Studies in History
Asian History
The Journal examines regional problems and pays attention to some of the neglected periods of India's past. The journal also publishes articles concerning countries other than India. It provides a forum for articles on the writing of different varieties of history, and contributions challenging received wisdom on long standing issues.
This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
Studies in History, a peer-reviewed journal, aims to publish original works with information, arguments and insights that contribute significantly to the field of historical research. The journal reflects the considerable expansion and diversification that has occurred in historical research in India in recent years. The preoccupation with political history has been integrated into a broader framework which places equal emphasis on social, economic and cultural history. Newer approaches and themes that seek to advance the scope and significance of the discipline are promoted.
| Jyoti Atwal | Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India |
| Umesh Ashok Kadam | Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India |
| Heeraman Tiwari | Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India |
| Harbans Mukhia | Formerly at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi |
| Romila Thapar | Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India |
Studies in History
This Journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics
Manuscripts should be submitted to studiesinhistory@gmail.com or The Editors, Studies in History, Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Mehrauli Road, New Delhi 110067.
Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of Studies in History 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, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you, 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.
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 Funding
2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
2.6 Research data
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 Supplemental material
4.4 Reference style
5. Submitting your manuscript
5.1 Information required for completing your submission
5.2 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
Before submitting your manuscript to Studies in History, please ensure you have read the Aims & Scope.
- Original Articles
- Book Reviews
Articles submitted to Studies in History should ideally be between 9,000-12,000 words in length, including footnotes and references.
- Manuscripts of articles should be submitted in MS-word in double-space with figures and tables attached in separate files.
- The cover page should carry only the title of the article and the author’s name, address (both postal and e-mail addresses), and phone and fax numbers.
- All articles must include an abstract of approximately 200 words and 4–7 keywords that reflect the theme of the article (for example: Dalit, autobiography, manual labour, tradition).
- HEADINGS: Limit the levels of heading within an article to three or four (maximum). Avoid lengthy headings and do not number them. The printed style will demonstrate their order clearly without recourse to an explicit numbering, such as 1.1.
- FOOTNOTES: Should be consecutively numbered and presented at the foot of each page. In one sentence of the text only one note is preferred. The complete source references for tables, figures and maps should be cited below each respective table, figure or map, under the section ‘source’.
- SPELLINGS: Use British spellings rather than American (hence, ‘programme’ not ‘program’, ‘labour’ not ‘labor’, and ‘centre’ not ‘center’). Where alternative forms exist, choose ‘ize’ spellings instead of ‘ise’ (for example, civilize, commercialize, organization). However, please look out for exceptions such as comprise, supervise and incise, where the ‘s’ is not an ending but part of the root.
- QUOTATIONS: Use single quotation marks, reserving double quotation marks for quoted words within a quotation. Spellings of words in quotation should not be changed. No quotation marks are required for longer passages (i.e., 45 words or more); these have to be indented and separated from the text.
- ITALICS: Avoid excessive italicization for emphasis but use them for book titles and foreign words, unless particular terms occur so frequently that they are better in upright (roman) type. Proper nouns in a foreign language should always be in roman. We also prefer to set common terms such as ‘status quo’, ‘a priori’ and ‘et al.’ in roman; Ibid., however, will be in italics.
- HYPHENATION: Please pay attention to consistency in the hyphenation of words. Do not alternate, for example, between ‘macro-economic’ and ‘macroeconomic’, ‘decision making’ and ‘decision-making’.
- ABBREVIATIONS: Include a final stop in abbreviations (words shortened by omitting the end), such as p., vol. and ed., but not in contractions (words shortened by omitting the middle), such as Mr, Dr, edn, eds and Rs. No stops are needed between capitals: e.g., CPI, INTUC, MLA. Short forms likely to be unfamiliar to some readers should be spelt out in full the first time they occur. Please avoid ‘i.e.’ and ‘e.g.’ in the text but use them in notes if you wish. If few in number, list abbreviations early in the notes. Alternatively, they can be introduced at first use—e.g., Oriental and Indian Office Collections (hereafter OIOC) or Board of Revenue Proceedings (hereafter BRP).
- NUMBERS: Write numbers in figures (rather than words) for exact measurements and series of quantities, including percentages. In more general description, numbers below 100 should be spelt out in words. In text use ‘per cent’; in tables the symbol ‘%’. Write ‘0.8’ rather than ‘.8’, except for levels of probability. Use lower-case italics for p (probability) and n (number). Use fuller forms for numbers and dates—e.g., 1780–88, pp. 178–84, and pp. 200–2.
- DATES: Give specific dates in the form 10 September 1760. Decades may be referred to as either ‘the eighties’ or ‘the 1880s’. Spell out the ‘nineteenth century’, etc.
- DIACRITICAL MARKS AND ACCENTS: Diacritical marks should be used in writing on pre-modern history. However, be very careful about the consistency. Italicized words can have diacritics as required. References in European languages other than English should be checked carefully for accents. In articles on the modern period diacritical marks should be used sparingly. In transliterating Persian terms, use F. Steingass Comprehensive Persian–English Dictionary.
Important note: There is no limit on the number of references allowed.
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
For information and guidance on how to make your article more discoverable, visit our Gateway page on How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online
All manuscripts are reviewed initially by the Editors and only those papers that meet the editorial standards of the journal and fit within the aims and scope of the journal, will be sent for outside review.
Studies in History adheres to a rigorous double-blind reviewing policy in which the identity of both the reviewer and author are always concealed from both parties. The reviewer may at their own discretion opt to reveal their name to the author in their review but our standard policy practice is for both identities to remain concealed.
