Guide for Authors
Women's Studies International Forum (formerly
Women's Studies International Quarterly,
established in 1978) is a bimonthly journal to aid the distribution and exchange of feminist research in the multidisciplinary, international
area of women's studies and in feminist research in other disciplines. The policy of the journal is to establish a feminist forum for
discussion and debate.
The journal seeks to critique and reconceptualize existing knowledge, to examine and re-evaluate the manner
in which knowledge is produced and distributed, and to assess the implications this has for women's lives.
Types of paper
We seek contributions from people, individually or collectively, from different countries
and different backgrounds, who are engaged in feminist research inside or outside formal educational institutions. We welcome a variety
of approaches and resources through the whole range of disciplines: papers geared toward action-oriented research as well as those which
address theoretical methodological issues; and we encourage historical reassessments of the lives and works of women. We urge all contributors
both to acknowledge the cultural and social specifics of their particular approach, and to draw out these issues in their articles.
We also invite conference reports and announcements, calls for papers, notices of new publications and reports, contacts, etc., sent
in by individuals or groups in the international feminist community.
Submission details
The submission of manuscripts to
Women's Studies International Forum proceeds online via the journal's online submission
and tracking tool at
http://ees.elsevier.com/wsif/. This site will guide authors stepwise through the submission process.
Authors are requested to submit the text, tables, and artwork in electronic form to this address. Authors who are unable to provide
an electronic version or have other circumstances that prevent online submission must contact the Editor-in-Chief prior to submission
to discuss alternative options; email:
K.Bhopal@soton.ac.uk The Publisher and Editors regret that they cannot accept submissions
which do not follow these procedures. No submission fee is required at this time.
Special Issues
Full instructions for
special issue proposals and delivery of special issue articles can be found
here.
Book
Reviews
Requests to review and/or review copies of relevant books should be sent to the WSIF Book Reviews Editor, Professor Carrie
Paechter at: Goldsmiths, University of London, Department of Educational Studies, New Cross, SE14 6NW, UK; email:
c.paechter@gold.ac.uk.
The journal does not normally accept unsolicited reviews.
Ethics in publishing
For information on Ethics in publishing and Ethical guidelines for journal publication
see
http://www.elsevier.com/publishingethics and
http://www.elsevier.com/ethicalguidelines.
Conflict of interest
All authors are requested to disclose any actual or potential conflict of interest
including any financial, personal or other relationships with other people or organizations within three years of beginning the submitted
work that could inappropriately influence, or be perceived to influence, their work. See also
http://www.elsevier.com/conflictsofinterest.
Submission declaration
Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously
(except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis), that it is not under consideration for publication
elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was
carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere including electronically in the same form, in English or in any
other language, without the written consent of the copyright-holder.
Changes to authorship
This policy concerns the addition, deletion, or rearrangement of author names in the authorship of accepted manuscripts:
Before
the accepted manuscript is published in an online issue: Requests to add or remove an author, or to rearrange the author names,
must be sent to the Journal Manager from the corresponding author of the accepted manuscript and must include: (a) the reason the name
should be added or removed, or the author names rearranged and (b) written confirmation (e-mail, fax, letter) from all authors that they
agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement. In the case of addition or removal of authors, this includes confirmation from the
author being added or removed. Requests that are not sent by the corresponding author will be forwarded by the Journal Manager to the
corresponding author, who must follow the procedure as described above. Note that: (1) Journal Managers will inform the Journal Editors
of any such requests and (2) publication of the accepted manuscript in an online issue is suspended until authorship has been agreed.
After
the accepted manuscript is published in an online issue: Any requests to add, delete, or rearrange author names in an article published
in an online issue will follow the same policies as noted above and result in a corrigendum.
Copyright
Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to complete a 'Journal Publishing Agreement' (for more
information on this and copyright see
http://www.elsevier.com/copyright). Acceptance of the agreement will ensure the widest
possible dissemination of information. An e-mail will be sent to the corresponding author confirming receipt of the manuscript together
with a 'Journal Publishing Agreement' form or a link to the online version of this agreement.
Subscribers may reproduce tables of
contents or prepare lists of articles including abstracts for internal circulation within their institutions. Permission of the Publisher
is required for resale or distribution outside the institution and for all other derivative works, including compilations and translations
(please consult
http://www.elsevier.com/permissions). If excerpts from other copyrighted works are included, the author(s)
must obtain written permission from the copyright owners and credit the source(s) in the article. Elsevier has preprinted forms for use
by authors in these cases: please consult
http://www.elsevier.com/permissions.
