Contributors Guidelines

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Urbanities aims at publishing original ethnographically-based full-length articles at the forefront of the social sciences and the humanities, at exploring new trends and debates and at highlighting the contribution of urban research to the broader society.

Urbanities also publishes review articles, book reviews, film and video reviews, obituaries, news on research done and in-progress and on recently completed doctorates in the urban field. It also includes sections on letters and comments; conference reports; brief announcements of forthcoming conferences and other relevant events; university courses and jobs; announcements from Publishing Houses.

Given the importance of cumulative scholarship, we strongly encourage submissions that demonstrate familiarity with Urbanities and relate their discussions and findings to articles previously published in the journal.

Urbanities does not apply Publication Charges (APCs) or Submission Charges.

 

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Urbanities encourages the submission of previously unpublished, original contributions that are not under consideration for publication elsewhere.

Submissions should be written in clear English language, accessible to a wide international readership, many of whom may not be professional academics.

Urbanities is an open-access international academic journal. All major contributions are peer reviewed. Urbanities benefits from an Editorial and a Scientific Board of high repute. All submissions will go through an internal selection procedure before being submitted for peer review.

Urbanities aims at publishing your submission in the following issue. However, should major amendments be necessary in view of reviewers’ comments, Urbanities reserves the right to consider publication at a later date. Please contact the Editor to discuss topics you might be interested to write on.

Copy-Editing Policy
Urbanities reserves the right to edit submissions, as may be necessary for space, grammatical accuracy and style preference.
The high-quality of the published contributions is a priority. If substantial copy-editing is needed, authors are required to have their typescript copy-edited professionally before final submission. The Editorial Board can be contacted for information on copy-editing services that specialise in the social sciences.

Word-length of Submissions

  • Urbanities publishes standard-length articles (8000 words maximum) and  shorter articles (3000-3500 words). The word length must include footnotes and bibliography. Footnotes and bibliography should be kept at a minimum;
  • Editorials (1500 words max.);
  • Conference reports (1000 words max.);
  • Book Reviews (750-1000 words);
  • Review articles (2000 words max);
  • Letters (250 words max.);
  • Obituaries (500-750 words);
  • Comments (up to 600 words – longer by invitation only);
  • Reports on research (750 words max.);
  • Completed doctoral dissertations. Please include Author’s full name, Institution, Date of award, Title and Abstract (300 words max.)

In order to foster debate in Urbanities, comments and letters are particularly encouraged.

 

PREPARATION OF TYPESCRIPTS

Please submit your work as a Word document (.doc) (any recent version).
The typescript should be ordered as follows, beginning on new pages: title page (with name of the author, institutional affiliation and contact details), abstract (250 words, including up to five bracketed key words), text, acknowledgements, references cited, list of illustrations/tables/figures, a list of captions for each illustration/table/figure. Illustrations, tables and figures should be supplied as separate files (see below, non-text material).

Submissions are to be accompanied by a 50 word biographical note.

  • Layout – Please use double-space with margins c. 2.5cm (1 inch) wide, with no hyphenation at the end of lines. Authors using word processors should turn right justification off. Footnotes and List of References should also be double-spaced.
  • Pagination – Number all pages consecutively throughout in the top right-hand corner.
  • Font – Please use Times New Roman throughout (font size 12). Do not use any complex coding.
  • Style – Please use the same style throughout the text. For the spelling, Urbanities prefers British English (colour, centre, favourite, neighbour). Commas should be omitted before the final ‘and’ or ‘or’ in lists unless the meaning is ambiguous. Avoid parochialism and ambiguity, for example: instead of expressions like ‘this country’ use the country name; be precise in identifying periods of time and avoid expressions like ‘in the last century’, which now needs to be clarified. Decades should be written without the apostrophe (for example, the 1950s).
  • Quotations/extracts – These must be an exact reproduction of the original in both spelling and punctuation, even if this conflicts with the style of the rest of your typescript. Use single quotation marks. Always acknowledge the source of your quotations, including page number/s where appropriate (see also copyright and permission below). If the original quotation is in a foreign language, please provide the English translation.
  • Footnotes, in-text Citations and Referencing
    Please use footnotes, not endnotes. Urbanities’ preferred style of in-text citation is the author-date system, for example (Pardo 1996) or (Douglas ed. 1973).

