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Author Guidelines

Contents

Form

1. Journal Sections
2. Length
3. Headings and sub-headings
4. Cross references
5. Footnotes
6. Summary

Method of citation

7. OSCOLA

Submission to the Editors

8. Editorial Committee
9. Identification of author
10. File formats
11. Word processing guidance
12. Acknowledgement
13. Amendment after submission
14. Copyright

___________________________________________________________

Form

1. The editors invite submissions in the following subject sections:

(a) Articles. Articles should normally be of between 4,000 to 10,000 words but longer articles will be considered. Articles in any field of legal scholarship will be welcomed provided they deal with some matter of current import.

(b) Case Notes. These should be of a maximum of 4,000 words providing critical comment on recent cases.

(c) Comments. This section will contain comments on current issues such as Green or White Papers and other government policy or consultation papers, Law Commission Consultations or Reports, Select Committee Reports, Reports of other inquiries or law reform bodies, etc.

(d) Legal Education. This section is aimed at disseminating information about new developments in legal education and encouraging debate. Comments may be brief or up to full article length which would be appropriate where the results of research on an educational innovation or project are being communicated.

(e) Information technology. This section is designed to disseminate information about new developments in information technology in so far as they relate to legal education, research or practice. Contributions may be brief or up to full article length.

(f) Book reviews. This section aims to publish book reviews within a few months of books being published thereby assisting the decision-making on new acquisitions for libraries or the adoption of books for courses. While books received for review will be sent out to individuals for review, reviews of other books or review articles of books and scholarship in a particular area of the law will be welcomed. Book reviews should be of a minimum of 1000 words and review articles may be of substantially greater length. In the case of such reviews and review articles enquiries should initially be addressed to the Book Review Editor.

2. Length

The journal is online and there are thus no real limitations to the lengths of any piece we will publish.  We prefer book reviews to be at least 1000 words. We can accept text and images and thus are happy to publish work which includes statistical tables etc.  In case of doubt, the Editor is happy to advise.

3. Headings and sub-headings

It would be helpful if articles and comments contained brief, useful headings and sub-headings. This facilitates the presentation of documents on screen.

Author's manuscripts should have numbering to indicate the level of headings - it is not always obvious in submitted pieces. We suggest Header 1 for title, Header 2 for main headings (1, 2, ...) and Header 3 for sub headings (1.1, 1.2, ...)

4. Cross references

Internal cross referencing to a page number is not possible because a web page is one continuous document. Internal cross referencing must be to a section which is indicated by a Header. External cross references to other materials on the World Wide Web may be made by means of the URL (Uniform Resource Locator) and are welcomed as a useful facility for an online journal.

5. Footnotes

In the journal, footnotes will appear at the end of the text and before the bibliography.

6. Summary

Articles and comments should be accompanied by a brief abstract (300 words maximum).

Method of citation

7. Authors are recommended to follow the Oxford Standard for the Citation of Legal Authorities (OSCOLA).

NB

1. OSCOLA requires a neutral reference in addition to a reference to the 'best report' of a case. For these purposes the neutral reference is the official one supplied by the court or tribunal. Unofficial neutral references should not be used.
2. OSCOLA requires the entire case names are italicised including the v but not the reference.
3. The current edition of OSCOLA is the 4th but the referencing of international materials is still in the 3rd edition.

Submission to the Editors

8. Editorial Committee

Contributions should be uploaded to the Journal web site at http://webjcli.org. The editors will welcome enquiries from individuals with proposals for articles or comments. Such a submission of material implies that the contribution contains original unpublished work and that it is not being submitted for publication elsewhere.

9. Identification of author

The author's (and any co-author's) name, qualification, position, institution, address and e-mail address should be included in the information when they first register with the journal system.

10. File Formats

Articles must be uploaded to the site without author information (this will not be made available to the referees).

In cases of difficulty, contact the editors. Any wordprocessed file format, e.g. any version of Word or RTF is acceptable.  We cannot process submissions which are in PDF format.

 

11. Word-processing guidance

(a) Lay-out. In writing or editing a file avoid imposing a lay-out on the document by use of such devices as Tabs or the repeated use of Space-bar.

If a section or quotation is to be indented use the indent command in the word-processing package or commence section - (Indent) - and end it (Endent) - the indented section of text should also be preceded by a double carriage return and followed by same. For example:

In R v Brown [1993] 2 WLR 556 the position was summarised perfectly by Lord Lowry who stated (at p 583):

(Indent)"What the appellants are obliged to propose is that the deliberate and painful infliction of physical injury should be exempted from the operation of statutory provisions the object of which is to prevent or punish that very thing...."(Endent)

In the Web JCLI this section would appear as follows:

In R v Brown [1993] 2 WLR 556 the position was summarised perfectly by Lord Lowry who stated (at p 583):

"What the appellants are obliged to propose is that the deliberate and painful infliction of physical injury should be exempted from the operation of statutory provisions the object of which is to prevent or punish that very thing...."

NB Quotations whether short ones appearing in the body of the text or longer ones which are indented, should appear within double quotation marks.

(b) Paragraphs. Do not indent first line of new paragraph. The end of a paragraph should be indicated by use of two carriage returns.

(c) Headings. File conversion to html relies on the use of headings in word and their value. The editors attempt to reproduce headings in the Journal's style sheet. The values are H1=arial 16; H2=arial 14; H3=arial 13 ; H4=arial 12; Normal=Times New Roman 12. If in doubt, please indicate your intentions in plain language e.g. (Heading, Sub-heading, Sub-sub-heading) and so on.

(d) Spacing . In typing text there should be only a single space-bar between each word and following a full-stop - double or triple space-bars should be avoided.

(e) Tables. If information is to be included in tabular form use the Table facility in the word-processing package - DO NOT create a table by using Tabs to align material.

(f) Fonts. The journal displays html files in Arial font and pdf files in Times New Roman.

(g) Graphics. If graphics are to be included please send a separate graphic format file. In general, we use transparent interlaced gif files, png, or jpeg, but it does depend on the size and function of the file in question.

12. Refereeing

The editors will attempt to encourage referees to provide views as quickly as possible, however authors should understand that we cannot force reviewers to be prompt. Articles, comments and reviews accepted for publication will be published in the next issue of the journal where the acceptance is given. A submission which is provisionally accepted subject to suggested amendments will be published where such amendments have been made to the satisfaction of the editors. Where a submission is rejected following reference to a referee, the referees comments will, at the discretion of the editors, be communicated to the contributor.

13. Amendment after submission

Contributors should note that submissions accepted for publication will appear in the form in which they have been submitted (unless amendments have been requested by the editors) and that an electronic journal does not have a 'page proofs' stage in the publishing process. If contributors wish to amend a submission they should promptly despatch an amended version of the article, comment or review in data form to the relevant editor detailing the nature and location of the amendments. If such amendments arrive less than two weeks before the publication of the issue in which the contribution is due to appear, it may not be possible to make the amendments and the contribution may be held over until the following issue of the journal.

14. Copyright

Copyright in all contributions accepted for publication remains with the authors, and the publishers acquire publication rights. Authors are free to re-use their own material but if all or any part of published material is reproduced elsewhere, the author should acknowledge the Web Journal of Current Legal Issues as the original place of publication.

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, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
2. If submitting to a peer-reviewed section of the journal, the instructions in Ensuring a Blind Review have been followed.

Copyright Notice

Copyright in all contributions accepted for publication remains with the authors, and the publishers acquire publication rights. Authors are free to re-use their own material but if all or any part of published material is reproduced elsewhere, the author should acknowledge the European Journal of Current Legal Issues as the original place of publication.

Privacy Statement

The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.