Retained author rights
As an author you (or your employer or institution) retain certain rights; for details you are referred
to:
http://www.elsevier.com/authorsrights.
Role of the funding source
You are requested to identify who provided financial support for the conduct of the research and/or preparation of the article
and to briefly describe the role of the sponsor(s), if any, in study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data;
in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the article for publication. If the funding source(s) had no such involvement
then this should be stated. Please see
http://www.elsevier.com/funding.
Funding body agreements and policies
Elsevier has established agreements and developed policies to allow authors whose
articles appear in journals published by Elsevier, to comply with potential manuscript archiving requirements as specified as conditions
of their grant awards. To learn more about existing agreements and policies please visit
http://www.elsevier.com/fundingbodies.
Open access
This journal offers you the option of making your article freely available to all via the ScienceDirect
platform. To prevent any conflict of interest, you can only make this choice after receiving notification that your article has been
accepted for publication. The fee of $3,000 excludes taxes and other potential author fees such as color charges. In some cases, institutions
and funding bodies have entered into agreement with Elsevier to meet these fees on behalf of their authors. Details of these agreements
are available at
http://www.elsevier.com/fundingbodies. Authors of accepted articles, who wish to take advantage of this
option, should complete and submit the order form (available at
http://www.elsevier.com/locate/openaccessform.pdf). Whatever
access option you choose, you retain many rights as an author, including the right to post a revised personal version of your article
on your own website. More information can be found here:
http://www.elsevier.com/authorsrights.
Language and language services
Please write your text in good English (American or British usage is accepted,
but not a mixture of these). Authors who require information about language editing and copyediting services pre- and post-submission
please visit
http://webshop.elsevier.com/languageservices
or our customer support site at
http://support.elsevier.com
for more information.
Submission
Submission to this journal proceeds totally
online. Use the following guidelines to prepare your article. Via the journal's online submission and tracking tool at:
http://ees.elsevier.com/wsif/
you will be guided stepwise through the creation and uploading of the various files. The system automatically converts source files to
a single Adobe Acrobat PDF version of the article, which is used in the peer-review process. Please note that even though manuscript
source files are converted to PDF at submission for the review process, these source files are needed for further processing after acceptance.
All correspondence, including notification of the Editor's decision and requests for revision, takes place by e-mail and via the author's
homepage, removing the need for a hard-copy paper trail.
Referees
Please
submit, with the manuscript, the names, addresses and e-mail addresses of 3 potential referees. Note that the editor retains the sole
right to decide whether or not the suggested reviewers are used.
Additional information
Please suggest
three possible referees with relevant current research activity along with their full postal and email
addresses. Please ensure that these referees are not from the authors' own institutions.
Language Policy
Women's Studies International
Forum is multidisciplinary, and unnecessary or mystifying jargon should be avoided. Authors should use non-sexist language. "Man,"
for example, is not acceptable as a generic term. For further guidelines please see the
Publication Manual of the American Psychological
Association, Fifth Edition, ISBN 1-55798-790-4, copies of which may be ordered from
http://www.apa.org/books/4200061.html
or APA Order Dept., P.O.B. 2710, Hyattsville, MD 20784, USA or APA, 3 Henrietta Street, London, WC3E 8LU, UK.
Use of wordprocessing software
Authors should upload the source files of their articles in the preferred
format of Microsoft (MS) Word, RTF, WordPerfect, or LaTeX for text and TIFF or EPS for figures. The system automatically converts source
files to a single Adobe Acrobat PDF version of the article, which is used in the peer-review process. Please note that even though manuscript
source files are converted to PDF at submission for the review process, these source files are needed for further processing after acceptance.
Authors, reviewers, and editors send and receive all correspondence by e-mail.
Article
structure
Subdivision - unnumbered sections
Divide your article
into clearly defined sections. Each subsection is given a brief heading. Each heading should appear on its own separate line. Subsections
should be used as much as possible when cross-referencing text: refer to the subsection by heading as opposed to simply 'the text'.
Introduction
State the objectives of the work and provide an adequate background, avoiding a detailed
literature survey or a summary of the results.
Results
Results should
be clear and concise.
Discussion
This should explore the significance
of the results of the work, not repeat them. A combined Results and Discussion section is often appropriate. Avoid extensive citations
and discussion of published literature.
Conclusions
The main conclusions
of the study may be presented in a short Conclusions section, which may stand alone or form a subsection of a Discussion or Results and
Discussion section.
