PRÁVNĚHISTORICKÉ STUDIE

Manuscripts shall be submitted to the Editorial House of Právněhistorické studie / Legal History Studies (Charles University journal; below referred to as the Journal) via e-mail to the address: phs@prf.cuni.cz.

While preparing the manuscript it is necessary to follow below stated guidelines regarding the content as well as the format. Authors are fully responsible for language and formal level of the manuscript, which constitutes one of the partial criteria of the overall evaluation. Editorial staff carry out language and grammar check of received texts. More substantial editing will be consulted with the author, while minor editing within the scope of editorial changes is carried out without consultation with the author. The final form of the text, after all editorial changes, may be sent to the author upon request.

In case of breaching principles stated below the editorial staff may reject the manuscript even without completing the peer review process.

The Journal does not distribute any royalties for submitted manuscripts.

Author’s copy is sent to all authors of manuscripts after the publication of a relevant issue of the Journal.

Peer Review Process

Editorial staff (editor-in-chief, managing editor) initially review the manuscript from the point of view of fulfilling the text requirements (see Instructions to Authors). Editorial staff may recommend to the author of the manuscript to implement linguistic, formal and content-related adjustments of the manuscript before it is passed on to the peer review process, and eventually editorial staff may reject the manuscript without the peer review process if it does not comply with basic formal or qualitative requirements, it does not deal with the field of legal history, or because of any other reason. Editorial staff can also decide to publish the manuscript in any subsequent issue of the Journal. Unless editorial staff decide in any of the above stated manner, the manuscript is filed for anonymous independent peer review process.

Each manuscript is evaluated by at least one reviewer. Reviewers must not be employed at the same workplace as the author or any of the co-authors, and cannot evaluate the manuscript if they have any conflict of interest regarding the text reviewed. Reviewers must be experts in the field the manuscript deals with, commonly members of academic staff or researchers, potentially persons outside academia, nevertheless dedicated experts in the relevant field.

The peer review process is mutually anonymous. Neither reviewer nor author are aware of the other’s identity, which is secured by editorial staff by omitting from the text any piece of information which may lead to the identification of reviewer or author.

Reviewer may either recommend the manuscript for publication, recommend that the manuscript shall be returned for revision or recommend not to publish the manuscript, always with due justification. Reviewer evaluates manuscripts considering formal and content-related criteria.

Peer review reports are then submitted to the editorial board which select manuscripts to be published and decide which manuscripts will be returned for revision and which will be rejected. Editorial board may also decide to publish the manuscript in any subsequent issue of the Journal.

Editorial office will notify the author of the manuscript about the result of the peer review process and about the decision of editorial board without undue delay. In case that returning of the manuscript to the author for revision is recommended in the peer review report, editorial office informs the author of reviewer’s recommendation and stipulates relevant time frame for the revision of the manuscript. After the revised manuscript is submitted it is then passed on to the peer review process. In this case reviewers may only recommend the manuscript to be published or not to be published. In case that the manuscript is not recommended for publication, editorial office informs the author of justification of such decision.

Editorial office archives the reviewers’ evaluation for the length of 5 years.

Content-related Criteria for Evaluating Manuscripts

– Authenticity/Authorship
– Originality
– Legal history subject
– Citation/Quotation potential
– Contribution to professional public
– Comprehensibility
– Observing the methodology for writing professional work including the consideration of and the follow-up to the current state of knowledge

Format of the Text

Accepted formats: *.docx, *.doc.

Structure

Studies, student work or material shall always contain at the beginning: the title of the manuscript, the name of the author, the abstract in English including English title of the manuscript, keywords in English, keywords In Czech (Slovak) (unless the manuscript is submitted by a foreign author), author’s affiliation, author’s contact email address. Furthermore, the author may indicate appropriate dedication to a specific project. Then follows the text itself in the following structure: introduction, contents, conclusion.

Always send the bibliography in the file itself. This is necessary for allocation of the so-called DOI (Digital Object Identifier) which is a centralized commercial system of identifying works accessible in digital form.

Text Structure

For text structure use homogeneous hierarchy of titles, differentiate individual levels by means of MS Word styles or by using the numerals offered by MS Word function Numbering. Never number manually and do not indent using the space bar. Unless it is absolutely necessary please do not use more than three levels of titles.

Formatting

Write the text fluidly without indenting, align text-justify, start new paragraphs using the enter key, do not insert tabulator or several spaces in front of a paragraph. Do not use word-division. Use Times New Roman font, font size 12, line spacing 1,5, margin format 2,5 cm on both sides.

Footnote Apparatus

For footnotes use automated computerized function provided by Word “Insert footnote“ from the Reference tab. Use the Times New Roman font, font size 10, line spacing single.

