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ISSN: 0048-721X
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Issues per year: 4

http://ees.elsevier.com/religion. This site will guide authors stepwise through the submission process. Offline submissions are still possible, but online submissions are preferred. Offline submissions should be sent electronically to either the European Editor, Michael Stausberg, at Michael.Stausberg@ahkr.uib.no or the North American Editor, Steven Engler, at sjengler@gmail.com.

Books for review, requests to review books and completed book reviews should be sent electronically to Stephen C. Berkwitz at StephenBerkwitz@MissouriState.edu. (A Guide for Book Reviewers can be found here).

BEFORE YOU BEGIN

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and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, without the written consent of the copyright-holder.

Additional Information

Note that RELIGION occasionally publishes translations of significant articles in the field. If you wish to submit a translated article, please contact the Editors at the addresses above. This is therefore an exception to the general policy that submitted articles should not have been published previously but one which is entirely subject to the Editors' discretion and the securing of any necessary permissions from the original publisher.

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 paper 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.

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://www.elsevier.com/languagepolishing or our customer support site at

http://epsupport.elsevier.com for more information. Please note Elsevier neither endorses nor takes responsibility for any products, goods or services offered by outside vendors through our services or in any advertising. For more information please refer to our Terms & Conditions:

http://www.elsevier.com/termsandconditions.

Submission

Submission to this journal proceeds totally online and you will be guided stepwise through the creation and uploading of your files. The system automatically converts source files to a single PDF file of the article, which is used in the peer-review process. Please note that even though manuscript source files are converted to PDF files 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 removing the need for a 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.

On-line Submission Procedures

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.

Peer Review Policy

Submissions normally undergo a rigorous double-blinded review process. For more on RELIGION's review process please click here.

PREPARATION

House Style

Indent all paragraphs, including after the initial paragraph and all headings. Double space text. Place headings in bold; separated by space; no numbering; initial capital only. If additional levels of headings are used: primary heading in caps; secondary as normal; and tertiary in italics. For quotations use single quote marks. For quotes within quotes use double marks. Quotations of more than 50 words are to be indented. Do not use quotation marks for indented quotes. In the text (but not the references) titles of books should be in italics and titles of articles in quotation marks. Foreign language words should be given in italics unless they are part of normal usage. Use en dashes (or two hyphens) in text and single hyphens in ranges of numbers, dates etc.

Numbers and Dates
Format dates as follows: '20th century,' except at the beginning of sentences; hyphenate when used adjectivally; '1960s'; '10 October 2006.' / Spell out 'percent' except in cases of exact statistical usage. Spell out the numbers one to ten, from 11 on use numerals, except at the beginning of a sentence. Use a space for thousands (10 000 and above). Use decimal points (not decimal commas).

Diacriticals and symbols

Current typefaces should be used, and special symbols should be avoided as much as possible. To ensure diacriticals and symbols are reproduced in your article use Times New Roman font and be sure to check the PDF version of your article thoroughly, once you have submitted it online, before proceeding with submission if your article contains any of these symbols. Please contact the editors directly for papers with an extensive use of diacriticals or non-Roman scripts.

Word Limit

The journal does not impose a word limit. The editors' emphasis is on quality, as safeguarded by the journal's stringent review process. As part of this process, however, referees may suggest that articles be shortened.

Use of wordprocessing software

It is important that the file be saved in the native format of the wordprocessor used. The text should be in single-column format. Keep the layout of the text as simple as possible. Most formatting codes will be removed and replaced on processing the article. In particular, do not use the wordprocessor's options to justify text or to hyphenate words. However, do use bold face, italics, subscripts, superscripts etc. Do not embed "graphically designed" equations or tables, but prepare these using the wordprocessor's facility. When preparing tables, if you are using a table grid, use only one grid for each individual table and not a grid for each row. If no grid is used, use tabs, not spaces, to align columns. The electronic text should be prepared in a way very similar to that of conventional manuscripts (see also the Guide to Publishing with Elsevier:

http://www.elsevier.com/guidepublication). Do not import the figures into the text file but, instead, indicate their approximate locations directly in the electronic text and on the manuscript. See also the section on Electronic illustrations.
To avoid unnecessary errors you are strongly advised to use the "spell-check" and "grammar-check" functions of your wordprocessor.

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.

Vitae

Include in the manuscript a short (maximum 150 words) biography of each author.

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.
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.

Optimizing the title and abstract of an article for your audience

In order to increase the exposure of your article, we suggest the following:
• The title of your article must be clear and descriptive, using keywords that are relevant to the subject area, and would most likely be used in an online search.
• The abstract must also contain keywords and common phrases for the subject area, perhaps using wording from the title. These carefully chosen keywords and phrases can also be emphasised in the text, however please do this with caution as some search engines can reject overly repetitive webpages.

Abstract

A concise and factual abstract of up to 200 words is required. 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, they must be cited in full, without reference to the reference list. Also, non-standard or uncommon abbreviations should be avoided, but if essential they must be defined at their first mention in the abstract itself.

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.

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.).

Footnotes

Footnotes should be used sparingly. Number them consecutively throughout the article, using superscript Arabic numbers. Many wordprocessors build footnotes into the text, and this feature may be used. Should this not be the case, indicate the position of footnotes in the text and present the footnotes themselves separately at the end of the article. Do not include footnotes in the Reference list.
Table footnotes
Indicate each footnote in a table with a superscript lowercase letter.