Appendices
If there is more than one appendix,
they should be identified as A, B, etc. Formulae and equations in appendices should be given separate numbering: Eq. (A.1), Eq. (A.2),
etc.; in a subsequent appendix, Eq. (B.1) and so on. Similarly for tables and figures: Table A.1; Fig. A.1, etc.
Essential title page information
•
Title.
Concise and informative. Titles are often
used in information-retrieval systems. Avoid abbreviations and formulae where possible.
•
Author names and affiliations.
Where the family name may be ambiguous (e.g., a double name), please indicate this clearly. Present the authors' affiliation addresses
(where the actual work was done) below the names. Indicate all affiliations with a lower-case superscript letter immediately after the
author's name and in front of the appropriate address. Provide the full postal address of each affiliation, including the country name
and, if available, the e-mail address of each author.
•
Corresponding author.
Clearly indicate who will handle
correspondence at all stages of refereeing and publication, also post-publication.
Ensure that telephone and fax numbers (with country
and area code) are provided in addition to the e-mail address and the complete postal address. Contact details must be kept up to date
by the corresponding author.
•
Present/permanent address.
If an author has moved since the work described
in the article was done, or was visiting at the time, a 'Present address' (or 'Permanent address') may be indicated as a footnote to
that author's name. The address at which the author actually did the work must be retained as the main, affiliation address. Superscript
Arabic numerals are used for such footnotes.
Abstract
A concise and factual
abstract is required (not exceeding 150 words). This should appear on a separate page following the title page. The abstract should state
briefly the purpose of the research, the principal results and major conclusions. An abstract is often presented separately from the
article, so it must be able to stand alone. For this reason, References should be avoided, but if essential, then cite the author(s)
and year(s). Also, non-standard or uncommon abbreviations should be avoided, but if essential they must be defined at their first mention
in the abstract itself.
Highlights
Highlights are mandatory for this journal.
They consist of a short collection of bullet points that convey the core findings of the article and should be submitted in a separate
file in the online submission system. Please use 'Highlights' in the file name and include 3 to 5 bullet points (maximum 85 characters,
including spaces, per bullet point). See
http://www.elsevier.com/highlights for examples.
Keywords
Immediately after the abstract, provide a maximum of 6 keywords, avoiding general and plural terms
and multiple concepts (avoid, for example, "and", "of"). Be sparing with abbreviations: only abbreviations firmly established in the
field may be eligible. These keywords will be used for indexing purposes.
Word limit
Submitted papers should be approximately
25-30 pages, double-spaced. The Editors are willing to be flexible on this, depending on the nature of the article.
Acknowledgements
Collate acknowledgements in a separate section at the end of the article before the references
and do not, therefore, include them on the title page, as a footnote to the title or otherwise. List here those individuals who provided
help during the research (e.g., providing language help, writing assistance or proof reading the article, etc.).
Notes
Notes which refer to the text should be used only when absolutely necessary. If notes are used, they
should be numbered consecutively and typed on a separate sheet at the end of manuscript. They will appear in an Endnotes section following
the article. Notes of acknowledgement and author identification are not numbered and should appear on the title page.
Artwork
Electronic artwork
General points
• Make sure you use uniform lettering and sizing of your original artwork.
• Save text in illustrations as 'graphics'
or enclose the font.
• Only use the following fonts in your illustrations: Arial, Courier, Times, Symbol.
• Number
the illustrations according to their sequence in the text.
• Use a logical naming convention for your artwork files.
•
Provide captions to illustrations separately.
• Produce images near to the desired size of the printed version.
• Submit
each figure as a separate file.
A detailed guide on electronic artwork is available on our website:
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions
You are urged to visit this site; some excerpts from the detailed information are given here.
Formats
Regardless
of the application used, when your electronic artwork is finalised, please 'save as' or convert the images to one of the following formats
(note the resolution requirements for line drawings, halftones, and line/halftone combinations given below):
EPS: Vector drawings.
Embed the font or save the text as 'graphics'.
TIFF: Color or grayscale photographs (halftones): always use a minimum of 300 dpi.
TIFF: Bitmapped line drawings: use a minimum of 1000 dpi.
TIFF: Combinations bitmapped line/half-tone (color or grayscale): a
minimum of 500 dpi is required.
If your electronic artwork is created in a Microsoft Office application (Word, PowerPoint, Excel)
then please supply 'as is'.
