Feminist Theology

Manuscript Submission Guidelines: Feminist Theology

Please read the guidelines below prior to submitting your manuscript. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned.

Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of Feminist Theology will be reviewed.

There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this Journal. Open Access options are available - see section 3.3 below.

As part of the submission process you will be required to warrant that you are submitting your original work, that you have the rights in the work, that you are submitting the work for first publication in the Journal and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you. 

Please see our guidelines on prior publication and note that Feminist Theology may accept submissions of papers that have been posted on pre-print servers; please alert the Editorial Office when submitting (contact details are at the end of these guidelines). Authors should not post an updated version of their paper on the preprint server while it is being peer reviewed for possible publication in the journal. If the article is accepted for publication, the author may re-use their work according to the journal's author archiving policy.

If your paper is accepted, you must include a link on your preprint to the final version of your paper.

If you have any questions about publishing with Sage, please visit the Sage Journal Solutions Portal

1. What do we publish?
   1.1 Aims & Scope
   1.2 Article types
   1.3 Writing your paper
2. Editorial policies
   2.1 Peer review policy
   2.2 Authorship
   2.3 Acknowledgements
   2.4 Declaration of conflicting interests
3. Publishing policies
   3.1 Publication ethics
   3.2 Contributor's publishing agreement
   3.3 Open access and author archiving
4. Preparing your manuscript
   4.1 Formatting
   4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
   4.3 Supplementary material
   4.4 Journal Style
   4.5 Reference style
   4.6 English language editing services
5. Submitting your manuscript
   5.1 Permissions
6. On acceptance and publication
   6.1 Sage Production
   6.2 Online First publication
   6.3 Access to your published article
   6.4 Promoting your article
7. Further information

 

1. What do we publish?

1.1 Aims & Scope

Before submitting your manuscript to Feminist Theology, please ensure you have read the Aims & Scope.

1.2 Article Types

Feminist Theology publishes original research and book reviews on all aspects of women’s activity and experience of theology and the plethora of feminist voices from all over the world.

1.3 Writing your paper

The Sage Author Gateway has some general advice and on how to get published, plus links to further resources. Sage Author Services also offers authors a variety of ways to improve and enhance their article including English language editing, plagiarism detection, and video abstract and infographic preparation.

1.3.1 Make your article discoverable

When writing up your paper, think about how you can make it discoverable. The title, keywords and abstract are key to ensuring readers find your article through search engines such as Google. For information and guidance on how best to title your article, write your abstract and select your keywords, have a look at this page on the Gateway: How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online.

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2. Editorial policies

2.1 Peer review policy

Feminist Theology  adheres to a anonymized peer review process in which the reviewers name is routinely withheld from the author unless the reviewer requests a preference for their identity to be revealed. This may occur if the reviewer would like to enter into a dialogue with the author about the development of their article. The identity of the author is important to the review process to ensure that otherwise unheard voices can be given an outlet within the Journal.

2.2 Authorship

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 relative scientific or professional contributions of the individuals involved, regardless of their status. A student is usually listed as principal author on any multiple-authored publication that substantially derives from the student’s dissertation or thesis.

Please note that AI chatbots, for example ChatGPT, should not be listed as authors. For more information see the policy on Use of ChatGPT and generative AI tools.

2.3 Acknowledgements

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.

2.3.1 Third party submissions
Where an individual who is not listed as an author submits a manuscript on behalf of the author(s), a statement must be included in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript and in the accompanying cover letter. The statements must:

• Disclose this type of editorial assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input
• Identify any entities that paid for this assistance
• Confirm that the listed authors have authorized the submission of their manuscript via third party and approved any statements or declarations, e.g. conflicting interests, funding, etc.

Where appropriate, Sage reserves the right to deny consideration to manuscripts submitted by a third party rather than by the authors themselves.

2.4 Declaration of conflicting interests

Feminist Theology encourages authors to include a declaration of any conflicting interests and recommends you review the good practice guidelines on the Sage Journal Author Gateway.

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3. Publishing Policies

3.1 Publication ethics

Sage is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors and view the Publication Ethics page on the Sage Author Gateway.

3.1.1 Plagiarism

Feminist Theology and Sage take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software. Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarised other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article; taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author's institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action.

