Contributor Guidelines

Any scholar who agrees to contribute an article to Studies in the Literary Imagination should follow the guidelines and meet the deadlines listed below. From inception to completion, the production of an issue takes approximately two years. The contributor is expected to notify the journal's assistant editor of the issue's progress at each stage of the development. The assistant editor will endeavor to assist in every reasonable way.

Article Format

• 25 to 30 pages (between approximately 6,000 and 8,000 words), double-spaced throughout, 1.25" left and right margins, 1" top and bottom margins
• written and documented according to MLA style (excepting the usage of square brackets around inserted ellipses), which includes:
  • a works cited page;
  • if used, endnotes (not footnotes) containing explanatory information placed between the body of the essay and the works cited page; and
  • parenthetical documentation within the body of the essay
• Microsoft Word for PC or compatible file format

You should submit your essay to the consulting editor in hard copy and electronic format according to the calendar of deadlines below. Along with your essay, you also should submit a brief bio (about 50 words), your mailing address, e-mail address, and a fax number if you have one. You then should expect to be notified by the consulting editor if any changes to your essay are required. When the consulting editor is satisfied with your essay, he or she will forward it to the journal editors for copyediting. You will have the opportunity to proofread your essay at least once before it is set in camera-ready copy. In the interest of time, the consulting editor might be given the right to approve all copyediting for articles in an issue that is behind schedule.

For your information:

Responsibilities of Consulting Editor:  Chooses a general subject, a focused topic, and a title; seeks and obtains approval of the SLI committee; solicits approximately six to eight original essays; receives essays from contributors (hard copy and electronic format); performs first line edit; if necessary, returns essays to authors for correction; writes introduction; submits introduction and clean, edited, publishable essays to the assistant editor, along with mailing addresses and brief bios (about 50 words each) for consulting editor(s) and contributors, on diskette and in hard copy; receives and corrects camera-ready copy (at least once); returns corrected copy to assistant editor; meets all deadlines.

Please note:  Specifications in addition to the above may apply and will be determined for individual issues at the discretion of the Managing Editor.  The above schedule is provisional; consulting editors will be notified if any of the deadlines differ for a particular issue.  Georgia State University retains copyright of all material published in Studies in the Literary Imagination.  If any contributor wishes to reprint elsewhere an article or a revised version of an article first published in SLI, either in print or in any other format, he or she must request permission from GSU and give proper acknowledgement to Studies in the Literary Imagination (SLI editor will provide acknowledgement text). 

4/04 (Replaces earlier versions)