Please do not:
• Supply files that are optimised for screen use (e.g., GIF, BMP, PICT,
WPG); the resolution is too low;
• Supply files that are too low in resolution;
• Submit graphics that are disproportionately
large for the content.
Color artwork
Please make sure that artwork
files are in an acceptable format (TIFF, EPS or MS Office files) and with the correct resolution. If, together with your accepted article,
you submit usable color figures then Elsevier will ensure, at no additional charge, that these figures will appear in color on the Web
(e.g., ScienceDirect and other sites) regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in color in the printed version.
For color reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from Elsevier after receipt of your accepted article.
Please indicate your preference for color: in print or on the Web only. For further information on the preparation of electronic artwork,
please see
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.
Please note: Because of technical complications which can arise
by converting color figures to 'gray scale' (for the printed version should you not opt for color in print) please submit in addition
usable black and white versions of all the color illustrations.
Figure captions
Ensure that each illustration has a caption. Supply captions separately, not attached to the figure. A caption should comprise a
brief title (
not on the figure itself) and a description of the illustration. Keep text in the illustrations themselves to a minimum
but explain all symbols and abbreviations used.
Tables
Number tables consecutively
in accordance with their appearance in the text. Place footnotes to tables below the table body and indicate them with superscript lowercase
letters. Avoid vertical rules. Be sparing in the use of tables and ensure that the data presented in tables do not duplicate results
described elsewhere in the article.
References
Citation in text
Please ensure that every reference cited in the text is also present in the reference
list (and vice versa). Any references cited in the abstract must be given in full. Unpublished results and personal communications are
not recommended in the reference list, but may be mentioned in the text. If these references are included in the reference list they
should follow the standard reference style of the journal and should include a substitution of the publication date with either 'Unpublished
results' or 'Personal communication'. Citation of a reference as 'in press' implies that the item has been accepted for publication.
Web references
As a minimum, the full URL should be given and the date when the reference was last
accessed. Any further information, if known (DOI, author names, dates, reference to a source publication, etc.), should also be given.
Web references can be listed separately (e.g., after the reference list) under a different heading if desired, or can be included in
the reference list.
References in a special issue
Please ensure that
the words 'this issue' are added to any references in the list (and any citations in the text) to other articles in the same Special
Issue.
Style and Reference Examples
Citations in the text should follow
the referencing style used by the American Psychological Association. You are referred to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological
Association, Fifth Edition, ISBN 1-55798-790-4, copies of which may be ordered from
http://www.apa.org/books/4200061.html
or APA Order Dept., P.O.B. 2710, Hyattsville, MD 20784, USA or APA, 3 Henrietta Street, London, WC3E 8LU, UK. Details concerning this
referencing style can also be found at
http://linguistics.byu.edu/faculty/henrichsenl/apa/apa01.html
The reference
section must be double-spaced, all works cited in the text must be listed and no references may be added for works not cited in the text.
Use first names of authors in the reference list. Avoid abbreviations of journal titles and incomplete information.
Examples of style:
(a) Text
". . . comes to this conclusion (Daly, 1973) in her analysis of . . . " (for specific reference supply page numbers).
(b) In references:
For a book:
Daly, Mary (1973).
Beyond god the father: Toward a philosophy of women's liberation.
Boston: Beacon.
For an article in a book:
Callaway, Helen (1981). Women's perspectives: Research as a re-revision. In Peter Reason & John Rowan (Eds.),
Human inquiry (pp. 457-472). New York: John Wiley.
For a journal article:
Hesse-Biber, Sharlene,
Leavy, Patricia, Quinn, Courtney E., & Zoino, Julia (2006). The mass marketing of disordered eating and Eating Disorders: the social
psychology of women, thinness and culture.
Women's Studies International Forum, 29 (2), 208-224.
Video data
Elsevier accepts video material and animation sequences to support and enhance your scientific
research. Authors who have video or animation files that they wish to submit with their article are strongly encouraged to include these
within the body of the article. This can be done in the same way as a figure or table by referring to the video or animation content
and noting in the body text where it should be placed. All submitted files should be properly labeled so that they directly relate to
the video file's content. In order to ensure that your video or animation material is directly usable, please provide the files in one
of our recommended file formats with a preferred maximum size of 50 MB. Video and animation files supplied will be published online in
the electronic version of your article in Elsevier Web products, including ScienceDirect:
http://www.sciencedirect.com.
Please supply 'stills' with your files: you can choose any frame from the video or animation or make a separate image. These will be
used instead of standard icons and will personalize the link to your video data. For more detailed instructions please visit our video
instruction pages at
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions. Note: since video and animation cannot be embedded in
the print version of the journal, please provide text for both the electronic and the print version for the portions of the article that
refer to this content.
