Submissions

Frontiers of Socio-Legal Studies Submission Guidelines

Thank you for your interest in contributing to the Frontiers of Socio-Legal Studies Blog. We hope that the following guidelines will help you prepare your submission. If you have any queries about these guidelines or would like to discuss a potential blog or podcast with the editorial team, please do not
hesitate to get in touch. We regularly work with contributors in firming up an idea and making their contribution the best publication it can be. We are particularly keen to work with early-career scholars
with a good idea!

Frontiers of Socio-Legal Studies aims to promote dialogue between socio-legal scholars who are undertaking or interested in empirical studies of law and legal phenomena. The editorial team welcomes contributions that provide high-quality analysis of recent or absent socio-legal research, methodological issues, ethical issues, and publications from around the globe. We welcome submissions from students, early career researchers, policy-makers, senior academics, lawyers, and members of civil society organisations, provided that the content meets the quality of existing posts and complies with the submission guidance below.

Frontiers of Socio-Legal Studies seeks contributions to three distinct sections:

Methodological Musings is dedicated to the discussion of methodologies and methods used in empirical studies of law and legal phenomena. Contributions usually take the form of a reflection on work already undertaken or at the design stage. This might include posts on the value of a particular approach to the collection of data, problems encountered in the design or implementation of a methodology, ethical dilemmas, or unanticipated problems that occurred in the field. They might also take the form of a critique of an existing methodological approach or reflections on how a theoretical or methodological framework can be operationalised.
- Examples:
Borderlands focuses on new directions in socio-legal studies. These might include discussion of new interdisciplinary interfaces and previously unexplored subjects, resources or archives, new research programmes or projects, networks and initiatives. It will also include key findings from recently completed empirical research projects that reference longer publications.
- Examples:
A Good Read features reviews of recent, theoretically informed empirical socio-legal publications. Whilst this section is mainly dedicated to book reviews, reviews of recent socio-legal articles are also welcome. As methods are a core focus of the blog, we encourage authors to reflect upon methodology in the texts under review.

Guidelines for contributions

When submitting work, we encourage authors to ensure that their post has a clear argument, which is flagged up in the opening paragraph and expanded upon as the blog continues.
Posts must be no more than 750 words in length.
Posts should not contain footnotes or endnotes.
Posts can include hyperlinks to relevant legal sources and background information. Hyperlinks must link only to academic or respected news sources.
Posts should be clear, concise, and avoid excessive jargon.
Submissions must be fully proofread and conform to good legal academic style.
Posts should include page number references for any quotes given.
Posts should have informative titles from which a reader can tell what the post is about. For A Good Read submissions, please provide an original title of the scholarly work being reviewed.
Authors will be required to submit a headshot and brief bio (maximum 50 words) on acceptance of their submission.
We aim to make the blog accessible to a global audience. As a result, posts should provide relevant background information to readers from outside your country.
Blog posts are usually published in English. We are, however, working towards publications in more than one language in order to expand our global reach. (If you would like to propose a multi-language article, please email the Editorial team: blog@csls.ox.ac.uk.)
Posts should reflect original, unpublished work.
Cross-posting or publication on other platforms is permitted. Please follow our cross-posting guidelines for details on how to do this below.

How to submit

Please submit your post via our online submission form.
Please use 12 pt Times New Roman font, single spaced, with 1-inch margins.
Please use British English spellings and Oxford commas.
Where using the term ‘Socio-Legal Studies’ in the body of your submission, please capitalise each word.
The editors will not approve posts in advance of seeing the text. Please do not send abstracts, as we will not be able to tell from an abstract whether your post complies with the Blog’s submission guidelines. If you are unsure whether a topic is suitable for the blog, please email us at the address below. An indication that a topic may be suitable does not amount to advance acceptance of the post.
We endeavour to respond quickly to submissions, and you can anticipate an initial email confirming receipt upon your submission. A member of the Editorial Board will then be in touch with you about your submission within three weeks.
If the Editors consider that your post has potential to be published, but is not currently of the required standard, then we will send back your work with editorial suggestions in tracked changes. This does not amount to acceptance of the post, and the Editorial Board may decide, upon seeing revisions, that the submission is not suitable for publication on the Frontiers of Socio-Legal Studies Blog.
If the post is accepted for publication, there may be a delay between acceptance and publication in the interests of us managing copyflow. We aim to minimise this where a post covers a very recent or urgent issue.
If you encounter any technical difficulties submitting, please email the Editorial team: blog@csls.ox.ac.uk. Please include the title of your post, the section of the blog you are submitting to, and your name in the subject line of the email.

Contributors Agreement

By submitting a post to the blog, the Contributor guarantees that the post is a product of their work and has not been previously published elsewhere.

Republishing Guidelines

Submissions Form

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