Information on Submissions

We welcome submissions from post-graduate students from any Higher Education Institution, in the UK or world-wide. We'd love to publish papers from a wide range of disciplines and perspectives, and we're not limited to literary studies. If you feel inspired by the theme or title of our forthcoming issue, then please submit your paper to the editorial team by the deadline.

Our Forthcoming Issue

Sleep(less) Beds

Deadline for submissions: 20th February, 2013. Please see our Call for Papers

How to submit your paper

If the theme of the forthcoming issue inspires you, then please email your paper to: luminary@lancaster.ac.uk

You do not need to send us an abstract before submitting the paper; we accept submissions of complete articles. However, please do include an abstract along with your submission. You may receive an email asking you to make some minor corrections to the article before it can be published. If your paper is accepted for publication, you will receive an email confirming when the issue is going to be published online.

What to include with your submission

If you wish to submit a paper, please make sure that you include the following:

• an email including your name, institution, department and current programme of study, with some details about your research project and interests if possible.
• indication as to whether or not you would be happy to have your email contact details made available online, for readers of the journal should they wish to contact you about your research.
• a short abstract of the paper (200 words approx.), either in the email, or as a separate .doc attachement.
• a copy of your paper, submitted as a .doc attachment along with the email.
• a bibliography, either submitted within the same document as the paper or as a spearate .doc attachment.

Style and Formatting

All submissions should be sent in a word-processed format, double spaced, in size 12. (please note that you should send your submission ideally as a .doc file) Make sure your name is displayed clearly on each page of the paper. The format of your paper is to ensure it is readable by the editorial board, but once it is published to the web it will have to be re-formatted, so it does not matter about fonts, headings or images, as long as your paper is clear and legible. If you wish to include any images with your paper, then please send these as separate files (.gif or .jpg is preferable).

As for referencing your paper, please use endnotes as this will aid when publishing the paper on the web. Again, references will all have to be reformatted using our web-design software, which is much easier if they are all grouped together in one place in your article.

For your in text references and bibliography, please use the MHRA style guide. This can be downloaded for free from the website below

http://www.mhra.org.uk/Publications/Books/StyleGuide/download.shtml

In line with MHRA requirements, we ask that you keep endnotes to a minimum, only using them where you first introduce a seconday source. All subsequent references should be made in parenthesis in the main body of your text, as far as this is possible. This is particularly helpful for our readers who will be reading directly from our website. Many thanks.

The Peer Reviewing Process

Previous issues of the journal have been peer reviewed, employing an anonymous peer review process, involving staff and postgraduate students from Lancaster University.

However, our future issues will not undergo a full peer review process. Instead, submissions will be discussed and reviewed at our regular editorial meetings. Submissions may be returned and minor changes requested before we accept the paper. Or, we will accept the paper without requesting any changes. Either way, we endeavour to inform all contributors as soon as a decision has been made regarding their submission. If you are not successful, you are able to request an appraisal of your paper.

Please click here for a list of our peer reviewers and members of our editorial board.