Supplementary data
Elsevier accepts electronic
supplementary material to support and enhance your scientific research. Supplementary files offer the author additional possibilities
to publish supporting applications, high-resolution images, background datasets, sound clips and more. Supplementary files supplied will
be published online alongside the electronic version of your article in Elsevier Web products, including ScienceDirect:
http://www.sciencedirect.com.
In order to ensure that your submitted material is directly usable, please provide the data in one of our recommended file formats. Authors
should submit the material in electronic format together with the article and supply a concise and descriptive caption for each file.
For more detailed instructions please visit our artwork instruction pages at
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.
Submission checklist
The following list will be useful during the final checking of an article prior to
sending it to the journal for review. Please consult this Guide for Authors for further details of any item.
Ensure that the following
items are present:
One author has been designated as the corresponding author with contact details:
• E-mail address
• Full postal address
• Telephone and fax numbers
All necessary files have been uploaded, and contain:
•
Keywords
• All figure captions
• All tables (including title, description, footnotes)
Further considerations
•
Manuscript has been 'spell-checked' and 'grammar-checked'
• References are in the correct format for this journal
•
All references mentioned in the Reference list are cited in the text, and vice versa
• Permission has been obtained for use
of copyrighted material from other sources (including the Web)
• Color figures are clearly marked as being intended for color
reproduction on the Web (free of charge) and in print, or to be reproduced in color on the Web (free of charge) and in black-and-white
in print
• If only color on the Web is required, black-and-white versions of the figures are also supplied for printing purposes
For any further information please visit our customer support site at
http://support.elsevier.com.
Use of the Digital Object Identifier
The Digital Object Identifier (DOI) may be used to cite and link to
electronic documents. The DOI consists of a unique alpha-numeric character string which is assigned to a document by the publisher upon
the initial electronic publication. The assigned DOI never changes. Therefore, it is an ideal medium for citing a document, particularly
'Articles in press' because they have not yet received their full bibliographic information. The correct format for citing a DOI is shown
as follows (example taken from a document in the journal
Physics Letters B):
doi:10.1016/j.physletb.2010.09.059
When
you use the DOI to create URL hyperlinks to documents on the web, the DOIs are guaranteed never to change.
Proofs
One set of page proofs (as PDF files) will be sent by e-mail to the corresponding author (if we do
not have an e-mail address then paper proofs will be sent by post) or, a link will be provided in the e-mail so that authors can download
the files themselves. Elsevier now provides authors with PDF proofs which can be annotated; for this you will need to download Adobe
Reader version 7 (or higher) available free from
http://get.adobe.com/reader. Instructions on how to annotate PDF files
will accompany the proofs (also given online). The exact system requirements are given at the Adobe site:
http://www.adobe.com/products/reader/tech-specs.html.
If you do not wish to use the PDF annotations function, you may list the corrections (including replies to the Query Form) and return
them to Elsevier in an e-mail. Please list your corrections quoting line number. If, for any reason, this is not possible, then mark
the corrections and any other comments (including replies to the Query Form) on a printout of your proof and return by fax, or scan the
pages and e-mail, or by post. Please use this proof only for checking the typesetting, editing, completeness and correctness of the text,
tables and figures. Significant changes to the article as accepted for publication will only be considered at this stage with permission
from the Editor. We will do everything possible to get your article published quickly and accurately – please let us have all your
corrections within 48 hours. It is important to ensure that all corrections are sent back to us in one communication: please check carefully
before replying, as inclusion of any subsequent corrections cannot be guaranteed. Proofreading is solely your responsibility. Note that
Elsevier may proceed with the publication of your article if no response is received.
Offprints
The corresponding author, at no cost, will be provided with a PDF file of the article via e-mail. For an extra
charge, paper offprints can be ordered via the offprint order form which is sent once the article is accepted for publication. The PDF
file is a watermarked version of the published article and includes a cover sheet with the journal cover image and a disclaimer outlining
the terms and conditions of use.
For inquiries relating
to the submission of articles (including electronic submission) please visit this journal's homepage. Contact details for questions arising
after acceptance of an article, especially those relating to proofs, will be provided by the publisher. You can track accepted articles
at
http://www.elsevier.com/trackarticle. You can also check our Author FAQs (
http://www.elsevier.com/authorFAQ)
and/or contact Customer Support via
http://support.elsevier.com.
