SUBMISSIONS OPEN UNTIL 8TH JULY 2023

Types of Submissions

The JISJ will be accepting two different types of submissions: essays and research papers.

Essays are divided into two sub-categories: coursework & original pieces. All essays will have a word count between 2000-3500 words. Coursework essays will be any piece of work created by an author that answers a question which is relevant to the topic published by the JISJ. Coursework essays must have a given grade or predicted grade of >60 on the UK grading scale. Please email to inquire if you think your piece does not meet this requirement, or if you are unsure of what your grade is in the UK system if you have a different grading scale. The coursework essay must not have been submitted to any other university-affiliated journal or otherwise. The second type of essay, original pieces, will have the same word limit but do not have any grade requirement as they will not be pieces created in the course of an academic degree. Original essays can answer any original question.

Research papers will have a word limit of 4000-7000 words. Official dissertation completed in the course of an academic degree will be accepted with 8000-10000 words. If your dissertation exceeds this limit for some reason, please email with a note as to why or if your official dissertation word limit is longer at your institution of current/previous study. Research papers can be official dissertations as stated, or they can be any independent projects completed by the author.

Who Can Submit

This journal is for any and all students of any institutions worldwide. The journal would aim to have an international cohort of contributors from both Global South and North institutions. Anyone who is a student of an institution and who writes research on a topic within the wider subject of social justice could be considered for publication. Including multiple disciplines, as stated above, but also multiple different worldviews on this topic, as it is a part of the journal’s mission to diversify published academia

Submission Screening

All submissions will be read by our Junior Editors. All submissions will be “screened” for relevancy and appropriate topic titles which will decide whether the submission will move on to the next stage. Contributors should note and are required themselves to check beforehand if their submission piece is relevant and topical to the JISJ’s social justice theme. The Journal is multidisciplinary, so please do not be discouraged if you think your academic discipline is outside of the scope, be assured it is not! However, all submissions must be topical to the Journal.

Editing Your Submission

Once a submission has been approved by our Junior Editors, the piece will move to our Senior Editors to be checked for grammar and wording. Our Senior Editors do not edit for you, you must finalize the edits yourself. Senior Editors will edit a piece for grammatical clarity and then contact the contributor to have the piece edited by the author. Once the piece has been sent back to the Senior Editor, the Senior Editor will send off the submission to our Peer Reviewers to be double-blind peer reviewed. This means that the submission will go through two separate peer reviewers who do not know the identity of the author. Peer Reviewers will officially review the piece for its contribution to the academic field, the topic, the Journal, as well as the originality and style of the piece. Peer Reviewers will submit their edits to the Co-Editors who will contact authors to complete whatever edits or suggestions the Peer Reviewers have suggested.

Submission Style

All submissions must follow the guidelines outlined in the Submission Preparation Checklist. Single-spaced, 12 point font. Citation and bibliographic style should follow APA formatting. Submissions which do not adhere to these guidelines will be sent back to the author to make edits which comply with the stated style. 

Finalizing for Publication

When a submission has been sent back from the author and all Peer Reviewer comments have been addressed, the piece will be collected for publication. All edits must be carried out by the author, but the Co-Editors and the Head Editor will review the piece to ensure it has been properly edited before adding to the publication. Authors will be contacted if there needs to be further edits or if the piece has been finalized and added to the publication. All authors will also be contacted for permissions if they would allow for their piece to be featured on the website. Please note: once you have submitted a piece, whether it was an original piece or a previous piece for your study, you can no longer submit that piece of academic work to any other journals.

Submission Checklist:

• Submission has not been previously published.

• Submission is in Word or PDF file format.

• Text is 1.5 spaced in a 12 point sans font.

• An abstract of maximum 300 words is formatted.

• A key words section is provided below the abstract.

• Any figures/tables are embedded in the text and not provided at the end.

• All citations and bibliography formatting are in APA style.

• You must use a university affiliated email address when signing up. Regardless of if you have a university affiliated-address or not, the university and graduation year must be clearly visible on the submission.