Instructions for text unification

Be consistent while preparing the text. Once you decide for a certain variant, use it in the whole manuscript. If, for instance, you introduce the date it is not possible to use 1. 1. 2018 once, and then January 1, 2018 subsequently; or introducing the name JUDr. Karel Kramář for the first time, then dr. Kramář, then JUDr. K. Kramář, etc.

Italic and bold characters

Use italics only for foreign language terms. Do not use italics in text citations. i.e. with citations do not use quotation marks (inverted commas) and italics simultaneously, use just quotation marks.

Use bold characters only to indicate the words or phrases which are crucial for understanding the meaning of the sentence or paragraph. Do not use this type of typeface for marking longer passages, whole paragraphs or a huge number of words in the text.

Do no use character spacing (tracking, kerning, etc.) or any alternate design (neither by hand nor by the means of the selection in MS Word). Do not use underlining or bold italics.

Quotation marks, commas, periods, spaces

Periods are placed after question marks with the exception when the citation consists of a full grammatical sentence structure.
Use only one space following periods.
Footnotes are placed after punctuation marks (after periods, commas, question marks, semicolons), out of question marks and parentheses, unless they refer only to the part of the text in question marks or parentheses.

Abbreviations

Abbreviations can be utilized without further explanation only in case these are generally understood and are frequently and unequivocally used (e.g. UN, ABGB, CC). In case that it is necessary to use in the manuscript an abbreviation which is not commonly used it is possible to define it when it’s used in the text for the first time with reference to the abbreviated concept (Act No. 101/2000 Sb., on the Protection of Personal Data and on Amendments to Certain Acts, as amended by subsequent regulations, hereafter “APPD“).

Pictures, tables and other functions

Tables shall be designed by the installed MS Word table editor. Use simple formatting (black colour, single line-type, text formatting), and do not use any shading or multiple line-types. Add special requirements into the email together with the submitted manuscript. Place the table in the manuscript or submit it in a separate file and refer to the spot in the text where it shall be inserted e.g. in a way <>. Submit tables designed in MS Excel editor in separate files.

Image documentation shall be submitted in electronic form in a separate file. Required formats and definition for image materials in electronic form (submit image materials without compression):

– line-drawings (line-drawing pictures, e.g. graphs, diagrams, schemes, et al..): format *.pdf, *.eps; definition 1200 dpi (when sized 1 : 1);
– autotype (halftone pictures, e.g. photographs, et al.): format *.jpg, *.tiff, *.pdf, *.eps; definition 300 dpi (when sized 1 : 1).

Never insert pictures into the text (by doing so MS Word will irreversibly qualitatively degrade); name electronic files uniformly (Pic1.tif, Pic2.tif, etc.) and just mark the spots where pictures should be placed in the printed version of the text.

Graphs shall be created either in MS Word/Excel editors (in black and white) or in vector format (*.pdf, *.eps). When submitting graphs in Excel full data is needed, e.g. graphs downloaded from the Internet are not sufficient for publication. Submit graphs in separate files (e.g. Graf1.doc, Graf1.xls) and refer to the spot in the text where it should be inserted, e.g. in a way <>. After agreement it is possible to submit a graph in the format of a picture in sufficient definition.

Tables, pictures and graphs will be printed in black and white.

Bibliographic data

Citation patterns can be found in the document “Instructions to Authors“, which can be downloaded on the left side of this page.

Editing of Proofreading

Editorial staff prefer that the proofreading be submitted into the document in electronic version in the format .pdf, according to the instructions provided at: https://karolinum.cz/en/pro-autory

Unless it is possible to carry out proofreading electronically it is possible to do it using common proofreading marks, according to the instructions provided at: https://karolinum.cz/en/pro-autory

Proofreading must be legible and performed in colour clearly distinct from the printed text (red or green colours are preferable). Do not use a pencil. The purpose of proofreading is the revision of the setting, in other words the accuracy and fullness of the transformation of the manuscript into the book or journal version. Within the process of proofreading no substantial changes shall be introduced prior to consultation and agreement with the editorial staff.

Open Access

By submitting their manuscript authors agree with its publication in the Journal and note that this is a journal with open access. Open access approach of the Journal means that the entire content is openly and free of charge accessible for users and institutions. Users can read, download, copy, distribute, print, search for or refer to full texts in this journal without prior permission obtained from the publisher or the author.

Copyright Statement

In connection with reviewed articles as well as other texts, the Journal utilizes Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence. By submitting the manuscript to the Journal editorial office, authors agree with the use of the license CC BY 4.0 for their manuscript. The publisher endows Copyright to authors.

Publication fee

No fee is charged to authors, neither for peer review nor for publication of their manuscripts.