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.
DOC, XLS or PPT: If your electronic artwork is created in any of these Microsoft Office applications please supply "as is".
Please do not:
• Supply embedded graphics in your wordprocessor (spreadsheet, presentation) document;
• Supply files that are optimised for screen use (like 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

Citations

In-text citations provide the author's name (without initials, unless there is ambiguity), the year of publication, and the page numbers relevant for the respective reference. For works with three or more authors, give the first author's name followed by "et al." and the year of publication. Multiple references should be listed first alphabetically, then chronologically. For example,
• ...stands in tension with the suggestion that there is 'no data for religion' (J.Z. Smith, 1982, p. xi; see J.Z. Smith, 1998, pp. 281-282; W.C. Smith, 1991 [1962])
•Lawson and McCauley (1990) set an important precedent, one developed in more recent work (Godlove, 1989; Frankenberry and Penner, 1999; Penner, 1994, 1999, 2002; Jensen 2003, 2004)

References (bibliography)

References provide the author's name, the year of publication, and page numbers, where appropriate and all separated by commas. Please include digital object identifiers (DOIs) where available.

The bibliography (identified as "References") should be arranged first alphabetically and then further sorted chronologically (with the earliest item first) if necessary. More than one reference from the same author(s) in the same year must be identified by the letters "a", "b", "c", etc., placed after the year of publication.

The following set of examples illustrates the appropriate citation style for various types of materials (N.B.: initials for authors' first names; lowercase for article titles and book subtitles; publisher before place, separated by comma, etc.).

Books

DaMatta, R., 1983 [1978]. Carnavais, Malandros e Heróis: para uma sociologia do dilema brasileiro, fifth edition. Zahar, Rio de Janeiro. [Carnivals, Rogues, and Heroes: an interpretation of the Brazilian dilemma, Trans. Drury, J. University of Notre Dame Press: Notre Dame, IN, 1991.]

Durkheim, E., 1995 [1912]. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, Trans. Fields, K. Free Press, New York.

Kreinath, J., Snoek, J., Stausberg, M., eds., 2006. Theorizing Rituals: issues, topics, approaches, concepts. Brill, Leiden, Boston.

Lopez, Jr., D.S., ed., 2005. Critical Terms for the Study of Buddhism. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, London.

Articles in edited books

Hervieu-Léger, D., 1996. Faces of Catholic transnationalism: in and beyond France, Trans. Gleason, R., in: Rudolph, S.H., Piscatori, J., eds., Transnational Religion and Fading States. Westview Press, Boulder, CO, 104-118.

Martin, L.H., Leopold, A.M., 2004. New approaches to the study of syncretism, in: Antes, P., Geertz, A.W., Warne, R.R., eds., New Approaches to the Study of Religion. Volume 2: Textual, Comparative, Sociological and Cognitive Approaches. De Gruyter, Berlin, New York, 93-107.

Penner, H.H., 2002. You don't read a myth for information, in: Frankenberry, N.K., ed., Radical Interpretation in Religion. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 153-170.
Journal articles

Benavides, G., 1997. Magic, religion, materiality. Historical Reflections/ Reflexions Historiques 23, 301-330.

Bourdieu, P., 1991 [1971]. Genesis and structure of the religious field, Trans. Burnside, J.B., Calhoun, C., Florence, L., Comparative Social Research 13, 1-44.

Saler, B., 2008. Conceptualizing religion: Some recent reflections. Religion 38, 219-225. DOI 10.1016/j.religion.2008.03.008

Segal, R.A., 1986. Review of Whaling, F., ed., Contemporary Approaches to the Study of Religion (1984), Zygon 21, 271-275.

Encyclopedia articles

Alles, G.D., 2005. Otto, Rudolf. The Encyclopedia of Religion. Second edition 10, 6928-6931.

Conference papers

Barrett, J.L., 2008. So Counterintuitiveness helps explain religion: what's the evidence? Paper presented at the annual international meeting of the American Academy of Religion, Nov. 1, Chicago, USA.

Internet sources

Hindu Temple of Kentucky.

http://www.kytemple.org

Statistics Canada, 2003. 2001 Census: Analysis Series. Religions in Canada.

http://www12.statcan.ca/english/census01/products/analytic/companion/rel/pdf/96F0030XIE2001015.pdf

Supplementary material

Elsevier accepts electronic supplementary material to support and enhance your scientific research. Supplementary files offer the author additional possibilities to publish supporting applications, movies, animation sequences, 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 ensure that data are provided 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. Video files: please supply 'stills' with your files: you can choose any frame from the video or make a separate image. These will be used instead of standard icons and will personalize the link to your supplementary information. For more detailed instructions please visit our artwork instruction pages at

http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.

Submission checklist

It is hoped that this list will be useful during the final checking of an article prior to sending it to the journal's Editor for review. Please consult this Guide for Authors for further details of any item.
Ensure that the following items are present:
One Author designated as corresponding Author:
• E-mail address
• Full postal address
• Telephone and fax numbers
All necessary files have been uploaded
• Keywords
• All figure captions
• All tables (including title, description, footnotes)
Further considerations
• Manuscript has been "spellchecked" 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://epsupport.elsevier.com.

AFTER ACCEPTANCE

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.2003.10.071
When you use the DOI to create URL hyperlinks to documents on the web, they 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://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html. 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/acrobat/acrrsystemreqs.html#70win.
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. Therefore, it is important to ensure that all of your 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. 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. Additional paper offprints can be ordered by the authors. An order form with prices will be sent to the corresponding author.

AUTHOR INQUIRIES

For inquiries relating to the submission of articles (including electronic submission where available) please visit this journal's homepage. You can track accepted articles at

http://www.elsevier.com/trackarticle and set up e-mail alerts to inform you of when an article's status has changed. Also accessible from here is information on copyright, frequently asked questions and more. Contact details for questions arising after acceptance of an article, especially those relating to proofs, will be provided by the publisher.

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