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Policies

Please note: As of January 2011, Democracy & Education has new submission guidelines. Please check these carefully before submitting a manuscript.

Contents

Philosophy of Democracy and Education

For more information, please see Democracy and Education Aims and Scope page.

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Who Can Submit?

Anyone may submit an original article to be considered for publication in Democracy and Education provided he or she owns the copyright to the work being submitted or is authorized by the copyright owner or owners to submit the article. Authors are the initial owners of the copyrights to their works (an exception in the non-academic world to this might exist if the authors have, as a condition of employment, agreed to transfer copyright to their employer).

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Submission Fees

There are no fees to submit an article to Democracy & Education.

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General Submission Rules

Manuscripts should be submitted electronically to Democracy & Education’s online submission system.

Submitted articles cannot have been previously published, nor be forthcoming in a journal, book, or archival repository (print or electronic). Being an open-access journal, we explicitly encourage authors to post the final PDF versions of their published manuscripts on their own websites, and on academic sharing sites like Academia.com and Research Gate. However, we consider posting of draft or preprint versions of articles online to be in violation of our previous publication policy. This is also prohibited because posting draft papers on such sites can compromise our double-blind peer review process. By submitting material to Democracy & Education, the author is stipulating that the material is not currently under review at another journal (electronic or print) and that he or she will not submit the material to another journal (electronic or print) until the completion of the editorial decision process at Democracy & Education. If you have concerns about the submission terms for Democracy and Education, please contact the editors.

Ethics and Human Subjects Protection

By submitting, the author agrees that if research was conducted with human participants an institutional review board (IRB) approved the study. If IRB approval was not obtained, an explanation must be provided.

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Submitting a Feature Article

Democracy and Education accepts three kinds of articles: Feature articles, substantive responses to feature articles, and book reviews.

Word count: 5,000-8,000 words

Manuscripts must be prepared using a standard word processing program and submitted in .doc format. Pages should be numbered and double-spaced. Authors are expected to cite sources following the guidelines of the 6th edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (which follows an "author date" sytem for citing materials, not the "documentary note/humanities" style). Full contact information, including the author’s name, affiliated institution, mailing address, email and phone number should be provided when you submit your paper through the online submission tool. Notes should be kept to a minimum, and should be numbered within the text and then placed at the end of the article. Manuscripts should not exceed 8000 words, excluding reference lists, notes, and ancillary materials. Editors will solicit formal responses to feature articles, and unsolicited responses (see below) will be considered for publication after editorial review. Authors of Feature Articles are invited to write rebuttals to published responses.

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Submitting a Response to a Feature Article

Responses to feature articles are an important feature of Democracy and Education. Responses are substantive and different from letters to the editor or commentaries you might find in other journals.

Word count: Approximately 4,000 words maximum or 10 minutes of audio/visual file

Responses are the heart of the second phase of our “building to an issue” concept. Once an edition’s Feature Articles are posted on the Democracy & Education website, the journal will also post a new deadline by which all Responses on those articles must be submitted. As our aim is to foster democratic conversation about the ideas offered by authors of Feature Articles, we invite authors who submit Responses to consider both traditional academic and more creative forms of expression. Regardless of their final format, all Responses will also be reviewed using an anonymous peer review process. Written Responses should conform to the manuscript guidelines stated above for Feature Articles, with the exception that they are shorter (approximately 4,000 words, excluding reference lists and ancillary materials). Responses may be invited (by the initial author(s) and/or the journal editors), or they may be unsolicited submissions. Authors of Feature Articles are invited to provide rebuttals to Responses. Below are some illustrative (but not exhaustive) examples of potential Response types:

  • A “traditional” academic papers written in the style of a Feature Article, only shorter.
  • A Response in which a peer reviewer engages an author in a public conversation of issues that arise during the review process. We believe this encourages more substantive engagement with original ideas while preserving the integrity of the publishing process and enhancing the quality of the journal.
  • A shared Response written by more than one author. This can include the author of the original Feature Article.
  • An interview with an expert in a field of inquiry explored in the Feature Article.
  • A transcript of a conversation or an edited audio or video commentary (with a 10 minute maximum submission length). For example, this might include a classroom conversation of the original Feature Article.
  • Art or another medium that is used to extend the conversation. We’re open to free expression that goes beyond scholarly forms (e.g., video, visual media like murals, painting or photography, and written forms like poetry or fiction). If you are interested in submitting a Response through an alternative format, please contact the editors to discuss your ideas.

