Full articles should aim to be a maximum of 5,000 words, including all elements (abstract, references). This is not an uncompromising rule, and manuscripts will not be rejected based on length alone. We expect and understand that the review process may change the word count number in either direction.
We also welcome book reviews of recently published titles (not earlier than three years before the issue hosting the review). Contributions will feature in a designated section of our journal.
Peer review process
Two members of the Editorial Board will read the submitted manuscripts. Make sure your article properly emphasizes the proposed thematic cluster of the UBR issues you are submitting it for. Only submissions that seem most likely to meet our thematic and editorial criteria are sent for formal review. Those manuscripts judged by the editors to not comply with the given year’s thematic cluster, to be of insufficient general interest or otherwise inappropriate are rejected promptly without external review, although these decisions may be based on informal advice from specialists in the field.
Manuscripts judged to be of potential interest to our readership are sent for formal review, typically to two reviewers. The editors then make a decision based on the reviewers’ advice, from among several possibilities:
- Accept, with or without editorial revisions
- Invite the authors to revise their manuscript to address specific concerns before a final decision is reached
- Reject, typically on grounds of specialist interest, lack of novelty, insufficient conceptual advance or major technical and/or interpretational problems
Author contributions
All parties who have made a substantive contribution to the article should be listed as authors. Principal authorship, authorship order, and other publication credits should be based on the scientific or professional contributions of the individuals involved, regardless of their status.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) usage
Large Language Models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, do not currently satisfy our authorship criteria. Notably an attribution of authorship carries with it accountability for the work, which cannot be effectively applied to LLMs. If Generative AI tools (e.g. Chat GPT, Quillbot, Grammarly etc.) have at any point been used in the preparation of the manuscript, the authors have to clearly disclose the use in the manuscript, including the full name of the tool used (with version number), how it was used, and the reason for use. For more information see the COPE Guidelines on Authorship and AI Tools.
Preparing your manuscript
First submission
This journal uses double-anonymised peer review in order to ensure the quality of our published material. Therefore, all submitted articles (and revised submissions) must be kept anonymous at all times during the reviewing process. Articles should be sent at the email address UBRpublication@gmail.com
Structure. Your manuscript should be compiled in the following order: author information; article title; abstract; keywords; main text introduction, discussion (with subdivisions); conclusion; acknowledgments (if any); declaration of interest statement; funding (if any); works cited.
1. Author information. Your name and a biographical statement of 75-100 words should be attached as a separate electronic document to your email, in order to preserve the anonymity of the author. All authors of a manuscript should include their full name and affiliation on the title page of the manuscript. Where available, please also include ORCiDs. One author will need to be identified as the corresponding author, with their email address normally displayed in the article PDF and the online article. Authors’ affiliations are the affiliations where the research was conducted. If any of the named co-authors moves affiliation during the peer-review process, the new affiliation can be given as a footnote. Please note that no changes to affiliation can be made after your manuscript is accepted.
2. Article title. Titles should be written in sentence case without unnecessary capitalisation — e.g., Cosmopolitanism and planetary studies: paradigms for rewriting the past; NOT: Cosmopolitanism and Planetary Studies: Paradigms for Rewriting the Past. Book titles should be marked in italics, while titles of poems, plays, short stories and essays published in anthologies should be enclosed within double quotation marks.
3. Please also include at the beginning of the article an abstract of 250-300 words (with no subheadings or references) and a list of carefully chosen 5-7 keywords (separated by semicolon), so as to make the article more discoverable.
4. Main text introduction (including a critical evaluation of the material, demonstrating knowledge and understanding of the surrounding literature for the topic).
5. Discussion proper (using subdivisions rather than running text), followed by a conclusion. Use Times New Roman 11, single spacing, justified alignment.
6. Acknowledgements (optional). All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or a department chair who provided only general support.