3.1.2 Prior publication

If material has been previously published it is not generally acceptable for publication in a Sage journal. However, there are certain circumstances where previously published material can be considered for publication. Please refer to the guidance on the Sage Author Gateway or if in doubt, contact the Editor at the address given below.

3.2 Contributor's publishing agreement

Before publication, Sage requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. Sage’s Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement is an exclusive licence agreement which means that the author retains copyright in the work but grants Sage the sole and exclusive right and licence to publish for the full legal term of copyright. Exceptions may exist where an assignment of copyright is required or preferred by a proprietor other than Sage. In this case copyright in the work will be assigned from the author to the society. For more information please visit the Sage Author Gateway.

3.3 Open access and author archiving

Feminist Theology offers optional open access publishing via the Sage Choice programme and Open Access agreements, where authors can publish open access either discounted or free of charge depending on the agreement with Sage. Find out if your institution is participating by visiting Open Access Agreements at Sage. For more information on Open Access publishing options at Sage please visit Sage Open Access. For information on funding body compliance, and depositing your article in repositories, please visit Sage’s Author Archiving and Re-Use Guidelines and Publishing Policies.

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4. Preparing your manuscript for submission

4.1 Formatting

The preferred format for your manuscript is Word. LaTeX files are also accepted. Word and (La)Tex templates are available on the Manuscript Submission Guidelines page of our Author Gateway.

4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics

For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures and graphs in electronic format, please visit Sage’s Manuscript Submission Guidelines.

Figures supplied in colour will appear in colour online regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in colour in the printed version. For specifically requested colour reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from Sage after receipt of your accepted article.

4.3 Supplementary material

This journal is able to host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc) alongside the full-text of the article. For more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplementary files.

4.4 Journal Style

Please read the following style guidelines for Feminist Theology carefully: 
GENERAL
Quoted matter, if more than four lines, should normally be indented, without quotation marks.

Quotations of up to four lines should form part of the text, and should be indicated by single quotation marks. Double quotation marks should be used only for quotations within quotations.

In general, foreign words and phrases should be italicized, both in main text and footnotes. Greek and Hebrew should be transliterated.
-ize spellings should be used (recognize, emphasize, organization, etc. BUT analyse, exercise, etc.).

Contributors from North America may use North American spelling and punctuation.

Headings: Please mark up heading levels 1.1, 1.2, 1.2.1 etc. These will be removed later, but are helpful to the typesetter to assign heading styles.

Authors of articles and book reviews will be sent a first proof and will normally be expected to return these within two weeks of receipt. Corrections should be confined to typographical errors or to specific questions raised by the editors.

For further reference, The Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors (Clarendon Press 1981) is recommended.

GENDER & LANGUAGE 
Where a gender-inclusive alternative is possible, it is to be preferred. e.g. 'humanity' rather than 'man' when referring to both sexes.

When personal pronouns are used both sexes should generally be included. e.g. 'The Christian has to acknowledge his or her dependence on grace'.
(If this seems clumsy, use plural forms: 'Christians have to acknowledge their dependence on grace'.)

UPPER & LOWER CASE 
Use lower case for personal pronouns of divine persons other than at the beginning of sentences: he, his, etc.

In the case of the Church, use upper and lower case as follows:
Upper case (a) for the whole Church
(b) for a denomination, e.g. the Church of England
Lower case (a) for the building
(b) for the local church
(c) as an adjective: church teaching
also: churchgoer but High Church

In the case of the Scriptures, use upper and lower case as follows:
(a) Bible and Scripture but biblical and scriptural
(b) Gospel - when referring to a canonical book
(c) gospel - when speaking in more general terms
(d) Kingdom of God but cross, crucifixion, resurrection, etc.

ABBREVIATIONS 
Use of full stops in abbreviations:
When an abbreviation is formed by cutting a word short, a full stop must be used at the end; when an abbreviation is formed by the omission of internal letters, a full stop is not generally used. 
Thus: Rel. but Sgt
Note: Prof. Revd St Dr Mr

BC, AD, CE, BCE should be unpunctuated and set in small capitals.

Note the following abbreviations:
ed. (editor, edited by)
trans. (translator, translated by)
rev. (reviser, revised by)
edn (edition)
repr. (reprint)
vol./vols. (volume)

VERBAL STYLE and SPELLING 
Brackets within brackets should be square, e.g. G.H. Jones ('The Decree of Yawweh', VT 15 [1965], pp. 336-44). However, the major exception to this rule is that square brackets indicating text inserted into a quotation by the author stay in square brackets, e.g. [sic].

