Journal of Catalan Studies (JOCS) - Guidelines for Authors

Submitting an Article

JOCS welcomes proposals for publication of articles between 6000 and 9000 words on any aspect of Catalan culture.

Submitting a Review

Reviews for JOCS are typically commissioned in advance by our reviews editor.  A standard review should be concise and should, at least, highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the work at stake, as well as signalling the contribution that it makes to the field. The text should also identify the target audience of that work. The text should be between 1000 and 1500 words and direct quotes within the text should be avoided as much as possible. 

 

Presentation of Manuscripts

Manuscripts will be sent exclusively in digital form through OJS platform. Previously, the applicant will need to register as an author and accept the conditions for submission.

Only one copy is submitted, in .odt (LibreOffice, OpenOffice) or .doc, .docx format (MS Word). This format is also to be used for tables (if any).

Images (if any) should be submitted in .jpeg.

If the article has several authors, each and every one of them must register and accept the conditions and submit the same document. The document name will take the following form: Surname of author (or first author, if more than one) space two words from the title.

For example: “London ContextosBrossa”.

FORMAT

Margins

The space margins (both top and bottom and left and right) will be the default standard in MS Word, OpenOffice, and LibreOffice.

Paragraphs

The beginning of the paragraph is marked with a single tab. New paragraph change will be marked with a single carriage return. Do not leave blank lines between paragraphs.

Font and Line-Spacing

Use Times New Roman, 12 pt., double space.

Pagination

Pagination will always be in arabic numerals, in consecutive order, beginning on the first page (cover page), in the upper right corner of the page.

Content, structure, and style of the manuscript

The manuscript should be divided into the following parts: Title page; abstract and keywords; text; acknowledgments (if any); bibliography or reference list; appendices or annexes.

Cover page of article

The first element will be the title, separated from the subtitle by a colon, lower case bold. The title should refer to the central theme of the work and be clearly informative to facilitate searches by topics. For the same reason, the title will avoid the use of abbreviations, symbols, or formulae.

Translation of title

If the title is not in English, an English translation should be added below, in italics.

Authors’ names

The next elements are the surname and first name of the authors. Authors will sign with their official form of name as registered in ORCID: Surname(s), first name (or initial, if recorded thus in ORCID). In the case of multiple authors, all of them are given, separated by semicolons, as in the example below:

Terry, Arthur; Coromines, Joan; Martines, Vicent; George, David.

The order of appearance of different authors (either alphabetical, hierarchical, etc.) will have been previously agreed among them, and this order will be respected in the publication.

Institutional Affiliation

The name of the institution to which each author belongs will be given in the manuscript, untranslated, in italics.

Person responsible for correspondence

In the case of multiple authors, the first named is regarded as the spokesperson for the group of authors, unless stated otherwise.

Email, ORCID iD

All authors will state their professional email (which will be published) and, should they have one already, their ORCID ID.

Acknowledgment of grant or financial support for the work

The first page of the article will also acknowledge which grants or aid for projects (if any) have enabled the authors to perform the work published.

Table of contents and keywords page

On the second page the second section will appear, presented in this order: abstract, keywords, abstract in English, and table of contents of the article.

Abstract

This section will be headed “ABSTRACT” in capitals, justified and followed by a line return. Then, also justified, give the abstract of the work. (Articles in English which follow American norms will use the same norms in the abstract; articles in English which follow British norms will use the same norms in the abstract.) For those articles which contribute original research (as distinct from, for example, inventories or critical editions of texts) objectives, methodology, results and conclusions must be set out in the abstract. The abstract should not contain information that does not figure in the text of the article, and should use significant words representative of the content, to facilitate automated searches.

Abstracts must not exceed one thousand words.

Translation of the abstract

This section will be headed by the word “Abstract” in italics, justified and followed by a line return. Then, also justified, give the abstract of the work.

Keywords

Keywords are those words or, more commonly, phrases that help categorize thematically the work in question. This is very important for finding the work, once published, via automated search engines. The journal therefore advises the use of at least six fields of keywords. This section will be headed by “KEYWORDS” in capitals, justified and followed by a line return. Then, also justified, give the keywords in the language of the article, separated by semicolons.

Translation of keywords

This section will be headed by the word “Keywords” in italics, justified and followed by a line return. Then, also justified, give the keywords in English (for reasons of consistency, use British norms), separated by semicolons.

Table of Contents

The keywords are followed by a table of contents which lists the sections of the article. The headings and subheadings must appear with the same method and arrangement (numbering system and format of sections) as used in the text.

Text

Articles should be original research and follow a clear and logical written order.

Length of articles

The minimum length of an article in JOCS will be 6000 words, double-spaced. The maximum length will be 9000 words, double-spaced. This extension will not include list of references, appendices or illustrations, if any.

Sections and subsections

The divisions and subdivisions of the article must be presented thus: Headings and subheadings should be numbered according to the specific standard ISO 2145, always numbered consecutively in arabic numerals, using a point to separate the levels of division. The numeration of sections, if any, is to be in romans. The headings and subheadings will be the same body as the text (12 pt.). The general headings will be lower case (except the initial capital), bold, justified, and the first paragraph will also be justified, without tabs. Sub- headings will be in italics, with tab, and the first paragraph will appear as a normal paragraph, with a single tab. 

