Submissions

Author Guidelines

Sortuz: Oñati Journal of Emergent Socio-Legal Studies holds a permanent call for papers. Sortuz also launches calls for papers with a view to publish monographic issues. The latter calls have a beginning and an end date, and papers submitted outside of the deadline will not be considered for these issues.

Authors interested are welcome to submit their unpublished articles through this website. Each author must guarantee that his/her article is also not submitted simultaneously for publication in another journal or book.

Articles should be no longer than 8,000 words, and can be written in any of the official languages of the Oñati IISL (English, French, Spanish, Basque), or in Portuguese. However, the submission must also include an abstract of 150 words in English and 5 keywords. In addition, no reference should be made that unveils the identity of the author through the peer-review process. We recommend structuring the articles in headings and subheadings marked with numbers, separated by full stops (i.e. 1.; 1.2.; 1.2.1.), with no more than three numbers.

Articles should use the Author-Date system of citation, and include a full Bibliography. Please refer to Sortuz's citing and referencing guidelines, developed in-house by the journal. Where an item is available electronically (not in a closed database) please supply the URL link. If more than one link is available for the same document, please supply the DOI link. 

Please note that you are responsible for the proofreading of your article, before submission or after acceptance and final submission. Reviewers may suggest stylistic changes or point out mistakes, but we do not proofread articles. Please therefore check it carefully for spelling and grammar, as well as clarity of expression, and, if you are not a native speaker of English, consider having it proofread by a native speaker of English with a good command of legal language. If we consider that there is an unacceptable level of mistakes, we will return the article to you.

If approved for publication, your paper will be formatted electronically as a Portable Document Format (PDF) file, using the standard layout for papers in the journal. If you prefer to retain your own format for a specific reason, please contact us. Papers should be submitted as word-processor files.

Ensuring a blind review

Please make sure your paper as submitted ensures a blind peer review; therefore, please remove your name from the paper and replace it with "Author" ("Author A", "Author B" and so on in the case of multiple authors), and remove any personal references from the properties (metadata) for the file. Include your affiliation and contact information (both professional postal address and email) in the submission form. Likewise, all field codes must be removed prior to submission, including cross-reference codes (Zotero, EndNote, etc.)

Proofreading

Please note that you are responsible for proofreading your article, before submission as well as after acceptance and final submission. Reviewers may suggest stylistic changes or point out mistakes, but we do not proofread articles for form or for content. Please therefore check it carefully for spelling, grammar (see Sortuz's grammar and spelling guidelines), and clarity of expression, as well as for correction and consistence of cites and references. If we consider that there is an unacceptable level of mistakes, we will return the article to you. If approved for publication, your paper will be formatted electronically as a Portable Document Format (PDF) file, using the standard layout for papers in Sortuz. If you prefer to retain your own format for a specific reason, please contact us.

Papers should be submitted as word processor files. Once the paper has been laid out, it will be returned to you for a last revision, before it is definitively published.

Edition and publication

Once the paper has been laid out, it will be returned to you for a last revision, before it is definitively published. After publication, further technical editions may be made to correct typos or to improve readability or presentation of the article, but the content will not be edited or modified in any way, except for factual errors that may be detected by the author or by the editor.

Content Guidelines

Sortuz enforces a number of minimum requirements to ensure a pre-review standard. For all submissions, authors must make sure that their text is written in correct academic language, and we recommend that authors who have written the paper in a language other than their native language then have it checked by a native speaker with a good command of academic language use. A paper may be rejected purely on the basis of poor language.

Sortuz encourages use of gender-neutral language, which has been proposed to reduce both discrimination and gender stereotyping. We encourage using gender-neutral language that is grammatically correct. When in doubt, reviewers are invited to refer to the editor.

In the case of special issues, in addition to the above mentioned, the following guidelines apply:

• Topicality, both for empirical context and for theoretical implications of the issue.
• The funding institutions of the research that constitutes the content basis of the book must be named, and the methodology having informed the research must be stated.
• Articles must:
  • Attend to a common set of questions, ideally from different angles
  • Cross-reference: be a tightly-knit work, and a well-argued presentation of a certain topic
• Senior authors as well as younger scholars, and people of different genders and of a diverse origin will ideally be represented in authorship.

Peer Review Process

The editorial team screens the submissions to ensure they meet the basic quality and formal criteria of the journal. Manuscripts that pass desk review are sent out to external, double-blind peer review. Reviews are handled by the managing editor. Based on the reviews and the recommendations by the reviewers, the editorial team makes an informed decision on the paper. The editorial team will inform the authors of this decision, including the full anonymous reviews by external reviewers and a reasoning for the decision.

In the event of a serious disagreement or any conflict of interests, the Editor-in-chief is consulted and a decision is made and communicated to the parties involved. The journal will handle any post-publication conflict on a case-by-case basis, and has policies in place for those eventualities (see the section about Corrections to the Version of Record (“Corrigenda”), Retractions and Withdrawals, in the Author guidelines section).

In the case of Thematic articles, Guest Editors will be asked to suggest names of potential reviewers. However, reviewers are nominated by the Sortuz editorial team. For individual submissions, the Sortuz editorial team nominates reviewers.

Authors are requested to anonymize their paper and to remove their name and references from the document metadata. Reviews are anonymized too. All communication between authors and reviewers is done through Sortuz, to ensure anonymity of both authors and reviewers.

