Info for Contributors
Thank you for choosing to submit your paper to The February Journal. Please follow the guidelines below in order to prepare your manuscript for submission. Manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned.
Manuscripts must be submitted through The February Journal’s online submission system. To upload your manuscript, you will need to create a personal account (or, if you already have one, log into it) and then follow the instructions. If you encounter any problems with the online submission system, please contact the editors using this e-mail address: info@thefebruaryjournal.org.
The February Journal is an independent interdisciplinary journal at intersections of academic, art, and activist practices. A project of Tabor Collective, February produces special issues on strategic themes that currently include migration, displacement, statelessness, and exile in the context of war, violence, and aggression. The journal publishes empirical, theoretical, and speculative research that uses de-centering, queer, feminist, decolonial, and autotheoretical methodologies. It welcomes research in a variety of genres, celebrating innovative ways of presentation. Peer-reviewed and available in open access, The February Journal provides a sourcebook of ideas for an international audience.
As part of the submission process, the corresponding (main, principal) author will be asked to provide his or her ORCID. The ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) is a code that uniquely identifies academic authors. It is used to resolve the problem of the ambiguity of an author’s name in scholarly communication. Even if two or more authors share the same name, ORCID allows to distinguish between them and ensure that their work is properly attributed.
We do not require but strongly encourage all co-authors to link ORCIDs to their accounts on The February Journal's platform. It does not require too much time to do so, but makes your work attributable to you and only you.
If you do not already have an ORCID number, please follow this link to create one. More details about the ORCID system can be found here.
If a contributor prefers to publish a contribution under a pseudonym, a separate ORCID should be created under that pseudonym.
We accept the following types of contributions:
a) research articles (between 7,000 and 8,000 words, including notes and bibliography. Longer pieces can be considered);
b) theoretical essays (between 3,000 and 4,000 words, including notes and bibliography);
c) reflexive essays (between 3,000 and 4,000 words, including notes and bibliography);
d) visual essays (between 2,000 and 3,000 words, including notes and bibliography, and 10–12 visualizations);
e) research data sets and visualizations;
f) discussion (between 3,000 and 5,000 words, including notes and bibliography);
g) archive materials (between 2,000 and 3,000 words of commentary and analysis, including 5-10 images of archival objects);
h) book reviews (between 700 and 1,000 words, including notes and bibliography).
You can find more information about each type here.
We are constantly expanding the list of modes of presenting research findings. For contributions in formats and genres not listed above, please contact the editors at info@thefebruaryjournal.org.
We do not accept unsolicited book reviews. If you would like to review a book, please contact the editors at info@thefebruaryjournal.org before submitting your manuscript to the journal.
The book review is a discursive form that enables and enhances debates within a discipline or a research field. The book review has a variety of manifestations and purposes; promotion for commercial purposes is not one of them. The primary purpose of publishing book reviews in The February Journal is to inform the public about new publications in the field by providing an analytical assessment of the book. We do not publish reviews that contain personal views on the book or its author(s), or uninformed criticism, or a discussion that distracts the reader from getting an understanding of the purpose and scope of the reviewed publication. Reviewers are asked to provide essential information about the book, situate it critically within a particular context (for example, a scientific school, a discipline, current debates, etc.), and make a recommendation in terms of potential readership (for example, researchers, curators, students, etc.).
Book reviews submitted to The February Journal should be in English. They should not exceed 1,000 words, including notes and bibliography. Each submitted review must be accompanied with the author’s bio / authors’ bios, including their affiliations and e-mail addresses (100–120 words).
Copies of books for review should be sent to info@thefebruaryjournal.org (with a note ‘Book for review’). If you would like to send a paper copy, please e-mail the editors first to obtain the postal address.
The February Journal has a long-term objective of publishing all submissions in the original language plus their translation into English. In the mid-term, the journal publishes submissions in their original language plus a 600-word summary in English.
If your submission is in a language other than English, please include in the document of the manuscript an English-language abstract of 600 words.
When uploading your manuscript through the online submission system you will be asked to provide the following information:
a) an abstract (100–120 words / 500–600 characters with spaces);
b) the author’s bio (if more than one author, please provide a bio for each author), including their affiliations and e-mail addresses (100–120 words / 500–600 characters with spaces);
c) 5–10 key words.
