Author Guidelines

Review process: Manuscripts first go through an initial internal screening by the editorial board. If the proposed article is deemed to fit in our editorial scope and fulfils the criteria for articles, it will then be sent to anonymous external reviewers.

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SAMAJ publishes manuscripts in English. Articles submitted should be about 6,000 to 8,000 words. This includes footnotes and endnotes, but excludes abstract and bibliography. Photographs, graphics, maps or illustrations in relation to the contribution may be included. An abstract of 100-150 words maximum, describing the main arguments of the article should be included in the submission. Every article should include a minimum of five keywords.

Manuscript formatting

SAMAJ follows the formatting guidelines of the American Sociological Association Style Guide (5^th edition, 2014), published by the American Sociological Association. The editorial board invites authors to make sure their typescript conforms to ASA guidelines.

Here are some documents to help authors format their typescript:

• Quick Tips for ASA Style (American Sociological Association);

• ASA Style citations (Trinity University)

Authors using a reference management software such as Zotero, Mendeley or Endnote may download the ASA citation style:

• for Zotero and Mendeley (Zotero Style Repository);

• for Endnote (Endnote official website).

Note on foreign words and diacritical marks

ASA guidelines should be followed: in general, foreign words should be italicized, unless they are included in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary (this includes such Latin phrases as ad hoc, per se, etc., but also many other foreign expressions [example: vis-à-vis]; please check the dictionary).

For South Asian or other Asian languages, foreign text should always be italicized, even if the same word is used several times. Agreement in gender/number is accepted, as long as continuity is maintained throughout the submission.

Vernacular languages: long vowels should be spelt as ‘a’ or ‘ā’ (but not aa), ‘i’ or ‘ī’ (but not ‘ee’), ‘u’ or ‘ū’ (but not oo). For diacritical marks on consonants, the choice is left to the authors but they should remain consistent throughout the text. However, if they choose to have diacritical marks on consonants, they should also consistently use diacritical marks on vowels (ex: ‘śām’ but not ‘śam’).

When a foreign word is used in text, its translation should immediately follow in parentheses, e.g. kitab (book).

In the case of a quotation in a foreign language, its translation should be included either in an endnote or in brackets immediately following the quotation (without italics and without quotation marks), e.g. roti, kapra aur makan [bread, clothing and shelter].