Reviewers are asked to comment on the following aspects:

1. Is the paper well organised and structured, does the argument flow well?
2. Are sources adequately and properly cited, and are the language and expression clear, adequate and appropriate?
3. Is the paper of sufficient interest and originality to be published in Sortuz?
4. Do you have suggestions for revision of the paper:
• (i) parts which could be shortened or deleted,
• (ii) arguments or points that need clarification, expansion or development,
• (iii) important and relevant views or work which the author should take into account, or
• (iv) for reorganisation of the paper?
5. Please state whether your suggestions are
• (i) advice to the author and the paper could be published without checking the revised version
• (ii) you have suggested specific changes which must be made but a non-specialist could check before publication that the changes have been made;
• (iii) the paper should not be published unless the revised version is approved by you (or if you are not able or willing to read a revised version, please if possible suggest someone who could); or
• (iv) the paper should not be published.

In the system, they must choose one of these options:

Accept submission ; Revisions required ; Resubmit for review; Resubmit elsewhere ; Decline submission ; See comments

In case of serious disagreement between reviewers, the editor may make a final decision or nominate a third reviewer.

Based on the reviewers' recommendations, authors will be notified of the review process (Accept submission ; accept with minor revisions ; resubmit for review ; decline submission), including the reviewers' reports and comments.

Authors must revise their papers accordingly in two weeks’ time. A letter explaining the changes made must also be included. Authors are required to respond to reviews, including those that are critical or disfavourable, by addressing the main points raised by the reviewer and how these have been dealt with;

The reviewers’ recommendations will always be taken in consideration; however, the journal will make the final decision on the publication of the paper, and the author will be informed. All the communication will be to the email account used to submit the paper to the journal.

If authors think they will be unable to return a revised paper within the allotted time, they are asked to tell the Managing Editor and to suggest an alternative deadline. If authors do not return a revised paper within the deadline, and they have not communicated with the journal, or do not respond to the journal's attempts for contact, the journal may archive the submission. In general, the journal is entitled to archive any paper that has remained inactive for an extended period of time after the reviews and the recommendation to revise have been communicated to the author.

Self-archiving and Sharing Policy

We distinguish between three types of document depending on its production stage: preprint, accepted manuscript, and Version of Record (published journal article)

• A preprint is the original work of an author, before or right after submission;

• An accepted manuscript is the piece of work after incorporating the revisions suggested by the reviewers, and other amendments, additions or changes made by the author;

and

• the Version of Record / Published journal article is the final, enriched version of the article, laid out with Sortuz’s heading and visual traits, and after having undergone the editorial production process which adds value to it (typesetting, formatting, typography correction, reference formatting, pagination, publishing, dissemination, and archiving). This is the article that is published as part of its volume and issue, on Sortuz’s publishing website (https://opo.iisj.net/index.php/sortuz/). Sortuz has copyright on these elements.

Sortuz works on the basic principle that authors always keep copyright on their work, and Sortuz always has the right of first publication of articles that are accepted.

In order to reconcile both interests, we have set some simple guidelines on how authors can share their work.

Preprint

Authors can share their preprint anywhere at any time.

Accepted Manuscript

Authors can share their accepted manuscript immediately:

• via their non-commercial personal homepage or blog (including Academia.edu, Researchgate.net, SSRN.com and similar platforms)

•  via their research institute or institutional repository for internal institutional uses or as part of an invitation-only research collaboration work-group, ie a closed, non-public repository
•  directly by providing copies to their students or to research collaborators for their personal use.

We request that authors indicate that it is an accepted article by Sortuz whose publication is forthcoming, and to include a link to the Sortuz website.

Version of Record

Sortuz has a CC BY license, which allows authors to share their published journal article (also called Version of Record) anywhere immediately after official publication on the Sortuz website, as long as the republication is compliant with the CC BY license.

The IISL, as publisher of Sortuz, only requests that it is clearly acknowledged that first publication was in Sortuz, and that a link is included to the version published in Sortuz. Authors always keep copyright of their work, so they are free to cite and reproduce parts of their official publication in Sortuz without any written authorization from Sortuz. The acknowledgment of first publication in Sortuz is sufficient and ensures transparency.

Sortuz sets no embargo period after a work is published on its official website.

Please check our Copyright Notice for more information.

Corrections to the Version of Record (“Corrigenda”), Retractions and Withdrawals

Correction notice

We distinguish between major and minor errors.

• All major errors are accompanied by a separate correction notice. The correction notice will provide clear details of the error and the changes that have been made to the Version of Record (VoR). Sortuz will take the following steps:
• Correct the online article;
• Add a correction notice to the article, clearly detailing the error and the correction made, as well as the location of it in the article;
• Publish the correction notice as any other journal item.

• All minor errors will include a footnote on the article detailing to the reader that the article has been corrected. Minor errors do not impact the reader’s understanding of the academic material.

• All substantive content-related modifications to the version of record must be described in a footnote identifying the changes made to the published article.
• An article with minor corrections will not be accompanied with a correction notice published separately.

In both cases, the corrected article will replace the previous version of the article.

An erratum (pl. errata) is a formal error in an article as a result of the production process from an original submission to a Version of Record. These do not usually impact the value or reader’s understanding of the academic substance, therefore, they will be amended like minor errors.

A retraction is the withdrawal of an article and its removal from the online website of the journal, as well as the statement informing of this removal and the warning that the article should be considered invalid as a source of knowledge. Sortuz will retract articles for reasons related to scientific misconduct including plagiarism, serious errors, and duplicate/concurrent publishing (self-plagiarism).

Authors may withdraw a paper by submitting a reasoned request to the journal. Withdrawal requests at this stage will be studied case by case with attention paid to the specificities of the situation and the particular reasons given by the author, and will be granted only exceptionally. Withdrawn papers have not been found to contain fatal errors that invalidate them (retractions).

Publication charges

In line with our open policy, Sortuz does not have article processing charges or submission charges of any kind.