You will also be asked to upload two versions of the manuscript: one with full author information and one anonymized. The anonymized version will be used to carry out peer review. See Section 12 for details of the peer review process.
When preparing the manuscript for submission, please meet the following requirements:
- use American English;
- use Calibri or Times New Romаn font 11, aligned to the left, single spaced;
- use as little formatting as possible;
- for comments and additional information, use endnotes, not footnotes;
- use italics for subheading;
- use single citation marks: Smith identifies music as ‘ordered chaos’;
- use double marks for citations inside citations: Smith writes that ‘music can be likened to “ordered chaos” and is therefore…’;
- spell out centuries: e.g., ‘in the nineteenth century’;
- use this format for dates: on the 12th of October 2012; in June 1995;
- at first mention, provide full names of artists, authors and researchers; refer to them using their surname in all other instances: …as Ivan Jackson (2013) claims, art is in crisis;
- at first mention, provide full titles of artworks, films, pieces of music and so forth. Identify the principal author in the text and place information about other relevant authors such as film producers in an endnote. Use square brackets to indicate the original title of the artwork. For example: In Anna Suverina’s Fourth Element [Chetvertyi element, 1997], the main character is a woman;
- submit your manuscript as a Word document in.doc or .docx.
The February Journal's complete reference guide is available here.
For references within the text, please use the author-date system: (Ivanov 2017a: 12); (Ivanova and Petrova 2005: 13–65); (Ivanov, Petrov et al. 2003).
Do not use a comma between the name of the author and the publication year of the quoted work. Use a colon before the page numbers.
Works with one or two authors should always be referenced fully: (Ivanov 2017); (Ivanov and Petrov 2005: 295). Use ‘and’ rather than ‘&’ between the names of two authors.
Works with three authors should be referenced fully at first mention (Ivanova, Petrova and Sidorova 2010); for further mentions, use the name of the first author and ‘et al.’: (Ivanova et al. 2010).
When referencing for the first time works with more than three authors, please provide the names of the first author and ‘et al.’. For further mentions, use the name of the first author and ‘et al.’: (Ivanova et al. 2019).
Please do not italicize ‘et al.’
For sources where the authors cannot be identified, use the first two-three words of the title of the cited publication. In the bibliography, you will be able to provide full information on the cited publication: It has been proven that dogs make art (‘New trends…’ 2001).
The February Journal’s complete reference guide is available here. Manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned.
Place the bibliography at the end of the submission, after the endnotes, acknowledgments, disclosure statement, and funding information.
List all references in the alphabetical order. List only sources cited in the submission. Transliterate and, in square brackets, translate non-Latin script references.
Ivanova M (2015) Art and no-art. In: Ivanova M and Petrov P (eds), Essays on Contemporary Art. London, Routledge: 12–29.
Ivanov I (ed) (2017a) Film and Art. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Ivanov I (2017b) When art stops being art. Studies in Art, 8(3): 2016–2028.
Ivanova M (2003, 12 January) Kakoe kino? [What cinema?]. Kinoglobus, www.kinoglobus.ru/13wgfwwkf (12/06/2014).
For sources where the authors cannot be identified, use the title of the work in the place of the author: New trends in art and culture (2001, 1 June) The Guard, www.tg.com/art (12/05/2015).
Authors should provide references in the original language using established transliteration systems when necessary. Use the Library of Congress transliteration system for words and terms in Cyrillic and other non-Latin alphabets (styd, parol’, pod’’ezd, inversiia, pryshch), except for terms and names such as Tolstoy and Yeltsin. Use square brackets to identify transliterations within the text: e.g., [blat].
In the bibliography list, it is advisable that the authors use square brackets for translations: Abramov R (2019) Grani neformal’noi muzeefikatsii ‘real’nogo sotsializma’: materializatsiia nostal’gicheskogo affekta [Dimensions of informal museumification of ‘real socialism’: Materialization of nostalgic affect]. In: Zavadski A, Sklez V and Suverina K (eds), Politika affekta: muzei kak prostranstvo publichnoi istorii [Politics of Affect: Museum as a Public History Space]. Moscow, Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie: 274–298.
