For further details on the submission process, please consult our blogpost titled ‘Submission Policy’.
Universal formatting conditions:
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Papers (‘final papers’/essays/articles) are requested at minimum of 1,500 words and a maximum of 5,000 words.
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Abstracts are restricted to a maxmium of 350 words. The Journal shall not accept abstracts for papers that exceed 350 words!
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Footnotes are included in the overall word-count, however, your bibliography will not contribute towards the word-count.
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The formatting style for Footnotes and Bibliographic content is currently set at ‘Chicago: Notes and Bibliography’ – for a full-breakdown of how to reference in this style, please consult the university’s referencing styles guidelines.
Who can submit an abstract:
All years of students (Undergraduates and Postgraduates) are welcomed to contribute to the Law Journal; guest contributions – from academics from the university and beyond – are also welcomed. Please see our WordPress blog posts ‘Submitting Abstracts’ and ‘Submitting Final Papers’ for more information.
Context and framing the work:
The St Andrews Law Journal is, at its heart, centred on an investigation of law and legal issues. Our aim is to interrogate perceptions of legality and justice by exploring topics with distinct historic and contemporary implications. The focus of your investigation is left up to your discretion. The Journal produces works that reflect the highly diverse academic community at St Andrews.
While the Journal is undeniably rooted in the humanities, specifically the School of History, we believe that law is an attractive arena of study for individuals across the academic community at St Andrews. Anyone can write about law and its impact on society, but a crucial nuance is writing about how the law reflects upon wider society, and equally how it does not. The potential for exploration is endless as law is a constantly evolving social and institutional phenomenon.
When forming an idea of what you would like to write about, consider issues that mean something to you. Explore the history of your chosen topic, and divulge what sort of evolution has occurred to build the world we live in today. Building a corpus of works that reflects the multiplicity of legal interests in our academic community is something we seek to expand upon in each edition. Having a relevancy to the contemporary, the legal matters of the day, is vital to an effective inquiry. Your focus can be a legislative or judicial ruling, a legal concept, precedent, or wider jurisprudential study. Crucially, we want your work to be focused upon a specific legal issue which has pressing implications in a historic and contemporary context.
Please Note: Authors* are encouraged to refrain from using ‘illustrations’ in their material submission. Authors are liable for all costs for permissions or licensing of copyright material. It is the Author’s responsibility to include the relevant acknowledgements in their article (i.e. attributions to existing academic works). All prospective contributors should consult the University’s guidelines on Copyright and ownership of Intellectual Property (IP).
Further details on style and formatting can be found in our blogposts for Submitting Abstracts and Submitting Final Papers. A full breakdown of the review process is found on our Review Policy.
Contributors – once their work has been reviewed and accepted by our editors – shall be sent several documents of importance:
- the License to Publish Agreement (requiring your signature and consent for the Journal to publish your work);
- a copy of our Take-Down Policy (describing the process by which the Journal shall review content take-down requests);
- the Journal Cover page template (providing you directions on document format and style, including font; spacing; margins; alignment; logo use; etc – this document also acts as a cover page containing the appropriate attribution and citation information, like what you would normally see on an article from JSTOR.com for example).
If you have any further questions or wish further information/examples of any of the above, please feel free to contact the editors at the Journal’s email address: [email protected].
*‘Authors’ – refers to the creator (and owner) of the material work submitted to the editors of the Journal. Also used in exchange of ‘contributor’ on occasion.