Studies in History is committed to delivering high quality, fast peer-review for your paper, and as such has partnered with Publons. Publons is a third-party service that seeks to track, verify and give credit for peer review. Reviewers for Studies in History can opt in to Publons in order to claim their reviews or have them automatically verified and added to their reviewer profile. Reviewers claiming credit for their review will be associated with the relevant journal, but the article name, reviewer’s decision and
The Editor or members of the Editorial Board may occasionally submit their own manuscripts for possible publication in the Journal. In these cases, the peer review process will be managed by alternative members of the Board and the submitting Editor/Board member will have no involvement in the decision-making process.
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.
If the named authors for a manuscript change at any point between submission and acceptance, an Authorship Change Form must be completed and digitally signed by all authors (including any added or removed) . An addition of an author is only permitted following feedback raised during peer review. Completed forms can be uploaded at Revision Submission stage or emailed to the Journal Editorial Office contact (listed on the journal’s manuscript submission guidelines). All requests will be moderated by the Editor and/or Sage staff.
Important: Changes to the author by-line by adding or deleting authors are NOT permitted following acceptance of a paper.
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.
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.
Please supply any personal acknowledgements separately to the main text to facilitate anonymous peer review.
2.3.1 Writing assistance
Individuals who provided writing assistance, e.g. from a specialist communications company, do not qualify as authors and so should be included in the Acknowledgements section. Authors must disclose any writing assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input – and identify the entity that paid for this assistance. It is not necessary to disclose use of language polishing services.
Studies in History requires all authors to acknowledge their funding in a consistent fashion under a separate heading. Please visit the Funding Acknowledgements page on the Sage Journal Author Gateway to confirm the format of the acknowledgment text in the event of funding, or state that: This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
Studies in History encourages authors to include a declaration of any conflicting interests and recommends you review the good practice guidelines on the Sage Journal Author Gateway
Please ensure that a ‘Declaration of Conflicting Interests’ statement is included at the end of your manuscript, after any acknowledgements and prior to the references. If no conflict exists, please state that ‘The Author(s) declare(s) that there is no conflict of interest’.
The journal is committed to facilitating openness, transparency and reproducibility of research, and has the following research data sharing policy. For more information, including FAQs please visit the Sage Research Data policy pages.
Subject to appropriate ethical and legal considerations, authors are encouraged to:
- share your research data in a relevant public data repository
- include a data availability statement linking to your data. If it is not possible to share your data, we encourage you to consider using the statement to explain why it cannot be shared.
- cite this data in your research
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
Studies in History 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 plagiarized 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
Studies in History 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.
4. Preparing your manuscript for submission
The preferred format for your manuscript is Word. LaTeX files are also accepted. A LaTex template is 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
- Please use short and crisp titles and headings in tables and figures. No vertical lines should be used in tables. Lay out parallel tables in similar ways using similar wording. Ensure that the units of measurement are stated and check any totals or averages. Artworks given to the journal should be of good quality to be reproduced in the journal. Images should be provided in TIFF/JPEG format with minimum 300 dpi and 1,500 pixels. Further, it is crucial that all text in the artworks corresponds to the text of the article in spelling and style.
- Tables and figures to be indicated by numbers separately (see Table 1), not by placement (see Table below). All Figures and Tables should be cited in the text. Sources for figures and tables should be mentioned irrespective of whether or not they require permissions.
- Due permissions should be taken for copyright protected photographs/images. Even for photographs/images available in the public domain, it should be clearly ascertained whether or not their reproduction requires permission for purposes of publishing (which is a profit-making endeavour). All photographs/scanned images should be provided separately.
- 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.
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 supplemental files
Studies in History adheres to the Chicago Manual of Style. View the guide here to ensure your manuscript conforms to this style.
The Chicago Manual of Style is used in the formatting of the reference details for articles, books, essays, theses and other publications in the footnotes and the source citations for tables, figures and maps. Following is an encapsulated list of the formatting styles for some of the frequently used types of references.
Book:
Salman Rushdie, The Ground beneath Her Feet (New York: Henry Holt, 1999).
Article from a book:
Anne Carr and Douglas J. Schuurman, ‘Religion and Feminism: A Reformist Christian Analysis’, in Religion, Feminism, and the Family, ed. Anne Carr and Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996), 11–32.
Journal:
Philip Kitcher, ‘Essence and Perfection’, Ethics 110, no. 1 (1999): 60.
Unpublished material:
Dorothy Ross, ‘The Irish-Catholic Immigrant, 1880–1900: A Study in Social Mobility’ (master’s thesis, Columbia University, n.d.), 142–55.
Website content:
Evanston Public Library Board of Trustees, ‘Evanston Public Library Strategic Plan, 2000–2010: A Decade of Outreach’, Evanston Public Library, http://www. epl.org/library/strategic-plan-00.html (accessed 18 July 2002).
If you use EndNote to manage references, you can download the Sage Harvard EndNote output file [OR] the Sage Vancouver EndNote output file
Manuscripts should be submitted to studiesinhistory@gmail.com or The Editors, Studies in History, Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Mehrauli Road, New Delhi 110067.
5.1 Information required for completing your submission
You will be asked to provide contact details and academic affiliations for all co-authors via the submission system and identify who is to be the corresponding author. These details must match what appears on your manuscript. The affiliation listed in the manuscript should be the institution where the research was conducted. If an author has moved to a new institution since completing the research, the new affiliation can be included in a manuscript note at the end of the paper. At this stage please ensure you have included all the required statements and declarations and uploaded any additional supplementary files (including reporting guidelines where relevant).
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
6. On acceptance and publication
Your Sage Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will be made available to the corresponding author by email, and corrections should be made directly or notified to us 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.
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.
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.
Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the manuscript submission process should be sent to the Editor Studies in History editorial office as follows:
E-mail: studiesinhistory@gmail.com