Numerals are written out in full when they are ten or below, when they begin a sentence and when they are an even hundred, thousand, million, etc. But sometimes it is better to have consistency rather than follow this rule. Numbers of centuries should always be written out in full: twentyfirst century; nineteenth century etc. Use Roman numerals for vol. numbers of books, and series numbers; and Arabic numbers for journal issue nos.

Possessives. For possessives of proper names ending in a (pronounced) s add 's, e.g. Child's Introduction, Jones's views. The exception is for ancient names, e.g. Jesus', Barthes', Descartes' etc.

Ellipses: all quotations are in the nature of things an extract from a longer text, so ellipses should not be used simply to indicate that in the original text there are preceding and following words.

Use:
focused, focusing etc (not focussed, focussing)
first, secondly, or first, second (but not firstly)
acknowledgment, judgment
analyse (but analyze in American spelling)

'E.g.' and 'i.e.' are only permissible in the body of the text if they introduce a list or are within brackets. Likewise, please avoid 'etc.' unless it is in a footnote.

Please do not use op. cit. and avoid ibid.

Avoid 'f.' and 'ff.'

BIBLICAL REFERENCES 
Please observe the following abbreviations:

Gen. , Exod, Song., Isa., Lev., Jer., Num., Lam., Deut., Ezek., Josh., Dan., Judg., Hos., Ruth, Joel, Sam., Amos, Kgs, Obad., Chron., Jon., Ezra, Mic., Neh., Nah., Est., Hab., Job, Zeph., Ps. (plural Pss.), Hag., Prov., Zech., Eccl., Mal.,
Mt., Col., Mk., Thess., Lk., Tim., Jn, Tit., Acts, Phlm., Rom., Heb., Cor., Jas., Gal., Pet., Eph., Jn, Phil., Jude, Rev.

Use Arabic numerals throughout: 2 Cor. not II Cor.

Full stops between chapter and verse numbers: Lk. 6.12

Hyphens to mark sequences of verses: Mt. 3.6-8 Lk. 6.10-12 Jn 10.12-14, 16 (N.B. the space after the comma).

En rules for sequences extending beyond a single chapter: Mt. 6-9
Semicolons to divide distinct references to different chapters of the same book: John 6.15; 14.12

Semicolons to divide single references to separate books: Lk. 4.12; 2 Cor. 3.8

Biblical references may be placed in parentheses in the text - e.g. (Mt. 2.6-8)
- or in the footnotes but please be consistent.

4.5 Reference style

Feminist Theology adheres to the Sage Harvard reference style. View the Sage Harvard guidelines to ensure your manuscript conforms to this reference style.

If you use EndNote to manage references, you can download the Sage Harvard EndNote output file.

Please ensure that you do not use mixture of the two referencing styles.

4.5.1 Footnote Style

The following conventions should be followed in footnotes. Please note articles from periodicals or titles of book chapters are printed within single quotation marks. Book titles are in italics.

Journal article:

L. Barrett, 'Theology as Grammar: Regulative Principles or Paradigms and Practices?', Modern Theology 25.2 (1988), pp. 155-72.

Book:

Colin E. Gunton, The One, The Three and The Many (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2nd edn, 1993), pp. 56-59.

Chapter/article in a collected volume:

J.L. Martyn, 'Have we Found Elijah?', in R. Hamerton-Kelly and R. Scroggs (eds.), Jews, Greeks and Christians: Cultures in Late Aniquity (trans. J. Smith; SJLA, 21; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2nd edn, 1976).

Short title

When a book, a chapter or an article is referred to again, after its first occurrence, a short title form is used, e.g. Martyn, 'Have we Found Elijah?', p. 235.

4.5.2 Bibliography

The order of data in the bibliography is the following:

Element of Bibliography followed by

author(s), editor(s) (ed., eds.) comma

title opening round bracket

editor (ed.) (if there is an editor as well as an author) semicolon

translator (trans.) semicolon

series comma

number in series semicolon

number of volumes (e.g. 2 vols.) semicolon

reprint status (repr.) comma

place of publication colon

publisher comma

edition (e.g. 2nd edn, rev. edn) comma

date closing round bracket,

full stop

e.g. Smith, M., and D. Jones (eds.), Book Title, I (trans. Z. Smith; JSOTSup, 100; 2 vols.; place: publisher, edn, date).

