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Instructions for authors

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Authors can send their proposals for articles (with the exception of Synopses and Fact Sheets – see below) to info[at]brusselsstudies.be. Proposals must comply with the instructions (in keeping with the editorial approach, length, bibliography, etc) and must include an abstract of maximum 1 250 characters (including spaces).

These instructions for authors are intended to clarify the procedures used by Brussels Studies and the way in which the journal wishes to develop its relationships with the authors.

It also specifies the requirements of Brussels Studies in terms of the format of articles submitted. It is the author's responsibility to provide a text which complies with all of the standards presented below. If necessary, the editorial staff will ask the author to make changes to a text which has been submitted for publication if some of the requirements have not been met.

The author will also read the Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement before submitting an article.

Compliance with the editorial approach of the journal

Brussels Studies only accepts scholarly articles, i.e. articles resulting from studies conducted using methods which are generally accepted by the academic community. The journal only publishes original works which have never been published.

The subject of articles must always be centred on an issue which clearly concerns Brussels.

The articles are written in a clear and accessible language, adapted to a non-specialist public and free of jargon and unnecessary technical terms.

These elements are the object of an evaluation by the editorial staff when they receive the texts, and then by peer reviewers who are experts in the areas dealt with in the proposed articles.

In order to limit the high costs of translation and thus ensure that the journal remains available in Open Access Diamond, Brussels Studies insists that authors write their articles in their mother tongue, as long as it is French, Dutch or English (with the exception of multilingual collaborations between authors).

Brussels Studies publishes articles in three collections with different objectives:

  • The General Collection includes articles proposed by the authors. These academic articles – i.e. articles based on studies conducted according to methods accepted by the academic community as a whole – undergo a double-blind peer review process. Their length must not exceed 30 000 characters (including spaces).

  • The BSI Synopses are written by a group of authors who have examined an issue regarding Brussels. The follow-up of the work and the revision of the texts is ensured by academic experts and professionals in the field concerned, in the framework of the Brussels Studies Institute. The length of BSI Synopses must not exceed 60 000 characters (including spaces).

  • The Fact Sheets are summaries of publications (reports, statistics, etc), empirical data or specific subjects, highlighting elements which are useful in the analysis of the situation in Brussels. This collection includes articles of a smaller format, which must not exceed 10 000 characters (including spaces).

Anyone is free to submit proposals for articles in the General Collection. As regards the BSI Synopses and Fact Sheets, potential authors are asked to contact the editorial team (info[at]brusselsstudies.be) beforehand.

Details concerning copyright

Brussels Studies does not charge any publication costs or submission fees. It covers the translation costs entirely. The journal ensures the article's translation and online publishing as well as any related communication free of charge.

As the journal makes its content available free of charge and receives no financial benefit from it, it does not pay the authors of the articles.

Authors who publish with Brussels Studies transfer to the journal their right of reproduction and communication to the public necessary for the online publication of their articles under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) licence. This licence allows others to use the results and analyses presented in the articles as long as they mention the work’s authorship.

A contract specifying these terms is signed between Brussels Studies and the author.

Authors are then able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the version of the work published in Brussels Studies (e.g. post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in the journal.

The author is asked to clearly indicate the address of the website which contains the article and if possible to create a link to the Brussels Studies website (http://brussels.revues.org) on his or her personal or professional website. During contact with the press, the author is also asked to mention the journal in order to facilitate access to the article and to increase the number of visitors to the website.

Editorial process and involvement of the author

The articles published by Brussels Studies are subject to a double blind peer review. The way in which the journal selects the articles it publishes is described in more detail on the page Selection procedure.

  1. The text submitted by the author is sent by email (info[at]brusselsstudies.be) and is read by at least one member of the editorial staff. The senior editor sends the initial remarks to the author who is then asked to provide a final version.

  2. The text is submitted anonymously to at least two peers, chosen according to their competence in the discipline or subject of the article. The senior editor shares the peers' observations with the author, and sends a copy of the report if necessary. In some cases, the author is asked to revise his or her text and/or respond to the remarks made by the peers. The revised text is sent as soon as possible to the senior editor, with the modifications clearly indicated (track changes function, highlighting, an accompanying document, etc). This process is repeated until the text has been accepted by the peers and the editorial staff. The text may be refused by the editorial staff at any time during this process if it does not meet the publication's standards, based on the opinion of the peers.

  3. The final text must be accompanied by the publication preparation form provided by the editorial staff, which includes in particular the summary of the article, the author’s contact details and the keywords to assign.

  4. The final text is then translated and the layout is prepared. The author receives a copy for validation. The author is asked to reread the texts in French, Dutch and English, according to his or her linguistic abilities.