Example:

1 Introduction

2 The Romance Standard

2.1 The Hispanic Standard

2.1.1 The Castilian Standard

2.1.2 The Aragonese Standard

2.1.3 The Catalan Standard

2.1.3.1 Eastern Catalan

2.1.3.2 Western Catalan

The headings and subheadings will be separated by two lines above and one line below. Lower levels of headings are separated by one line above and below.

Basic typographic symbols

Use high quotes, never low. Single quotes are used to indicate the meaning of words or passages, or for a quote within another quote. Italics are used for foreign words or phrases.

If a single word or phrase in a foreign language is used, it should be in italics. If more than a phrase is reproduced, it is treated as a quotation, in double quotes.

“The meaning of destral as ‘go-between’ in the Catalan Facet and in Old Occitan”. “Quotes precede the punctuation mark”; footnotes follow punctuation.

Dashes

Hyphens are used to connect words (well-informed); “en dashes” are used to denote range (23–56); “em dashes” can be used to replace commas, parentheses, colons and semicolons (“Artís-Gener draws direct—if at times problematic—comparisons with the officially repressed status of Catalan”).

Abbreviations and Acronyms

Initials or acronyms of legal entities (RABLB, UNESCO, TV3) are in capitals; bibliographical acronyms are in capitals in italic or roman as appropriate: DCVC (Diccionari català-valencià- balear), DECLC (Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana), but PL (Patrologia Latina: a series, not a title).

Acronyms which are not initials take an initial capital and following lower case letters: Termcat, Renfe. Imprecise abbreviations should be avoided, such as op. cit., loc. cit.

Numbers

Amounts quoted in isolation, especially those under fifty, are written out in full: “The piece consists of fifty verses”, but “A summary of 51 words”. Duration of time (for example, a person’s age) is always written in full: “Ausiàs March died at the age of fifty-nine”.

JOCS prefers the use of arabic numerals and keeps use of roman numerals to a minimum (to facilitate internet searching). However, there are cases where tradition makes such use unavoidable. When necessary, romans will usually be in capitals; in Romance languages, centuries will be in small capitals: “segle XIV”. For the numbering of leaves in a manuscript or the pagination of the preliminaries of a printed book the author can choose between small caps (ff. XXXIV–XLIII) or lower case (ff. xxxiv–xliii).

In references to a sequence of pages or verses or dates, reduce the second number to two digits, or the minimum difference: 390–420, 1994–99; vv. 12445–546.

Quotations

Quotations are defined as those portions of text written by the author or others, presented in summary or literally.

To avoid plagiarism, all data and ideas of others should be duly cited. Quotations must be justified and relevant. Be objective in the selection of texts, avoiding tendentiousness.

Texts must be reproduced or paraphrased accurately, even if they contain errors or misprints. Mark these with “[sic]” (italics and square brackets).

If parts of the quotation are omitted, ensure meaning is not distorted. For omissions, use three points and space at the beginning or end of the quotation, and enclose three points in parentheses within the quotation.

Insertions should only be used for clarification and should be enclosed in square brackets.

Quotations should always be given in their original language. Quotations of less than four lines should be included in the text, between high double inverted commas (“ “), before punctuation (“... chivalry”.). Longer quotations are given in a separate paragraph, inset, in 11 pt., without inverted commas.

REFERENCING GUIDE

The preferred house style is the Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS). A quick guide is available at the official website of the CMOS.

The CMOS allows for a notes and bibliography OR an author-date system. The JOCS prefers the author-date system.

Here below are examples that illustrate this variety:

Author-Date

Books

In-text

(Billig 1995, 13)

(Campabadal and Miralles 2015, 25)

Reference list entry

Billig, Michael. 1995. Banal Nationalism. London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi and Singapore: Sage.

Campabadal, Josep, and Francesc Miralles. 2015. De Ciutadans a Ciudadanos: La otra cara del neoliberalismo. Madrid: Akal.

Book Chapters

In-text

(Derrida 1996, 79)

Reference list entry

Derrida, Jacques. 1996. “Remarks on Deconstruction and Pragmatism.” In Deconstruction and Pragmatism, edited by Chantal Mouffe, 77–88. London and New York: Routledge.

Journal Articles

In-text

(Cederman, Wimmer, and Min 2010, 88)

Reference list entry

Cederman, Lars-Erik, Andreas Wimmer, and Brian Min. 2010. “Why Do Ethnic Groups Rebel? New Data and Analysis.” World Politics 62, no. 1 (January): 87–119.

If a URL or DOI is available, include it in the reference list entry.

If the article contains four authors or more, list the first one followed by et al. in the in-text reference. In the reference list, list all authors.

Newspapers and Magazines

In-text

(Sánchez 2015)

Reference list entry

Sánchez, Dani. 2015. “Rajoy intervé les finances de la Generalitat.” Ara, November 20, 2015.
https://www.ara.cat/economia/Rajoy-Catalunya-especials-Fons-Liquiditat_0_1471053029.html.

Website Content and Social Media

In-text

(Generalitat de Catalunya 2014) (Fachín 2017)

Reference list entry

Generalitat de Catalunya. 2014. “El règim de la Nova Planta.” Last modified June 23, 2014.
https://web.gencat.cat/ca/generalitat/historia/regim-de-nova-planta.

Fachín, Albano-Dante (@AlbanoDante76). 2017. “No. Así no. Presos políticos. España 2017. No pasarán.” Twitter, October 16, 2017. https://twitter.com/AlbanoDante76/status/920008789411102720.