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    Author Guidelines

    General instructions | Language & text | Figures & Tables | References

    1) General Instructions

    NB: We are aware that no set of guidelines can cover all possibilities, so please use these as a general guide only. The journal uses MHRA referencing style.

    Template

    Authors should submit all articles in the WCJ article template. 

    Article types

    • Research articles must describe previously unpublished original research. These should make a substantial contribution to knowledge and understanding in the subject matter and should be supported by relevant evidence. Research articles should be no more than 8,000 words in length. Research articles will be double-blind peer reviewed.
    • Translated research articles must be translations of original and rigorous contemporary research in a Chinese language, which is clearly innovative and/or has had demonstrably significant impact in the field, and which has previously been unpublished in English. Full permissions from the author must be obtained before submission, and full citation of the original work, and a short biographical note of the original author must be included.
    • Keynote articles will be solicited directly by the journal editors, and may be versions of relevant keynote speeches or conference presentations.
    • Feature articles may reflect upon or critique a specific event or occurrence related to the journal focus, or they may be an interview with or feature on an author, translator, publisher, or other figures within the field. Authors interested in submitting a feature piece should discuss the content with the editor before submitting a manuscript.
    • Reviews of Chinese (or occasionally of other non-English) language academic monographs related to the journal’s focus. Papers should critically engage with the relevant body of extant literature. Review articles should be no longer than 2,000 words in length.

    All word limits include referencing and citation.

    Title page
    To ensure blind peer review, please only list the title and abstract on the submitted manuscript title page.

    Abstract
    Research articles must have the main text prefaced by an abstract of no more than 250 words summarising the main arguments and conclusions of the article. This must have the heading ‘Abstract’ and be easily identified from the start of the main text.

    A list of up to six key words may be placed below the abstract (optional). The Abstract and Keywords should also be added to the metadata when making the initial online submission.

    Permissions and ethical approval
    The author is responsible for obtaining all copyright permissions required prior to submission of the manuscript, and any ethical approval required (if the research involves working with human subjects). Statements confirming thos should be included in the Materials and Methods section.

    2. Language & Text

    Manuscripts should be double-spaced throughout (including block quotations, notes, reference list, and poetry excerpts), in a commonly used standard font, with standard margins. This may be changed during the typesetting process. Use the font SimSun for Chinese characters if possible.

    Provide characters for all Chinese terms at first occurrence, whether in the text or the notes. Provide Chinese characters and dates for all historical persons at first occurrence. Provide Chinese characters for all authors’ names listed in the reference list.

    Provide romanizations, Chinese characters and English translations for all titles at first occurrence in the text, and for every entry in the reference list. It is not necessary to provide Chinese characters and translation for texts cited in the notes, if these are provided in the reference list.

    Romanization
    Use the pinyin system, and italicise pinyin terms. If Wade-Giles romanizations appear in a quotation, please change them to pinyin and place in square brackets.

    Incorporate word boundaries when transliterating; i.e., yanjiu ziliao, not yan jiu zi liao.

    Lists
    Use bullet points to denote a list without hierarchy or order of value. If the list indicates a specific sequence then a numbered list must be used.
    Lists should be used sparingly to maximise their impact.

    Quotation marks
    Use single quotation marks except for quotes within another speech, in which case double quotation marks are used.

    Quotations that are longer than three lines in length must be in an indented paragraph separate from the main text.

    The standard, non-italicised font must be used for all quotes.

    It must be clear from the text and/or citation where the quote is sourced. If quoting from material that is under copyright then permission will need to be obtained from the copyright holder.

    Use of footnotes/endnotes
    Use footnotes rather than endnotes. Please insert the footnote marker after the end punctuation (except for a dash, when it should precede the dash).

    3. Figures & Tables

    Always provide images or figures as separate files in a graphics file format. DO NOT submit them pasted into the essay's Word document or as separate Word documents.

    GRAYSCALE IMAGES
    TIFF or EPS format. Minimum resolution of 300 dpi at desired final print size.

    COLOR IMAGES
    TIFF or EPS format. Minimum resolution of 300 dpi at desired final print size.

    LINE ART
    TIFF or EPS format. Minimum resolution of 600 dpi.

    4. References

    The reference list at the end of the article provides full bibliographic information for all works cited in the text. Works that are not cited should not be included in this list.

    The reference list is arranged alphabetically by author. Two works by the same author are listed alphabetically by title. Works of four or more authors are listed by the first author, followed by “et al.”

    Article titles are not italicized, but placed within quotation marks, i.e., do not italicize a romanized article title. Book titles within an article title should be italicized (e.g., “Maqiao cidian de yingyi yu jieshou”).

    A romanized book title should be italicized in its entirety, even if it contains embedded book titles or terms (e.g., Liaozhai zhiyi chuangzuo lun).

    Capitalize only the first letter of the transliterated name of a Chinese publishing house.
    Provide translations of Chinese titles in square brackets. These translations do not need to be italicized or in quotation marks, but they should be capitalized title-style and should appear neither in italics nor within quotation marks.