We encourage the use of images and figures.
The February Journal publishes works under the Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0 license. Importantly, all images and appropriately marked text extracts published by The February Journal comprise third-party copyright material that is not covered by the Creative Commons license. Details of the copyright ownership and permitted use of third-party material is given in the image or extract credit lines. Authors are responsible for clearing all the rights and obtaining all the necessary permissions. Film stills and screenshots do not require permission; they are published in accordance with the principles of fair use. When submitting the manuscript, the authors will be prompted to provide relevant copyright documentation.
In the text, label all images and figures as follows: (see Figure 1) or (Figure 1) or ‘Figure 1 shows how…’ etc.
Place all figures in the text where they are supposed to appear. Place figures after a paragraph, not inside a paragraph.
Use short descriptions or analytical statements as captions. Supply copyright information in the form of an acknowledgement as in the following examples:
Figure 1. A screenshot of a website showing a review of an exhibition (www.artform.org/12/56, 04.07.2019).
Figure 2. Apollo 17 view of Earth. © NASA, all rights reserved, used with permission.
Figure 3. From Liz Johnson Artur, Black Balloon Archive, 1970–present. © Liz Johnson Artur, all rights reserved, used with permission.
All figures should be of sufficient quality, with a resolution of at least 300 DPI (dots per inch).
As part of the submission process, you will be offered to provide a ‘Lead Figure’ (an image that will accompany the title page of your contribution upon its publication). If you would like to suggest a particular image for the purpose, please ensure that it meets all the requirements listed above, including copyright clearance, appropriate quality, caption, etc.
We have a transparent, fair, and unbiased system of assessing contributions for publication. Blind peer review is the assessment of a manuscript by two specialists in the relevant field of research. Reviewers are selected by The February Journal’s editors, including members of the Advisory Board, and guest-editors. February uses the blind peer review system, meaning that the reviewers must not know the identity of the author(s), and vice versa. That is why manuscripts are sent to reviewers in an anonymized form. This implies that no personal data of the author(s)—their name and surname, affiliation, etc.—are made available. In case the reviewer recognizes the identity of the author(s) whose manuscript he/she is reviewing, they are asked not to proceed with the review. A new reviewer is then appointed by the editors.
As part of the submission, you will be asked to provide two files:
- a ‘Manuscript with Full Author Information’ (a complete text of the contribution, with the author’s name / authors’ names, the title page, acknowledgements, and self-references) and
- an ‘Anonymized Manuscript’ (a complete text of the contribution without the author’s name / authors’ names), the title page, acknowledgements, self-references, or any running headers of author names, to allow blinded review.
To prepare the ‘Anonymized Manuscript,’ please remove all references to the authors from the submission. Self-references should also be anonymized (e.g., Author 2019). Moreover, please check the settings on your computer to make sure your name does not appear in the file name and/or history.
Reviews are discussed in an editorial meeting, which is minuted. As a result of this meeting, the editors make their final decision regarding the publication of the manuscript.
Reviewers assess the quality of the submitted contributions including their compliance to the international scholarly and ethical research standards. Important aspects of a review are originality and novelty of the author’s approach to the subject. Based on the reviewers’ recommendation, The February Journal’s editors will:
- accept the manuscript for publication without any revisions;
- accept the manuscript but ask the author(s) to make revisions. February editors will assess the quality of the revisions. If they are not satisfied with the revisions, the editors may reject the manuscript or invite a re-submission (see 3 and 4);
- recommend that the author(s) re-work the manuscript and make a re-submission to the journal. This means that the re-worked version of the manuscript will undergo a new round of blind peer reviews; and
- reject the manuscript.
The February Journal carries out reviews of submitted work in a polite, constructive, and professional way.
As a result of the review, the author(s) are most likely to be asked to use reviewers’ feedback to revise their contribution. The purpose of revisions is not to ‘penalize’ the authors, but to improve the quality of the submission. Reviewers’ feedback and advice on revisions will be provided. The author(s) may ask the editors to clarify some recommendations, but generally it is expected that the author(s) are able to work with the recommendations on their own. The author(s) can either revise the manuscript as per recommendations, so that it is published in February, or they can withdraw the manuscript from publication altogether.