    • For quotations, please include page numbers; separate the page from the year with a colon, for example (Pardo 1996: 9-18).
    • In-text references to works by many authors should be separated by a comma, for example (Krase 2012, Pardo 1996).
    • When page numbers are included, or more then one work by an author is cited, in-text references to works by many authors should be separated by a semi-colon (Douglas ed. 1973; Krase 2012; Leach 1961; Pardo 1996: 9-18, Pardo ed. 2000)
    • When there are references by two or more authors with the same surname, use their initials to avoid confusion, for example (G. Parry 1969, J. Parry 2012).
    • When a work is published by an organization rather than an author, place the organization’s name in the author’s place.
    • When a work is yet to be published, use forthcoming, rather than in press.
    • In multi-authored books or articles, the names of all authors should be given in the reference list. In the text, if there are more than two names, give the first name and ‘et al.’.

Full details of ALL and ONLY the works cited in the text should be provided in a list of bibliographic references at the end of the typescript.  See sample References below (including books, edited volumes, articles in journals and chapters in books):

  • References
    Douglas, M. ed. 1973. Rules and Meanings. London: Penguin Books.
    Krase, J. 2012. An Argument for Seeing in Urban Social Science. Urbanities-Journal of Urban Ethnography, 2 (1): 18-29.
    Pardo, I. 1996. Managing Existence in Naples: Morality, action and structure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
    Parry, G. 1969. Political Elites. Lonodn: Allen and Unwin.
    Parry, J. 2012. Comparative Reflections on Fieldwork in Urban India. In I. Pardo and G.B. Prato (eds), Anthropology in the City: Methodology and Theory. London: Routledge.
    Prato, G. B. 2018. Rethinking the City as Urban Community. In I. Pardo and G.B. Prato (eds), The Palgrave Handbook of Urban Ethnography. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
    Rosbrook-Thompson, J. and Armstrong, G. 2018. Mixed-Occupancy Housing in London: A Living Tapestry. New York: Palgarve Macmillan.
  • Internet-based references
    ‘University Performance, 2001 League tables: First and Upper Seconds’, Times Higher Education Supplement, Statistics page (published online 31 May 2001) http://www.thesis.co.uk/main.asp (home page), accessed 31 May 2001.
  • Foreign Language – Please provide the English translation for quotations and bibliographic references in foreign languages.
  • Foreign and Special Fonts – (for example, diacritics, mathematical symbols, transliterated Greek/Arabic/Chinese/Cyrillic and so on). If you intend to use foreign or special fonts in your Contribution, please alert the editor to this as soon as possible.
  • Non-text material – Non-text material may be maps, graphs, table, photographs, illustrations and so on. Authors are asked to keep such material to a minimum. All illustrations/tables/figures should be numbered consecutively. Tables should be created in the same programme as the main text. All illustrations/figures/tables must be separated from the text and sent as a separate file clearly named with the image number (for example figure 2). Portrait figures should be no wider than text width. Scanned illustrations must be saved as high-resolution files (at least 300 dpi) at their actual size. Maps, line drawings and flow charts must be saved as high-resolution files (at least 800-1200 dpi) at their actual size. If the printout looks pixelated/fuzzy, it is likely to remain so. You must provide copies of all relevant permissions/copyright information (see below). Please, provide a List of Illustrations/Figures/Tables containing the captions for each illustration/figure/table (including sources) and the relevant copyright permissions.
  • Copyright and permission – Always acknowledge author, publisher, source (this could be an individual, or an institution, such as a public gallery or museum). If you are planning to reproduce from any copyright material, it is your responsibility to seek written permission for its use, and also to settle any relevant fees. Please, note that not all internet material (for example, screen images) is in the public domain, therefore you should always check their status. All copyright material must be supplied with the permissions cleared by the relevant person/s (for example, owner/s, photographer) and/or institution (for example, gallery, photographic library, museum) who own the copyright. Libel – Authors are responsible for the content of their published work.Please ensure that you do not make any defamatory or injurious statement about living persons, institutions or other organizations and do not include in your work any obscene or improper material that could result in libel claims. In the event, Urbanitieswill not be responsible for such claims.

Click here for details on how to submit to Urbanities .

DISCLAIMER

Submission does not constitute an obligation on Urbanities to publish the Contribution.

For accepted contributions, Urbanities requires that the authors (or their employers, if they hold the copyright) sign a Publication Agreement and Assignment of  “First Publisher” Rights before publication. The Editor will supply the necessary form for this agreement. A written assignment of “first publisher” rights will allow the Publisher to carry through the dissemination of the Contributions as widely and effectively as possible.

Any views and opinions expressed in Urbanities are those of the Contributors only. They are not necessarily endorsed or reflect the views of the journal’s Editorial and Scientific Boards.