Note: not all of these elements are appropriate for every book, of course!

The following conventions should be observed in the bibliography and footnotes:

1. When the reference is to a nineteenth-century or older work the publisher's name may be omitted.

The following conventions should be observed in the bibliography and footnotes:

1. When the reference is to a nineteenth-century or older work the publisher's name may be omitted.

2. Page references should be in the following form: pp. 92-98, pp. 153-79 but pp. 107-109, pp. 107-114. Avoid the use of 'f.' and 'ff.'

3. For more than three authors or editors it is permissible to use et al.

4. In the bibliography, multiple entries for an author may be arranged either in chronological or alphabetical order.

5. Title and subtitle. Between the title and subtitle of a book there should be a colon, not a full stop (though occasionally a book has a more complicated title and a full stop is more appropriate).

6. More than one place of publication. When a publisher has more than one office, only the first stated or the head office should be given.

7. More than one publisher. Where a book has been published by more than one publisher, use the following style:

Exeter: Paternoster Press; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

4.5.3 Author-Date (Social Science) Style

The function of the author-date style of referencing is to reduce the need for footnotes, by embedding references to cited works in the text in abbreviated form (e.g. Brown 1980: 123).

Note there is no punctuation after the author's name and a space always follows the colon between the date and the page reference (which omits 'p.' or 'pp.').

Several works by the same author are cited by date only, the dates being separated by commas; when page numbers are given, the year dates are separated by semicolons:

(Jones 1963, 1972a, 1986)

(Jones 1963a: 10; 1972; 1986: 123)

Where there are authors with the same surname, initials should be included.

In bibliography

In the Bibliography, the basic forms of the author-date style are illustrated here:

Jones, A. 1980 On Consistency (HSM, 9; Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2nd edn).

1986a 'Second Thoughts: An Addendum', Journal of Bibliographic Research 30: 12-21.

1986b 'Second Thoughts: A Further Addendum', Journal of Bibliographic Research 30: 332-45.

Smith, H., and P. Smith 1980 'Atonement and Sacrifice in the Qumran Community', in Jones 1980: 321-86.

The order of entries is by year; if there is more than one item from the same year, the dates are labelled a,b,c, etc.

4.6 English language editing services

Authors seeking assistance with English language editing, translation, or figure and manuscript formatting to fit the journal’s specifications should consider using Sage Language Services. Visit Sage Language Services on our Journal Author Gateway for further information.

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5. Submitting your manuscript

Please submit your documents electronically in Microsoft Word format to lisa.isherwood@winchester.ac.uk. All articles will be refereed.

It is essential that the all guidelines are observed. We may ask you to revise your article if it is not supplied in house style.

All submissions must comply with the following instructions:

Manuscripts should be formatted using one and a half line spacing, printed on one side only and numbered consecutively throughout. Margins of approximately one and a half inches or 39mm should be used.

A short abstract of 50-150 words and up to five to six keywords MUST be supplied with your article.

All articles should normally be 5000-8000 words in length.

5.1 Permissions

Please also ensure that you have obtained any necessary permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please see the Copyright and Permissions page on the Sage Author Gateway.

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6. On acceptance and publication

6.1 Sage Production

Your Sage Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will be sent by PDF to the corresponding author and should be returned promptly.  Authors are reminded to check their proofs carefully to confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence and contact details are correct, and that Funding and Conflict of Interest statements, if any, are accurate.

6.2 Online First publication

Online First allows final articles (completed and approved articles awaiting assignment to a future issue) to be published online prior to their inclusion in a journal issue, which significantly reduces the lead time between submission and publication. Visit the Sage Journals help page for more details, including how to cite Online First articles.

6.3 Access to your published article

Sage provides authors with online access to their final article.

6.4 Promoting your article

Publication is not the end of the process! You can help disseminate your paper and ensure it is as widely read and cited as possible. The Sage Author Gateway has numerous resources to help you promote your work. Visit the Promote Your Article page on the Gateway for tips and advice.

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7. Further information

Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the manuscript submission process should be sent to the Feminist Theology editorial office as follows:

The Editorial Committee
The Lodge
Cook Rees Ave
Neath
SA11 1JT

l.isherwood@uwtsd.ac.uk