The author(s) cannot re-submit a manuscript if it has been accepted for publication with revisions. ‘Making a re-submission’ means that the author(s) are encouraged to significantly re-work the manuscript in accordance with the reviewers’ recommendations, after which they can submit the paper to the journal again. Once re-submitted, the manuscript will go through another round of peer review.
In case of disagreement, The February Journal’s editors will assign a team of assessors consisting of members of the Advisory Board. They will provide an independent, unbiased assessment of the situation and put forward a recommendation for action. Their decision is final and cannot be contested.
As part of the submission process, the authors will be asked to provide the names of two or more peers who could be invited to review the manuscript. Recommended reviewers should be experts in the relevant field and should be able to assess the manuscript objectively. Please be aware of any conflicts of interest when recommending reviewers. The reviewer should have no prior knowledge of the submission, should not have recently collaborated with any of the authors, and should not be affiliated with the same institution as any of the authors. The editors will consider inviting proposed candidates to review the submission, but are not obliged to do so.
The February Journal is strongly committed to maintaining international ethical standards of academic conduct. As a reference, we use the Responsible Research Publication: International Standards for Authors of the Committee on Publication Ethics. It is therefore required that the authors should not use offensive language or show disrespect to any individuals, communities, and social groups. All materials submitted to February will be examined according to the ethical standards of academic conduct.
Disclosure Statement
The February Journal encourages its authors to include a declaration of any conflicting interests.
Funding
The February Journal requires its authors to indicate grants or any other financial support that funded the submitted work.
Plagiarism
The February Journal takes issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of ethical academic practice very seriously. We seek to protect both authors’ rights and the journal’s reputation and will not tolerate any unethical and/or illegal behavior with regard to the intellectual property of others. Submitted articles may be run through plagiarism-checking software. By signing a publication agreement with February, the authors automatically confirm that their contribution can be checked for plagiarism and self-plagiarism.
Prior Publication and Self-Plagiarism
The February Journal publishes original, previously unpublished research only. As part of the submission process, you will be required to warrant that this work has not been published and is not being considered for publication elsewhere. However, in exceptional cases, we may consider republishing work that previously appeared in another publication; for such cases, please contact the editors at info@thefebruaryjournal.org.
Before submitting a manuscript to The February Journal, you as its author(s) are the sole copyright owner(s) of the work. This excludes the materials (textual extracts, images, etc.) which you use in the work and the rights to which are owned by a third party.
If the manuscript is accepted for publication—with or without revisions— the author will sign an agreement with The February Journal confirming the consent to have their work published by the journal.
The February Journal publishes works under the Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0 license. The content under this license may be reproduced, distributed and made publicly available under the following two conditions: firstly, the name of the authors and the journal must be mentioned, and secondly, it may be distributed under the same legal conditions, that is, the same license as the original (CC BY-SA). In case of further use, we ask for a message to info@thefebruaryjournal.org.
The February Journal cannot publish the submitted manuscript without the author’s permission. Similarly, the Editorial Board cannot forward that manuscript to a third party, with the exception of reviewers and members of the journal’s Advisory Board.
As part of the submission process, you will be required to affirm that you are submitting your own work and that you own the rights to that work. The author is responsible for clearing all copyright permissions for images, figures, and citations, where applicable. Texts cited by the author(s) should be referenced in accordance with the requirements. Only manuscripts that do not infringe any third-party copyrights can be published in The February Journal. The editors are not responsible for the author’s breaking of the international copyright law.
Please note that if you submit a manuscript for the first time or make a re-submission, you do not need to obtain the rights for the publication of the images submitted with the manuscript. At this stage, low-resolution files will be sufficient. If you submit a revised manuscript, high-resolution files with cleared copyrights are necessary. You will be required to certify that you have obtained and, if necessary, can provide permissions for the reproduction of any copyright images not owned by you.
F Media is a project of The February Journal that publishes academic and non-academic texts commenting on and/or contextualizing February issues. The project provides useful information about research trends as well as relevant projects and interventions. You can also find on F Media interviews with academics, essays by curators, artists, activists and critics, podcasts, and other materials. If you would like to contribute to F Media, please contact the editors at info@thefebruaryjournal.org.
