Guidelines for Submitting Manuscripts for Review

Cultural Anthropology, the journal of the Society for Cultural Anthropology, publishes ethnographic writing informed by a wide array of theoretical perspectives, innovative in form and content, and focused on both traditional and emerging topics. It also welcomes essays concerned with theoretical issues, with ethnographic methods and research design in historical perspective, and with ways cultural analysis can address broader public audiences and interests. The following criteria are used to orient the reviews of the editors and reviewers:

1. Is the essay empirically rich?
2. Is the essay richly contextualized, describing, for example, political-economic, technoscientific, and demographic dynamics critical to its topic?
3. Does the essay use empirical material to enhance theoretical insight?
4. Are theoretical frameworks sound and clearly articulated?
5. Does the essay make a novel theoretical contribution?
6. Does the essay address topics of particular timely relevance?
7. Does the essay illustrate or otherwise contribute to innovations in research design?
8. Is the essay textually innovative?
9. Does the writing meet a high standard of clarity, elegance, and/or compellingness?
10. What communities of people are likely to be engaged by this essay?

YOUR MANUSCRIPT MUST BE NO LONGER THAN 9,000 WORDS INCLUDING NOTES AND REFERENCES.  WE STRONGLY ENCOURAGE A SHORTER INITIAL SUBMISSION, IN ANTICIPATION OF REVIEWERS' REQUESTS FOR REVISION. You must submit your manuscript online to the editors through the Open Journal System (OJS) used by Cultural Anthropology. It can be reached at http://ojs.culanth.org/ If you have difficulty using this system, you can email the editorial assistant at ea@culanth.org. Additionally, we have developed a frequently asked questions list for those submitting documents to OJS. Manuscripts are reviewed anonymously. Please prepare your manuscript to facilitate the double-blind review. Avoid references to your own work or cite it formally without self-reference. Manuscripts submitted to Cultural Anthropology should not be under simultaneous consideration by any other journal or have been published elsewhere.

Revised Submissions

Revised submissions must include a detailed cover letter indicating the changes made to a manuscript, and how the author has responded to the comments of the reviewers and any editors comments. Authors must upload revisions to OJS as a new submission, with a note including the previous OJS manuscript ID#.

Abstract and Keywords

Abstracts and keywords should be carefully thought out and precise. Abstracts will be used to draw in potential reviewers and readers. Keywords have a significant impact on how widely read your article will be when electronic searches are done.

Formatting

Cultural Anthropology follows The Chicago Manual of Style (14th ed., University of Chicago Press, 1993) for most matters of style, including hyphenation, capitalization, punctuation, abbreviations, and grammar, and Webster's Tenth New Collegiate Dictionary (1993) for spelling. Manuscripts must comply with Chicago Style guidelines in order to pass through our initial internal review process. For a guide to the Chicago style, we recommend looking at: http://www.aaanet.org/publications/guidelines.cfm. Manuscripts must be typed double-spaced and in a 12-point font, preferably Times Roman or equivalent. This applies to block quotes and excerpts, notes, references, tables, and figure captions. Margins throughout the manuscript (top, bottom, and both sides) must be at least 1 inch; the right margin should not be justified.

References

References appearing in the bibliography must be cited in text, and vice versa. In text, references are cited in parentheses, with last name(s), year of publication, and where necessary, page numbers. The reference list should be in the style of American Anthropologist: ordered alphabetically by author’s last name; author on one line, primary author last name first; date of publication indented on the next line, followed by title and then publisher’s city and name. All subsequent lines should be indented beyond the date. No underlining or boldface should be used in the reference list.

Tables

Tables should be embedded in your text. Number tables consecutively in the order in which they appear in text. Each table should have a caption. The caption and body of the table should be double-spaced.

Figures

Figures should be embedded in your text. Number figures consecutively in the order in which they appear in text. Artwork or figures must be camera-ready—that is, a photographic print of line art, such as a map, graph, or drawing, or a photograph. When possible these supporting documents should be uploaded into the OJS system. Each figure should have a caption that articulates the relevance of the figure to the manuscript argument or narrative.

Text Boxes

Text boxes (for historical contextualization, for example) can either be embedded in your text or submitted as a separate document, indicating where in the text it would best fit. Text boxes should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they appear in text.

Enriched Content

Supplemental content is important as the journal tries to extend its online presence. Visual and audio material is welcome and encouraged. Please reference in your manuscript where this material would be relevant, encouraging readers to move beyond the manuscript. Such material can be developed after a manuscript has been accepted for publication. Materials submitted with a manuscript will not be returned.

Contact Information:

The journal's office can be reached by email at ea@culanth.org.