7. Declaration of conflicting interests (all articles). UBR encourages authors to include a declaration of any conflicting interests and recommends a review of the good practice guidelines on the Ethics and Malpractice Statement. This should be added in a separate section before the reference list. If no conflict of interest exists for all participating authors, the corresponding author should use the following wording: No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
8. Funding details (optional). Please supply all details required by your funding and grant-awarding bodies as follows: This work was supported by the [Funding Agency 1]; under Grant [number xxxx]; [Funding Agency 2] under Grant [number xxxx]; and [Funding Agency 3] under Grant [number xxxx].
9. Works cited:
1. Primary and secondary works should not be distinguished in the Works Cited section.
2. If two or more consecutive entries in the Works Cited section have the same author, replace the name of the author with five continuous hyphens “—–.” in all but the first entry.
3. The addition of DOI (Digital Object Identifier) numbers is recommended.
Formatting. The preferred format for manuscripts is Word, but .rtf files are also accepted.
Reference style. UBR adheres to the MLA reference style. View the MLA guidelines to ensure your manuscript conforms to this reference style for editing and citing.
Quotations:
1. Indent block quotations and use single spacing, justified alignment.
2. Use double quotation marks for quotations in running text (single quotation marks for a quotation within your in-text quotation) and no marks for block quotations.
3. Differentiate between double quotation marks and single quotation marks ‘…’ for special use of words. E.g. In this article, I am using the term ‘presence’ to ….
Footnotes:
Footnotes should be used instead of endnotes. They are not mandatory and contain only marginal explanations and supplementary information. Please do not include editorial data in the footnotes; use the MLA in-text citation system only. Use Times New Roman 10, single spacing, justified for footnotes.
In-text citations:
1. In-text or parenthetical citations are placed after the quoted material and usually contain the last name of the author and the cited page: (Blake 5).
2. In case of in-text citations that refer to websites, the last name of the author should be followed by a comma and a shortened version of the title of the section (not the website) from which the material is borrowed: (Kellner, “Critical Reflections” n. pg.). If the author is unknown, use only the shortened version of the title (“Critical Reflections” n. pg.).
3. When citing multiple works by the same author, the in-text citation should include the author’s last name followed by a comma, a shortened version of the work’s title (not the year of publication) and the page number: (Blake, All Religions 5), (Blake, There is No 16), (Stoppard, “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern” 15), (Stoppard, “The Real Inspector” 10).
4. When citing woks by different authors with the same last name, please include the first letter of the first name as well: (A. Assmann 250), (J. Assmann 119).
Photos: We are sorry we can accept no more than 3 photos per article. They should be saved in the .jpg format. Authors are responsible for obtaining permission to reproduce any illustrated material for which they do not hold the copyright.
ORCID
ORCID provides a unique and persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from one another, even those sharing the same name, and supports automated linkages between researchers and their professional activities, ensuring that their work is recognized. If you already have an ORCID, please associate it to your submission. ORCID iDs are published alongside articles so that fellow researchers reading them can link to the authors’ ORCID profile and their other publications. If you do not already have an ORCID iD please follow this link to create one.
Permissions for third-party material
You must obtain the necessary permission to reuse third-party material in your article. The use of short extracts of text and some other types of material is usually permitted, on a limited basis, for the purposes of criticism and review without securing formal permission. If you wish to include any material in your article for which you do not hold copyright, and which is not covered by informal agreement, you will need to obtain written permission from the copyright owner prior to submission.
Revised submission
Rebuttal letter: must contain point-by-point responses to all previous editor and reviewers’ comments; must be anonymised and not addressed to a named person.
Revised article file: must be anonymised with all information identifying the authors (names, affiliations, etc) removed; must be submitted in two forms: clean (no revisions indicated) and marked up (with all substantive revisions highlighted in colour or bold text; please do not submit documents with ‘tracked changes’).
Guidelines for Book Reviews
University of Bucharest Review publishes reviews of current books that showcase a potential appeal to the journal’s main audience: an international readership of scholars and students interested in literary and cultural studies (broadly defined). Given the cross/multi-disciplinary nature of the journal’s scope, reviews should focus specifically on the relevance of the book(s) in question to the journal’s scope (rather than to the author’s “home” discipline(s)).