Submissions

Author Guidelines

Author requirements

For the stated purpose of the journal it is important that all authors be currently students, or recent graduates (< 2 years), of a German, Austrian or Swiss institution. Papers may also be co-authored by two or more students, but not co-authored with more experienced scholars (e.g. advisors, teachers, professors). All authors identified on the submission must consent to be identified as an author. 

Legal requirements

• Before making a submission, authors are responsible for obtaining permission to publish any material included with the submission, such as photos, documents and datasets.
• Where appropriate, research should be approved by an appropriate ethics committee in accordance with the legal requirements of the study's country.
• The paper you submit must be original, i.e. not have been submitted for publication elsewhere (this would constitute self-plagiarism). It can consist in coursework that has been graded before, as long as it has not been published or submitted anywhere else.

Formal requirements

• The paper must contain an abstract of about 150 words. The title should be concise and the abstract should be able to stand on its own. This will increase the likelihood of reviewers agreeing to review the paper.
• The paper should be written in English, and examples in other languages (including Old and Middle English) should be glossed and/or translated in (Modern) English.
• The paper must present empirical or theoretical work. SREL does not publish literature reviews, essays, or book reviews.
• The paper must be anonymized, i.e., it should not contain recognizable personal information that may clue a reviewer in to your identity
• We expect papers to be typically between 15 and 30 pages long, but compromises can be made for slightly longer/shorter pieces.

Style

• Use author-data format for in-text citations, using a colon and a space, e.g. (Labov 1972: 41)
• For the list of references, follow the Unified Style Sheet for linguistics
• We suggest you use a font such as Times New Roman (12pt), Arial (11pt), Calibri (12 pt), Aptos (11 pt), or any similarly uncomplicated font in a sensible size.
• Verbatim quotations should use double quotation marks; textual examples (the mention of words as words, see example below) and titles should be italicized.
  (1) The plural of sheep is sheep.
• Longer quotations should be indented, with one line space before and one line space after.
• Examples should be numbered: (1), (2), (3); they should be indented and cross-referenced (mentioned) in the text. Boldface can be used to highlight within quotations.
• Sections and subsections should be numbered (1., 2., 2.1, etc).
• Tables and figures must be numbered, captioned, and mentioned in the text.
• Add page numbers to your manuscript.
• Do not include a table of contents or cover page, and limit appended material to what is necessary.
• Use footnotes only for supplementary information; please limit their number and length!

Remaining details will be taken care of upon acceptance during copy-editing.

The submission and review process

All submissions will be assessed by an editor to determine whether they meet the aims and scope of this journal. Those considered to be a good fit will be sent for peer review before determining whether they will be accepted or rejected. An editor may desk reject a submission if it does not meet the basic submission requirements or minimum standards of quality for student work. The process from submission to first decision can take several weeks. We try to avoid delays, but it can take several months for a paper to be published.

Tips on preparing your work for submission

Work produced for courses can rarely be published as is. We strongly recommend that you seek the guidance of the teacher or advisor who supervised your work before you submit it. They can suggest improvements that will prevent rejection. Do so even if you received a perfect grade.

Often, term papers and theses need to undergo some changes in order to become good journal articles. They can rarely be published exactly as they were first written. This is because the purpose of a journal article is different from that of a term paper or thesis. Whereas coursework serves to showcase your understanding of a subject you were taught, journal articles must be informative to a general audience of expert peers. Research articles present work that is scientifically meaningful and contributes something new to our existing knowledge (this includes replication studies). In the case of theses, it is often necessary to rewrite the text so that its length is appropriate for a research article.

The structure of a research paper is typically the following:

1. Introduction
2. Theoretical background
3. Method(s)
4. Results
5. Discussion
6. Conclusion

When you prepare your paper for publication, we recommend paying special attention to the theoretical background and discussion sections:

• The introductory sections (theoretical background) should contextualize your research within the field of linguistics and explain (and argue towards) the relevance of your study in the context of current issues and previous research. The theoretical background is not simply a list of concepts and previous research, but a meaningful synthesis and discussion of the state of the art. It provides scientific reasons for linguists to care about the research you will present. The theoretical section should lead up to (i.e. naturally develop into, and conclude with) the research question(s) and/or hypothesis.
• Articles typically conclude with a discussion of the results. This discussion highlights the ways in which the findings relate to, and contribute to, the research context described in the theoretical background. What do your results “mean” for our understanding of how language works? What new issues or needs has your research identified?