Labour History, journal of the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, is published in May and November each year. Some articles are available online prior to their appearance in print. As these are fully refereed, edited, and published, they should not be regarded as “preprints.” The opinions of the contributors are their own and not necessarily those of the Editor, Editorial Board or Review Editors.
Intending contributors should read the Editorial Policy, the Notes for Contributors (below), and the Style Guide.
All submissions should be emailed to admin@labourhistory.org.au.
Notes for Contributors
Labour History publishes scholarly articles between 6,000 and 8,000 words, shorter documents, reports, essays and research notes. All scholarly articles are sent, without identifying the author, to at least two external referees.
Once submitted to Labour History, a paper remains under consideration until it is published; it is therefore not eligible for submission elsewhere until it is withdrawn or rejected. Labour History reserves the right to withdraw any intention to publish an accepted paper if it finds that an article has been submitted for consideration elsewhere. Conference papers that have been presented and published as part of a refereed stream are not eligible for consideration. If you are not sure if your paper is eligible, please contact the Editor.
An invitation to submit an article is NOT a guarantee of publication. This applies to papers submitted to the journal and/or one of the society’s seminars or conferences. In all cases, the manuscripts are subjected to the same procedures as unsolicited manuscripts, and are sent to two or more referees for blind refereeing. (For further information, see below in “Once you have sent in your manuscript”.)
It is Labour History policy to consider one paper at a time from an individual author. There would only be rare circumstances when there might be articles appearing from the same author in consecutive issues.
Guidelines for Initial Submission
- Initial contributions should include an abstract (up to 150 words long) and be emailed to the Labour History office along with a cover letter. Please indicate the number of words in the manuscript with and without footnotes.
- Your manuscript should be a Word file, double-spaced on A4 pages with a margin of at least 3 cm. Please number the pages (central bottom of page).
- Please say if you have ideas for graphics (photographs, maps, drawings, cartoons, etc) that might accompany your article if accepted for publication.
- The manuscript should not contain your name or any other information that might identify you to referees. Your name should only appear in the email, covering letter and/or on a separate cover page. Ensure that you provide all contact details, including phone numbers and an email address.
- Abstracts of published articles appear consecutively on the ASSLH web page, so avoid the words “This article” in the opening sentence.
Once You Have Sent In Your Manuscript
All contributions are acknowledged on receipt. Selection of referees is made at monthly meetings of the Editorial Working Group.
Decisions about publication are taken by the Editor in the light of referees’ reports and advice from the Associate Editors and members of the Editorial Board. Authors are then advised of the decision and are usually sent copies of all reports along with any annotations made on copies of their article.
It is usual that an article will require some revision before being accepted. Sometimes, the required revisions are such that we ask that the article be resubmitted and put through the refereeing process again.
When an article is accepted, the author will be given an indication of the issue in which it is likely to be published. The process from submission to notification takes approximately five months.
Submitting the REVISED Version of Your Article
If you have major revisions to make, or if you do not complete minor revisions within 12 months, your article will need to be resubmitted to referees. In this case, please follow the procedures for initial submission above. However, we appreciate you following item 1 below:
- When making your revisions, could you please indicate how you have addressed the points raised by the referees (eg where a referee has suggested a source, you could indicate which footnote number now refers to that source). If you disagree with the referee(s) on some point(s), please give your reasons.
- Once revisions are completed, please email your manuscript (as a Word file) to the Labour History office.
- Formatting should follow the guidelines below and otherwise be kept to a minimum. Use page numbers, and left align your document. Use Times New Roman 12 point font, and single spacing and normal style.
- Please ensure that you have checked copyright and obtained approval where applicable, as Labour History cannot take responsibility for this.
- Please consider sending relevant graphics that might accompany your article. Check with the Labour History office regarding electronic format. Please ensure that any illustration or graphic complies with point 4.
- Authors are asked to provide four or five lines about themselves and their research interests etc, for ‘Notes on Contributors’ which appears under the article in the published journal. Please include your e-mail address if you are willing to have this printed alongside the biographical note.
Further Procedures
Your revisions are assessed, taking into consideration your original article, the revised version, the referees’ reports and any comments from the Editorial Working Group. If the revised version of the article still contains major formatting errors, the article will be returned to the author for further amendments.
Authors are advised (within 2 months) if their revised article has met the requirements of the anonymous referees and of the Editorial Working Group. Authors are advised of the likely publication date, and are sent a Copyright Assignment Form which must be signed and returned by authors before we can confirm that their article will be published in Labour History. This form assigns all royalties received from the copying of any article published in Labour History to the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History as the publisher of the journal.
It is at this stage that the article is sub-edited by a member of the Editorial Working Group, corrections implemented online in the Labour History office and thence prepared in a desk-top publishing program by an external agency. A pdf file replicating the final appearance of the article is checked and sent to authors for proof-reading. Any corrections made by authors at this stage should be cosmetic only.
Authors are sent a copy of the issue in which their article is published. Producing Labour History is a significant financial cost and administrative task. Contributors can show their support by becoming subscribers, enabling the ASSLH and Labour History to continue to promote and publish labour history research in Australia.