    Use MHRA referencing style. For more details consult: http://www.mhra.org.uk/news/mhra-style-guide-online. 

    Reference list – Examples

    A) English Titles

    Monograph

    • Isaacson, Nathaniel, Celestial Empire (Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 2017)
    • Hockx, Michel, Internet Literature In China (New York: Columbia University Press, 2015)
    • Bender, Mark, The Borderlands of Asia: Culture, Place, Poetry (New York: Cambria Press, 2017)
    • Lee, Gregory B., China Imagined: From European Fantasy to Spectacular Power (London: Hurst & Company, 2018)

    Edited Volume

    • Larson, Wendy, Anne Wedell-Wedellsborg, eds, Inside Out: Modernism and Postmodernism in Chinese Literary Culture (Aarhus: Aarhus Univ. Press, 1993)

    Translation

    • Yan Ge, The Chilli Bean Paste Clan, trans. by Nicky Harman ([n.p.]: BalestierPress, 2018)
    • Fong, Ho Sok, Lake Like a Mirror, trans. by Natascha Bruce (San Francisco: Two Lines Press, 2020)
    • Wang, Xiaoni, Something Crosses my Mind, trans. by Eleanor Goodman (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press of Hong Kong, 2014)

    Anthology

    • Tse, Dorothy and others, That We May Live: Speculative Fiction from China, trans. by Natascha Bruce and others (San Francisco, CA: Two Lines Press, 2020)

    Journal Article

    • Hu, Ying, “Haunting, (In)Visibility, Filiality: Qiu Canzhi (1901–67) and Her Works of Mourning”, Journal of Chinese Literature and Culture, 6.1. (2019), 205-238.

    Article in Online Journal

    • Ng, Brian, “Hong Kong Has A Poetic Future”, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, 38 (2017) < https://www.asiancha.com/content/view/2901/646/ > [accessed 17 March 2020]

    B) Chinese Titles

    Creative Work

    • Tse, Dorothy 謝曉虹, Xue yu ying 雪与影 [Snow and Shadow] (Guangzhou: Huacheng chubanshe, 2017)
    • Chan, Ho-Kei 陳浩基, Wang neiren 網內人 [Second Sister] (Hong Kong: Huangguan, 2017)

    Monograph

    • Bao Xiaoying 鲍晓英， Mo Yan xiaoshuo yijie yanjiu 莫言小说译介研究 [The Translation and Communication of Mo Yan´s Novels] (Shanghai: Shanghai Jiaotong Daxue chubanshe, 2016)

    Edited Volume

    • Ouyang Youquan 欧阳友权, Yuan Xinghao 袁星浩, eds., Zhongguo wangluo wenxue biannianshi 中国网络文学编年史 [Annals of Network Literature in China] (Beijing: Zhongguowenlian chubanshi, 2015)

    Journal Article

    • Wang Zaixing 王再兴, “1940 zhi 50 niandai wenxue xiangtu de liang ge chanshi nanti” 1940至50年代文学“乡土”的两个阐释难题 [Explaining Two Problems Concerning the “Nativist Literature” between 1940 and 1950], Zhongguo wenxue yanjiui 中国文学研究 [Research Magazine on Chinese Literature], 2019/2.

    Submission Preparation Checklist

    As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.

    1. The submission has not been previously published, in part or in whole, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
    2. All third-party-owned materials used have been identified with appropriate credit lines, and permission has been obtained from the copyright holder for all formats of the journal. Authors acknowledge their responsibility to gain all permissions prior to submission.
    3. All authors qualify as authors, as defined in the authorship guidelines, and have given permission to be listed on the submitted paper.
    4. The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines. Every effort has been made to ensure that the submission is ready for peer review according to the journal's review policy (following the instructions to ensure blind peer review).
    5. Tables are all cited in the main text and are included within the text document.
    6. Figures are all cited in the main text and are uploaded as supplementary files. Figures/images have a resolution of at least 150dpi (300dpi or above preferred). The files are in one of the following formats: JPG, TIFF, GIF, PNG, EPS (to maximise quality, the original source file is preferred).
    7. If necessary, research has been approved by an appropriate ethics committee, with the name of the committee and reference number of approval included within the submitted file.
    8. The corresponding author is submitting an ORCID identifier in their author data and co-authors have been recommended to also provide an ORCID, as per the journal policy.

    Copyright Notice

    Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms. If a submission is rejected or withdrawn prior to publication, all rights return to the author(s):

    1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
    2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
    3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).

    Submitting to the journal implicitly confirms that all named authors and rights holders have agreed to the above terms of publication. It is the submitting author's responsibility to ensure all authors and relevant institutional bodies have given their agreement at the point of submission.

    Note: some institutions require authors to seek written approval in relation to the terms of publication. Should this be required, authors can request a separate licence agreement document from the editorial team (e.g. authors who are Crown employees).

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    Publication Fees

    Authors publishing in Writing Chinese: A Journal of Contemporary Sinophone Literature face no financial charges for the publication of their article.