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Submitting a Book Review

Word count: 1,000-1,500 words

We aim to publish at least two book reviews in each issue. They are generally solicited, but we invite interested reviewers to contact the editors at journal@lclark.edu with review requests or book suggestions. Book Reviews will follow the Feature Article submission format requirements stated above, with the exception that the word limit excludes the reference list. Book reviews should not contain endnotes and authors are encouraged to keep references to a minimum.

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Formatting Requirements

Democracy and Education See Final Manuscript Preparation Guidelines for details. It is ultimately the responsibility of the author to produce an electronic version of the article as a Microsoft Word file that can be converted to a PDF file. Please do not submit manuscripts in any other format than MS Word (.doc or .docx)

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Review Procedure

In accord with the journal’s vision of democratic conversation, the journal will use a double blind peer review system in which reviewers are encouraged to provide substantive, constructive feedback for each submission. To preserve author anonymity, authors should remove all means of self-identification within the manuscript (text and footnotes).

Peer reviewers use a standard checklist to evaluate papers and advise editors, but substantial attention is placed on qualitative feedback in the form of comments. The peer review checklist can be downloaded at the following address: https://democracyeducationjournal.org/home/Blank_Manuscript_Review_Form.doc

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Rights for Authors and Democracy and Education

As further described in our submission agreement (the Submission Agreement), in consideration for publication of the article, the authors assign to Democracy and Education all copyright in the article, subject to the expansive personal-use exceptions described below.

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Attribution and Usage Policies

Reproduction, posting, transmission or other distribution or use of the article or any material therein, in any medium as permitted by a personal-use exemption or by written agreement of Democracy and Education, requires credit to Democracy and Education as copyright holder (e.g., Democracy and Education © 2024). This is roughly equivalent to a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-NoDerivs License (CC BY-NC-ND).

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Personal-use Exceptions

The following uses are always permitted to the author(s) and do not require further permission from Democracy and Education provided the author does not alter the format or content of the articles, including the copyright notification:

  • Storage and back-up of the article on the author's computer(s) and digital media (e.g., diskettes, back-up servers, Zip disks, etc.), provided that the article stored on these computers and media is not readily accessible by persons other than the author(s);
  • Posting of the article on the author(s) personal website, provided that the website is non-commercial;
  • Posting of the article on the internet as part of a non-commercial open access institutional repository or other non-commercial open access publication site affiliated with the author(s)'s place of employment (e.g., a Phrenology professor at the University of Southern North Dakota can have her article appear in the University of Southern North Dakota's Department of Phrenology online publication series); and
  • Posting of the article on a non-commercial course website for a course being taught by the author at the university or college employing the author.

People seeking an exception, or who have questions about use, should contact the editors.

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General Terms and Conditions of Use

Users of the Democracy and Education website and/or software agree not to misuse the Democracy and Education service or software in any way.

The failure of Democracy and Education to exercise or enforce any right or provision in the policies or the Submission Agreement does not constitute a waiver of such right or provision. If any term of the Submission Agreement or these policies is found to be invalid, the parties nevertheless agree that the court should endeavor to give effect to the parties' intentions as reflected in the provision, and the other provisions of the Submission Agreement and these policies remain in full force and effect. These policies and the Submission Agreement constitute the entire agreement between Democracy and Education and the Author(s) regarding submission of the Article.

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