse indentation (i.e. indentation of all lines of a paragraph except the first one, which is a full line) of 1 cm. from the left-hand margin should be used.

Please, pay attention to the different contexts:

Book with one author:

Taylor, John R. Linguistic Categorization: Prototypes in Linguistic Theory. Clarendon, 1995.

Book with two authors:

Negley, Glenn, and John Max Patrick. The Quest for a Utopia: An Anthology of Imaginary Societies. Henry Schuman, 1952.

Book with more than two authors:

Morris, Steve, et al.  How to Lead a Winning Team. Prentice-Hall, 1999.

Book with editor(s):

Miller, Nancy K., editor. The Poetics of Gender. Columbia UP, 1986.

Nunan, David, and Jack C. Richards, editors. Second language teacher education. Cambridge UP, 1990.

Translated book:

Kristeva, Julia. The Sense and Non-Sense of Revolt. Translated by Jeanine Herman, Columbia UP, 2000.

Work in an anthology, reference, or collection (e.g., essay in an edited collection or a chapter of a book):

Fowler, Roger. “Polyphony and Problematic in Hard Times.” The Changing World of Charles Dickens, edited by Robert Giddings, Vision P,1983, pp. 91-108.

Article in a scholarly journal (add DOI if available):

Kharkhurin, Anatoliy V. "Sociocultural Differences in the Relationship between Bilingualism and Creative Potential." Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, vol. 41, no. 5-6, 2010, pp. 776-783. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022022110361777

Article in an online magazine:

Conor O'Kane. “Hayek’s Road to Serfdom at 80: What Critics Get Wrong about the Austrian Economist.” The Conversation, 11 Mar. 2024, theconversation.com/hayeks-road-to-serfdom-at-80-what-critics-get-wrong-about-the-austrian-economist-225489. Accessed 12 Mar. 2024.

Article in a printed newspaper or magazine:

Collier, Barnard L. “Tired Rock Fans Begin Exodus.” The New York Times, 18 August 1969, p. 1.

Dissertation or thesis:

Arús, Jorge. Towards a Computational Specification of Transitivity in Spanish: A Contrastive Study with English. 2003. Universidad Complutense de Madrid, PhD thesis.

Film:

Like Water for Chocolate [Como agua para chocolate]. Directed by
Alfonso Arau, screenplay by Laura Esquivel, Miramax, 1993.

Point of No Return. Directed by John Badham, Warner Bros., 1993.

A YouTube video:

“Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare.” YouTube, uploaded by 3 Minutes English Literature. 9 March 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ss0JNwPCNvY

A photograph:

Wolcott, Marion Post. 1939. Removing Chinese Hair Mat From Cake of Cottonseed Meal. This Meal is Fed to Cattle. Clarksdale, Mississippi Delta, https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/4d1c2340-1981-013a-2ead-0242ac110004 

A website:

The Purdue OWL Family of Sites. The Writing Lab and OWL at Purdue and Purdue U, 2024, owl.english.purdue.edu/owl. Accessed 2 Feb. 2024.

For other cases, please consult the MLA Handbook (Ninth Edition) or The Purdue OWL’s MLA Formatting and Style Guide.