Information for authors

Waiting times. Intending authors should be aware that an accepted article does not immediately go to publication. Every article published undergoes a detailed editing by the Journal. This means that there is a substantial delay between acceptance and online publication. There is then a delay to hard copy publication.

Timeline for review and publication. The review and publication process takes place in stages:

• After submission, we take an initial look at the paper. If the paper seems to fit the journal, meets our submission requirements, passes a plagiarism/re-use check and is in a fit state, we advise the author that we are sending the paper to external review. That decision usually takes 4-10 days.
• External review takes as long as reviewers take. Our average time is 60-90 days. Our longest-ever review was 115 days.
• The decision on the paper then takes 7-10 days (depending on the editor’s availability). That decision is either: Accept; Reject; Major Revision (paper not accepted but is revised and goes back to readers and a second review process); Minor Revision (may be accepted after revisions and editorial board consideration, but not automatic acceptance). We also use Conditional Accept for papers that are accepted byut which do not yet meet the Journal’s style.
• If and when a paper is accepted, there is then a 4-6 month delay as the paper awaits our comprehensive editing. All papers get this treatment, although articles for special issues/feature sections and Open Access get some priority.
• Following our editing the author responds (10-14 days) and then the paper goes to production and page proofs (4-8 weeks), and then online publication (4-6 weeks). In 2021 and 2022, these delays in production have been unaccountably long, with the publisher working to get back to normal timelines.
• In-print publication is usually within 6-12 months, depending on the backlog of papers.

Basics. The Journal uses ScholarOne Manuscripts for the peer review of submitted manuscripts. Please read the guide for ScholarOne authors before making a submission.

Authors should ensure that current contact address information is included in all submissions, including email contacts and that this is kept up to date at ScholarOne.

Guidelines for preparing and submitting your manuscript to this Journal are provided below.

The Journal of Contemporary Asia welcomes the submission of articles. They must be original and written exclusively for the Journal.

Scope. Articles submitted to the Journal should deal with broad problems of the economic, political and social development of Asia. Articles on economic development issues, political economy, agriculture, planning, the working class, people’s movements, politics and power, imperialism and empire, international financial institutions, the environment, and economic history are especially welcomed.  Submissions on economic development issues, agriculture, planning, globalisation, economic history and the working class are especially welcomed. The further scientific development of theory is also encouraged.

Refereeing. All submissions received by the journal enter an anonymous two-tier blind review process. Initial reviewing is by a panel of advisers, mainly senior professors and members of the Editorial Board. If a submission is considered to match the quality requirements, scope, aims and current publishing agenda for the journal, the advice of external referees will be considered. Before being sent to referees, each manuscript is subject to plagiarism and re-use machine checking.

Authorship. All authors must ensure that they adhere to the authorship guidelines set out by the Committee on Publication Ethics. Authors must affirm that the submitted paper is original and submitted exclusively to the journal. Where a paper has multiple authors, a statement of the contributions made by each author should accompany the submitted manuscript.

According to our publisher, if you are a named co-author, this means that you:

1. Made a significant contribution to the work reported, whether that’s in the research conception or design, acquisition of data, analysis and interpretation, or in all these areas.
2. Have drafted, written, or revised the article.
3. Reviewed and agreed the final version of the article before submission.
4. Have agreed on the journal to which your article will be submitted.
5. Are aware that you are taking responsibility and accountability for the content of the article.
6. Are aware that the corresponding author will be acting on your behalf in any communication about the article, through submission, peer review, production, and after publication.
7. Share responsibility with all named co-authors if your article is found to be unsafe, in error, in some way fraudulent, or in breach of the publishing agreement.

Submission. All submissions should be made online via the Journal of Contemporary Asia site. New users should first create an account. Once a user is logged onto the site submissions should be made via the Author Centre. Authors should prepare and upload two versions of their manuscript. One should be a complete text, while in the second all document information identifying the author should be removed from files to allow them to be sent anonymously to referees. When uploading files authors will then be able to define the non-anonymous version as “File not for review”. Emailed questions to: Kevin Hewison, Editor at: jca.editorial@gmail.com.

Research articles submitted should be 8,000 to 14,000 words in length (all up: title, abstract, reference, notes, etc.) They should be double spaced, using A4 paper size, and have 3cm (or 1 inch) margins all round. The length requirement refers to the word count that is made in a submitted Word document (i.e., everything in the document).

Commentaries should be about 4,000 to 7,000 words, should limit referencing and citation and avoid notes as much as possible.

Review articles should include a title for the article and should be about 3,500 to 6,000 words in length. Longer review articles may be considered. Contact the editor-in-chief before commencing a review article.

Unsolicited book reviews are not accepted.

Proposals for special issues or feature sections should initially be emailed to the Editor. All special issue articles are subject to a  blind review process that excludes the guest editors of the special issue/feature section.

