Instructions for authors

Article Publication Charges:

There are no submission fees, publication fees or page charges for this journal.

Note on Submission Articles:  

Unsolicited manuscripts may be sent to the editors provided they are not currently being considered for publication elsewhere. (Please note that because it is an interdisciplinary journal, BRIIFS only publishes technical or highly specialised material in its special conference issues). Articles and essays must be accompanied by an abstract (max. 150 words) and a title page that includes the author’s name, institutional affiliation, and a brief biography (50-100 words). After being screened by the editors, papers will be anonymously reviewed by a minimum of two referees and then returned to authors for revision, if necessary, prior to acceptance/publication. All papers are copy-edited to conform to BRIIFS style. In essence, this means that English-language spelling should follow British usage and that endnotes or parenthetical references, bibliographies, or reference lists should conform to the Chicago Manual of Style. A final proof will only be sent to the author, or lead author, for the correction of typographical or factual errors. Authors should respond to proofs within one week of approval may be assumed. The author is encouraged to refrain from making lengthy changes or additions to the text at that time. 

General: 

Essays and articles may be in English, French, or Spanish and should be 3,000-6,000 words in length; book reviews should not exceed 1,000 words. Articles may be sent to the editor by email attachment at (briifs@riifs.org and renee.hattar@riifs.org) using a Microsoft .doc file. The text should be double-spaced, with one-inch margins on all sides, and pages should be numbered consecutively. 

Specifications and Transliteration: 

The tab key should be used for all indentation. The text should be neither justified nor hyphenated at the end of a line. Manuscripts must be prepared using the standard 12-point Times or Times New Roman and their italic and boldface variations (where necessary). However, there are a number of specifically-designed fonts that permit authors to add diacritics to words transliterated from Arabic, Hebrew, and other languages that do not use Latin characters which may be included. All transliterations of foreign languages can adhere to a system of the author’s choice but should remain consistent throughout the article. Unless they appear in the transliterated title of a work, all foreign words found in the Oxford English Dictionary shall be considered English words and do not need diacritics (e.g., sura, hadith). Authors citing Ottoman Turkish sources may either transliterate them or use modern Turkish orthography. 

Citations: 

Endnotes are preferred to parenthetical references. Citations should follow the rules in the Chicago Manual of Style; since this guide is the source of Kate L. Turabian’s A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations (6 ed.), the latter may also be consulted. Authors are urged to avoid using the footnote insertion feature that exists on word processing programs. Instead, the number of the note should be inserted in the text in parentheses, and the number and the note typed at the end of the essay/article. No bibliography is required is a full citation is given in the notes when a source is first encountered.  

Offprints: 

The author or lead author of an essay or article is entitled to 10 free offprints of the article. For the purchase of additional offprints, the editor must be notified well in advance of publication. Late notification may lead to the assessment of a surcharge, payable by the author. 

Submission of Book Reviews: 

Book reviews should be 1,000-500 words in length. The length of review articles will be set by the book review editor and the reviewer. All book reviews and review articles must follow the specifications mentioned above. Unsolicited book reviews may be accepted for publication, but review articles will not. Books for review may be sent to the editor.

Publications Ethics:

• The researcher shall commit to the authenticity of the research paper and ensure it does not contain any unauthenticated and/or copyrighted quotations (text, images, graphs, etc.), including the researcher’s own works.
• If the research is part of a broader unpublished study or a continuation of a previous research paper, this shall be disclosed clearly and explicitly.

The Journal adheres to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) as an ethical reference in scientific research. For more information, please visit the following link:

https://publicationethics.org/guidance/Guidelines

The Journal also adheres to a double-blind peer review process and meticulous review by specialised reviewers who adhere to ethical standards to ensure the quality of the research. The journal’s editorial board deals with plagiarism, data falsification, copyright infringement, and other ethical misconduct with a “zero tolerance” policy.

• The researcher shall acknowledge all intellectual and practical contributors to the. This includes research project design, acquiring research-related information, analysing data, and contributing to the formulation of the entire research paper or parts thereof.
• The author shall ensure not to include the name of another author or a group of authors unless they have made a genuine and valuable contribution to the research.
• If the researcher discovers a fundamental error in his research, he shall inform the journal, whether the research is under review or has already been published.

BRIIFS encourages all researchers to provide their personal information, in terms of specialisation and research interest, as this contributes to informing other researchers, facilitating communication, and creating opportunities for potential collaboration among researchers. Each researcher whose name was mentioned shall take responsibility for the accuracy of the shared information.

Peer Review Process

Once a research paper is received, it is assessed for suitability by the editorial team, then the editorial team sends a confirmation to the author of receipt and author is informed of initial acceptance or rejection. Then the editor will begin with the process of evaluating the submission. At this point, manuscripts are under external blind review and will therefore be sent to two anonymous external peer reviewers, as part of BRIIFS blin review policy. This process will take approximately four weeks.  Reviewers evaluate the papers according to a form that BRIIFS editorial team prepared, and in which included all the review criteria to follow.  Once reviewers return the paper with their evaluation, editorial team revises both evaluations for each paper and then makes the decision of acceptance as is (without any modifications); acceptance with minor corrections; acceptance with moderate revision; acceptance with major revision or rejection (with provided reasoning).