  5. The author is asked to provide the editorial staff (info[at]brusselsstudies.be) with a list of email addresses of the people whom he or she would like to inform of the article's release via the Brussels Studies newsletter.

  6. Articles are usually put online on a Monday, after being sent on Thursday (under embargo) to the press along with the author's contact details for a possible interview. The author must be available to answer any questions during this period and until two days after the article has been published.

Generally speaking, the author must be available to provide the translators with clarifications or to answer questions which the editorial staff may have, in particular while working on the layout.

Format and layout of the text

Texts must be sent to the editorial staff (info[at]brusselsstudies.be) in one of the following formats: .doc, .docx, .odt, .pages or .rtf.

The layout must be as simple as possible (no tabs, multiple use of enter key, etc.).

The outline must be clearly indicated (same layout and clear numbering for each heading level).

There must not be more than two heading levels in addition to the general title.

The introduction and the conclusion must not be numbered.

References

References must absolutely comply with the ISO690 model.

The author is responsible for compliance with this model starting with the first drafts submitted. The editorial staff will return the texts to the authors if they do not comply with the requirements mentioned above and in the instructions for authors.

In concrete terms:

In the text: follow the author-date model according to the following format: [Name, date: page], e.g. [Martens, 1976: 101].

The page number may be omitted for indirect citations. Brackets must be used rather than parentheses.

In the bibliography at the end of the article (not as a footnote) the standard to follow must comply with the ISO690 bibliography standard, according to the following examples:

Book

AUTHOR’S SURNAME, First name, Year. Title. Place: Publisher.

Chapter in a book

AUTHOR’S SURNAME, First name, Year. Title of chapter. In: EDITOR’S SURNAME, First name (ed.), Title of book. Place: Publisher. pp. x-y.

Journal article

AUTHOR’S SURNAME, First name, Year. Title of article. In: Title of journal. Specific date of publication. vol. x, no. x, pp. x-y.

Thesis

AUTHOR’S SURNAME, First name, Year. Title. Doctoral thesis in discipline. Place: University.

Working paper

AUTHOR’S SURNAME, First name, Year. Title. Place: Publisher. Working Paper.

or

AUTHOR’S SURNAME, First name, Year. Title of article. In: Title of journal. Specific date of publication. vol. x, no. x, pp. x-y. Working Paper.

Report

AUTHOR’S SURNAME, First name, Year. Title. Place: sponsor. Number of the report.

Oral presentation

AUTHOR’S SURNAME, First name, Year. Title of presentation. In: Title of conference. Conference. Place. Specific date of conference.

Newspaper article

AUTHOR’S SURNAME, First name, Year. Title article. In: Title journal. Specific date of publication. p.x

Web page

AUTHOR’S SURNAME, First name, Year. Title of page. In: Title of website [online]. Specific date of publication online. [Viewed on day/month/year]. Available from: http://URLaddress

For references including multiple authors, an “and” is placed before the surname of the last author.

For example: JACOBS, Dirk, MARTINIELLO, Marco and REA, Andrea, 2002. Veranderende patronen van politieke participatie van migranten. De gemeenteraadsverkiezingen van oktober 2000 in het Brussels Hoofdstedelijk Gewest. In: Migrantenstudies. 2002. Vol. 18, n° 3, pp. 138–155.

The specific dates are written according to the day/month/year format. For example: [Viewed on 14/05/1985]. If the day is not specified, the date is written according to the month/year format.

If the initial of the first name is mentioned instead of the full first name, this must be done for all works listed in the bibliography.

The number of footnotes must be kept to a minimum. They must only be used to reference sources not included in the bibliography (statistics, archives, testimonies) or to specify a methodological point (calculation method, dates and places of observation, etc). Digressions must be incorporated into the text or avoided altogether.

Illustrations

Brussels Studies is published in HTML and PDF format. Authors are therefore encouraged to use tables and figures in their articles, as it is possible to reproduce colours with no difficulty.

Authors are asked to provide quality illustrations for their articles.

Photos must be provided in high quality .tiff or .jpeg format, with a resolution of 300 dpi.

Graphs will be inserted by the editorial staff. They must be accompanied either by the spreadsheet document used to make them, or at least by corresponding tables of figures (even if they are not intended to be published, in order to allow us to edit them ourselves).

Finally, authors are asked to provide maps in vector format (.pdf, .eps, etc). If necessary, they will be asked to provide a version in each of the languages for publication (once we have had them translated).

Authors are fully responsible for their articles. They must take the necessary steps to obtain permission to use copyrighted material and mention their sources.

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