Guidelines for authors

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's conformance with all of the following items. Submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines. Do note, this applies to all phases of submitting a (potential) contribution!

• The DLH-journal welcomes contributions of any format: articles, work in progress, project proposals, posters (with additional information), datasets, code [etc.].

• Contributions should preferably not exceed 10,000 words including notes and code - if you have a longer submission, do contact the editorial board first. For a methodology/ review articles the target length is 5,000 words including notes. Longer contributions can be accepted, but clear and concisely written texts do have the preference. but clear and concisely written texts do have the preference.

  •  Do cite software, when you have used it! Suggestions on how to do so: https://cite.research-software.org/researchers/  
  • Contributions have footnotes, no endnotes or in-line referencing. 
  • Be consistent in your style (preferably use a reference manager such as Zotero).
  • Each contribution has a bibliography at the end.

• Texts in English can be accepted; if you prefer to publish in German, French, Italian, Spanish or Portuguese please contact the editorial board before submitting a manuscript. 

  • Languages not mentioned above are judged on an individual basis: contact the editorial board.
  • An abstract in English, of 200-300 words is always included in the final publication. 

• All paragraphs, except the first in each section, are indented.

• All text is double-spaced.

• Please indicate on the top of the manuscript: name and full address (postal address, telephone number and e-mail); academic title; number of words.

• Chose 5 keywords that reflect the methodology of your contribution and add these to the top of your manuscript

• Manuscripts submitted to DLH have not been published elsewhere and are not under review for possible publication elsewhere. 

• Files are accepted in Microsoft Word-format and Markdown.

• Images and Graphs can be provided in colour, as the DLH appears online only.

• All illustrations are cleared from copyright.

• Authors who wish to publish in English, but are not native speakers are solely responsible for the translation or language editing of their manuscript by a native speaker before submission to ensure that the academic content of the article is fully understood by the editors and the reviewers. The Editorial Board will decide if the manuscript´s language check meets the requirements of the journal. 

• If you do wish to publish in any other language than English, you need to contact the editorial board. 

• In case of a multi-authored article, all authors have given permission to be listed on the submitted text. One corresponding author is authorised to speak on behalf of the authors.

• All DOIs for online references have been provided, when available.

• All data/ datasets need to be published in an online repository (e.g. Zenodo) and the DOIs need to be provided in the contribution.

• The author warrants and represents that the work does not infringe upon any copyright, proprietary, or personal right of any third party. If the work contains any material that is owned or controlled by a third party, the author certifies that he/she has obtained permission for its use and that the material is clearly acknowledged within the text. This warrant concerns the entire manuscript, text as well as pictures, sound, video, data sets etc… 

• The author declares the absence of any conflict of interest.

• The author agrees that, when accepted for publication, the Journal’s logo will be printed on every page as a header.

Linguistic remarks:

• If you chose British/ American spelling: be consistent throughout.

• Within the text, single quotations marks should be used. Double quotation marks should only be used for quotations within quotations. 

• Avoid the use of the passive tense, except where absolutely necessary.

• Avoid jargon and use of initialism including acronyms. Where possible use a shortened version of full name rather than the initials except where acronym/initials are commonly understood (e.g. UN). First use of term should render name/term in full with acronym/initials directly following in brackets.

• Try to use gender neutral terms unless the gender of the person under discussion is obvious.

• Avoid the use of parentheses (brackets). Either integrate the information fully in the sentence, or place it in a footnote.

• Capitalization should be kept to a minimum, preferably only for personal and place names and for titles when attached to a personal name (thus ‘the king’, but ‘King William’).

• Indent quotations of over twenty-five words, with no surrounding quotation marks.

• Render numbers under one hundred in words rather than numerals.

• Avoid over-long sentences, except where absolutely necessary. Over-long is defined as in excess of four lines.

• Single non-English words or short phrases used within a sentence to be placed in italics with translation provided in brackets directly after.

• Longer foreign-language quotations including Latin) normally to be rendered in English in text with full translation provided in a supporting footnote, with detail of the author of the translation.

• Dates should be expressed thus: 1 January 1989; the 1980s; the twentieth century; 1914-18; 1988-9.