Author Guidelines

Medieval Sermon Studies (MSS) accepts both general submissions and proposals for Thematic Sections. Please use the guidelines below in both cases.

Submissions should be made electronically through the journal website. Please ensure that you consider the following guidelines when preparing your manuscript.

Submissions

Article Types

MSS accepts four types of articles: research articles, contributions to thematic sections, meeting or project reports, and book reviews.

Research articles must describe the outcomes of unpublished original research. These should make a substantial contribution to knowledge and understanding in the subject area. If appropriate, they should be supported by relevant figures and tabulated data. Research articles should be of an appropriate length for the discipline. While we recommend max. 10,000 words, this is flexible, particularly in those cases where a research article includes a critical edition of a primary source. All word limits include referencing and citation.

Contributions to Thematic Sections should adhere to the same guidelines as research articles. Calls for thematic sections may appear on the journal website or authors may be invited to submit a contribution to a thematic section by the guest editor. Contributions to thematic sections are subjected to the same rigorous peer review procedure as regular submissions. Gues editors wishing to propose a Thematic Section are invited to reach out to the editors.

MSS welcomes short Meeting or Project Reports of relevant scientific meetings or research projects. Reports should be in the region of 2,000-5,000 words. They are not peer-reviewed by external reviewers, though their relevance and quality will be critically assessed by the editors.

Each issue of MSS includes Book Reviews. Reviewers are invited by our book review editor. If you would like to write a review about a recent publication that falls within the scope of the journal’s focus areas, please reach out to the book review editor.

Referencing Style

This journal requires the MHRA system of references. Please see the MHRA website for detailed guidelines.

Authors not submitting in the MHRA style will be responsible, upon acceptance of their contribution, for ensuring compliance with the MHRA system of references.

All sources that are cited in the main text of the article must be listed as full references at the end of the text file, in alphabetical order of the authors’ surnames.

Structure

Your article should be compiled in the following order: title; abstract (max. 250 words); keywords (max. 6); declaration of interest statement (see ‘How to Declare Competing Interests’); main text; references; appendices (if applicable); table(s) with caption(s); figures; figure captions (as a list).

Before submission, every effort must be made to ensure that author names are removed from the submitted manuscript in order to protect the integrity of the double-anonymous peer review process that MSS operates. The following link provides information on ensuring an anonymous review.

Following successful peer-review, the following information will then be inserted into the manuscript during the copyediting stage. At this point, the title page on the final manuscript should include all of the below information, in the same order. No further information should be included:

  • Title
  • Full author name(s)
  • Affiliation(s)
  • Corresponding author’s email address (other author email addresses are optional)

Translations

For titles of works, names, and other short translations from a language other than the article’s primary language, authors must either provide the untranslated title in square brackets in the first instance or vice versa.

Translations from a language other than the main language of the article that are longer than three sentences may be presented as a block quotation. The source text must first be given, followed by the translation.

Translated quotations, if translated by the author, should be credited as such in the citation for the text. If the translation is not the author’s own, the text should be cited in the usual manner from the source in which it was found.

If a longer text is edited as part of the article, a full translation is not a requirement. However, please consider the readership of the journal and provide the necessary context for any arguments you make based on untranslated text.

Critical Editions

MSS welcomes submissions which include new critical editions of sermons or other related texts. We strongly recommend a separate Word file for the main edited text and for each included apparatus. Please refrain from using footnotes unless the apparatus is very limited in size. We cannot at this time accommodate editions created using software such as Classical Text Editor or similar. Editions must include clear editorial principles and a conspectus siglorum.

Images

Please note that permission to reproduce images must be obtained from the copyright holder prior to submission, and details of the permissions obtained, including a copy of any agreed licensing terms, should be included with your submission. Image permissions should permit open access publication with no restrictions on duration of use or recurring renewal costs. See the publisher's information on image permissions and reproduction guidance for more information.

The source of the image should be included in the caption, along with any relevant copyright information and a statement of authorisation (if needed). All figures must be uploaded separately as supplementary files during the submission process, in colour (if possible) and at a resolution of at least 300dpi. Each file should not be more than 20MB in size. Standard formats accepted are: .JPG, .TIFF, .GIF, .PNG.