Requests for expedited reviews are only appropriate when you have received an offer of publication on your submission from another journal. In these circumstances, please contact us by email at submit@sjil.org and provide the following information:

1. Your name and the title of your article
2. The name of the journal that has made you an offer of publication
3. The date by which you need to hear from us regarding our decision
4. Your phone number

You may withdraw your submission from consideration at any time and for any reason by simply contacting us by email at submit@sjil.org. We greatly appreciate being kept updated on the status of your article. Upon withdrawing an article, please provide the following information:

1. Your name
2. The title of your article

As a general rule of thumb, we do not consider submissions that we regard to be exceptionally short or exceptionally long. Whether a submission is "exceptionally short" is typically determined by the subject matter it attempts to treat. If the subject that the article portends to examine is vast but the article’s length is quite short, that article is less likely to be accepted. Whether a submission is "exceptionally long" is typically determined simply by its page numbers. Due to space constraints, we are unable to publish long manuscripts. Generally, we consider any submission that is in the neighborhood of 200 pages, double-spaced, to be potentially too long. We wish to emphasize that exceptions are occasionally made to these general rules of thumb, however.

Typically our review process takes anywhere from 4-6 weeks. During the winter holidays and summer months, however, our review process may take a bit longer.

No. As a matter of policy, SJIL does not restrict the topics it is willing to publish. We often get calls and emails from authors who wonder if their particular topic or line of argument might be of interest to us, or whether we publish "that type of article". Having not read the particular submission to which the author is referring, it is very difficult for us (and we hesitate to) conclude whether SJIL might take a serious interest in the piece. It is our policy to encourage all authors to submit their manuscripts whenever they feel that their article would be a valuable contribution to a future issue of SJIL. You may review the breadth of topics that SJIL has published in past years by visiting our "past issues" links.

Yes. We strongly encourage foreign contributors to submit to SJIL.

Articles pass through as many as three stages during the SJIL submissions process: reception, editor review, and full committee review. During stage one, reception, a submission is logged into our submissions database, and the author is sent a postcard verifying that we have received his or her submission. A tracking number is assigned to the submission at that time. During stage two, editor review, a member of the SJIL Submissions Committee is given the submission for analysis. That editor determines whether the submission is conceivably publishable in SJIL. If so, the editor moves the submission to the third stage of possible review, full committee review. A submission that has reached full committee review is read by the entire Submissions Committee, which thereafter discusses the article and decides whether or not to extend an offer of publication.

We do not typically consider works in progress, and appreciate fully completed manuscripts.

As a general matter, no, particularly where an entire article in identical form has been published elsewhere. Some exceptions are made to this rule, however, and authors with this conflict should contact us with their particular circumstances.

Please direct your questions to submit@sjil.org.