Figures. Please provide the highest quality figure format possible. Please be sure that all imported scanned material is scanned at the appropriate resolution: 1200 dpi for line art, 600 dpi for grayscale and 300 dpi for colour. Figures must be saved separate to text. Files should be saved as one of the following formats: TIFF (tagged image file format), PostScript or EPS (encapsulated PostScript), and should contain all the necessary font information and the source file of the application (e.g. CorelDraw/Mac, CorelDraw/PC). All figures must be numbered in the order in which they appear in the manuscript (e.g. Figure 1, Figure 2). In multi-part figures, each part should be labelled (e.g. Figure 1(a), Figure 1(b)). Figure captions must be saved separately, as part of the file containing the complete text of the manuscript, and numbered correspondingly.

Reproduction of copyright material. If you wish to include any material in your manuscript in which you do not hold copyright, you must obtain written permission from the copyright owner, prior to submission. Such material may be in the form of text, data, table, illustration, photograph, line drawing, audio clip, video clip, film still, and screenshot, and any supplemental material you propose to include. This applies to direct (verbatim or facsimile) reproduction as well as “derivative reproduction” (where you have created a new figure or table which derives substantially from a copyrighted source). You must ensure appropriate acknowledgement is given to the permission granted to you for reuse by the copyright holder in each figure or table caption. You are solely responsible for any fees which the copyright holder may charge for reuse. The reproduction of short extracts of text, excluding poetry and song lyrics, for the purposes of criticism may be possible without formal permission on the basis that the quotation is reproduced accurately and full attribution is given. For further information and FAQs on the reproduction of copyright material, please consult this Guide.

Style. It is the authors’ responsibility to carefully check and keep to the style used by JCA.  Failure to do so can result in rejection. A description of the journal’s article style can be found here and a description of the publisher’s reference style can be found here. However, we urge that authors  look at recent issues of the journal and emulate the style there.

A complete reference list of all cited works is required at the end of each submission.

Endnotes should be kept within reasonable bounds.

Proofs. These will be sent to the main author as e-proofs. Corrections should be clearly identified and returned to your Taylor & Francis contact within three days. Major alterations to the text cannot be accepted.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a means of making your article more visible to anyone who might be looking for it. Please consult guidance here.

Free article access. As an author, you will receive free access to your article on Taylor & Francis Online. You will be given access to the My authored works section of Taylor & Francis Online, which shows you all your published articles. You can easily view, read, and download your published articles from there. In addition, if someone has cited your article, you will be able to see this information. Taylor & Francis are committed to promoting and increasing the visibility of your article and have provided guidance on how you can help. Also within My authored works, author eprints allow you as an author to quickly and easily give anyone free access to the electronic version of your article so that your friends and contacts can read and download your published article for free. This applies to all authors (not just the corresponding author).

Open access. Taylor & Francis Open Select provides authors or their research sponsors and funders with the option of paying a publishing fee and thereby making an article permanently available for free online access – open access – immediately on publication to anyone, anywhere, at any time. This option is made available once an article has been accepted in peer review. Full details of our Open Access programme.

Reprints and journal copies

Authors receive 50 e-copies of their article when it is published online and a further 50 e-copies when it goes to print. Authors can distribute these copies and are encouraged to do so. Many authors do this via social media.

Article reprints can be ordered through Rightslink® when authors receive their proofs. Any queries about reprints should be directed to Taylor & Francis Author Services team at reprints@tandf.co.uk. To order extra copies of the issue containing a particular article, contact our Customer Services team at adhoc@tandf.co.uk.

Copyright. To assure the integrity, dissemination, and protection against copyright infringement of published articles, you will be asked to assign to the Journal of Contemporary Asia, via a Publishing Agreement, the copyright in your article. Your Article is defined as the final, definitive, and citable Version of Record, and includes: (a) the accepted manuscript in its final form, including the abstract, text, bibliography, and all accompanying tables, illustrations, data; and (b) any supplemental material hosted by Taylor & Francis. Our Publishing Agreement with you will constitute the entire agreement and the sole understanding between the Journal of Contemporary Asia and you; no amendment, addendum, or other communication will be taken into account when interpreting your and the Journal of Contemporary Asia’s rights and obligations under this Agreement. Copyright policy is explained in detail here.

Plagiarism. Taylor & Francis provide useful advice. All papers are machine checked before being sent to external review.

Additional tips for authors considering JCA

Some attention to publishing in JCA is available as a podcast featuring Editor-in-chief Kevin Hewison.

• Double check that your article fits the journal’s word limits.
• Look carefully at the scope of the journal and also look at recent issues to determine if your article fits the journal.
• The journal prefers articles that are not written in the first person.
• If English is not the author’s first language, we recommend using a good social science editor. Poorly written papers are rejected.
• Ensure that the submitted paper conforms with JCA style. If the paper goes to review, external readers appreciate a paper that is written for the Journal and shows this by conforming to style.
• Authors should set their word processor for UK English.
• Get the reference list to look like those in articles that have been recently published.
• Where possible and appropriate, page numbers should be included with citations. Avoid gratuitous citation – put in page numbers everywhere except where every page of the reference is considered relevant.
• Don’t scatter citations throughout sentences. Where possible and appropriate, locate citations and notes at the end of sentences.
• Don’t have long lists of citations where you are able to use this kind of citation: (see, for example, Marx 1891, 5-55; Engels 1888, 12-19; Gramsci 1978, 69-89).
• Keep endnotes to a reasonable minimum.