Labor Studies Journal invites the submission of articles and other editorial matters.
Manuscripts:should be submitted electronically at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/lsj, where authors will be required to set up an online account in the SAGETRACK system powered by ScholarOne.
See the website of the publisher, Sage Publications, for detailed instructions.
Submission of a manuscript is a representation that the work is solely that of the author(s), has not been previously published, and is not currently under consideration for publication elsewhere nor will it be unless rejected for publication by LSJ or withdrawn from consideration. Authors will be required to submit a statement transferring copyright from the present holders, typically the authors, to LSJ.
Publication decisions are the prerogative of the coeditors and are made with the advice of a panel of qualified reviewers. All papers are assigned to one of LSJ 's two coeditors who selects three reviewers. One reviewer is typically a member of the LSJ Editorial Board.
All submissions are subject to blind review. Reviewers are asked to provide detailed and constructive comments that evaluate the manuscript along five dimensions:
Theoretical rationale: the degree to which the manuscript makes adequate use of the extant literature to frame the issue under study and develop hypotheses.
Adequacy of methods: the degree to which the manuscript details data collection procedures and the nature of the information collected as well as any qualitative or quantitative methods used to test hypotheses.
Orderly presentation: the degree to which the manuscript is governed by a coherent format and exposition that helps the reader understand the logic that governed development of the research and informs its conclusions.
Accessibility to practitioners: the degree to which the manuscript is free from disciplinary jargon and methodological detail only of interest to people with advanced specialized training.
Contribution to the literature: the degree to which the manuscript addresses an important topic of interest to LSJ's readers and brings new data, methods, or perspective to the issue under study.
Novelty of topic, clarity of presentation, and accessibility to a general audience tend to take priority over strong theoretical rationale and methodological sophistication in reaching summary recommendations about manuscripts. Reviewers may recommend that a paper be accepted, rejected, or revised and resubmitted for further review. We ask that reviewers complete their evaluation of a manuscript within six to eight weeks. All reviewer comments are forwarded to the authors (without revealing the reviewer's identity) along with a cover letter from the coeditor explaining their decision.
Authors who are advised that their manuscript must be revised and reevaluated are required to provide a document detailing their response to each reviewer's comment upon resubmission. Revised manuscripts are returned to the original reviewers for additional comment with the expectation that a final decision about publication will be made during this second review. On rare occasion a third review may be required.
Proposals for Special Issues
Anyone interested in editing a special issue on a topic of exceptional importance to LSJ readers should submit a proposal of three pages or less to the editors at the address detailed in the section on Submission Requirements. This proposal should detail the issue to be addressed and its significance to LSJ readers, provide guidance to potential submitters on the types of papers that would fit the theme, and a preliminary list of reviewers who could be called upon to review manuscripts.
Special issue proposals require majority support among the members of the Editorial Board to merit publication of "A Call for Papers". Any such call will include a description of the special issue's focus, contact information for the guest editor(s), and a deadline for initial submissions.
The guest editor(s) is encouraged to actively solicit manuscripts for the special issue. Should the guest editor(s) also wish to submit a paper for consideration, the review process for this paper will be handled by one of LSJ's Editors. To establish sufficient interest in the special issue, any call for papers must generate a minimum of six manuscripts. Should less than six manuscripts be received, the authors will be notified and given the option to have their papers go through the regular LSJ manuscript review process.
Should the call generate the minimum number of manuscripts, the guest editor(s) would assign three reviewers for each paper. Within two weeks after the deadline for initial reviews, the guest editor will make a status report to the coeditors of LSJ detailing the number of reviews received on each paper, the general substance of these reviews, and their summary recommendations concerning the manuscript's suitability for publication. Authors of papers deemed worthy of further consideration will be given the opportunity for timely revision and further evaluation by the initial set of reviewers. By the end of this second round of reviews, a minimum of four papers must receive and an "accept" recommendation by at least two of three reviewers to warrant publication of the special issue. Should less than four papers be accepted for publication, the authors will be notified and given the opportunity to withdraw their papers or have them published in regular issues of LSJ. In instances where a minimum of four papers have been accepted for publication, the guest editor will be asked to write a short introduction that describes the rationale behind the special issue and ties the contributed papers together.