Journal of Land and Rural Studies

Submission Guidelines for Journal of Land and Rural Studies

Journal of Land and Rural Studies (LRS), a bi-annual peer-reviewed journal published by SAGE India under the aegis of Centre for Rural Studies, Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration. It addresses the social, economic, cultural, demographic and political aspects of rural development around the globe. Rural Development is a complex and multi-dimensional subject transcending traditional boundaries of academic disciplines. It offers a broader canvas for exchange of views between analysts and a whole range of actors directly engaged with addressing problems and issues related to public policy implementations. Rural Studies is therefore not restricted to its own field, but takes under its ambit issues of land, development, social dynamism, public administration and other such aspects. The Journal would therefore cover both theoretical & empirical studies and working papers.

The thematic areas which the Journal deems fundamental are:

• Land related issues like land management and administration, and other land policy aspects.
• Rural studies encompassing rural development, management, democratization, governance, rural industrialization, rural physical and social infrastructure, etc.
• Agriculture.

Journal Content

Special Article shall ordinarily be essays, think pieces on an issue or a subject of interest to researchers and scholars. Such idea-based articles by their very nature cut across different areas and disciplines. These pieces will be featured as and when the Editors receive suitable ones. The word limit for the Special Article is set to 7000–8000 words.

Articles relevant to the thematic areas of the Journal should be around 4000–5000 words. These are based on empirical evidence which help define an area of study relevant and related to land and rural studies, critically evaluate previous theory and research, and advance cumulative knowledge in the field.

Policy Briefs and Updates cover significant policy debates, changes and updates on policies in areas of rural development and should range from 2000–3000 words.

Working Papers cover current research on land and rural aspects. These should be around 2000 words.

Book Reviews cover reviews of current and relevant books on land and rural studies. Book reviews should be around 800–1500 words.

Notes and Comments. This section shall report on retrospections, reflections, subjects relevant to the understanding of the rural phenomena. Notes and Comments are expected to be short and not exceed 500 words.

Guidelines for Authors

1. Submissions should be original contributions and should not be under consideration by any other publication.
    
2. Journal of Land and Rural Studies adheres to a rigorous double-blind reviewing policy in which the identity of both the reviewer and author are always concealed from both parties.
    
3. Copyright of articles will be assigned to Journal of Land and Rural Studies. Contributors will receive a Copyright Assignment Form prior to publication, and are responsible for appropriate acknowledgement of sources used in the text, as well as for obtaining permission to reproduce material to which they do not own copyright.
    
4. Manuscripts should be submitted to the editors by email attachment in Word for Windows. All submissions must include an abstract of 150 words maximum, as well as five keywords for thematic indexing. On a separate page, authors must include their full name, current affiliation, contact information and postal details. All documents should be scanned for viruses prior to sending. All manuscripts and editorial correspondence should be addressed to The Editors, Journal of Land and Rural Studies (JRS) to the email: crs.lbsnaa@nic.in
    
5. All manuscripts, in order to be anonymously reviewed, should include a separate title page with author’s names and affiliations, and these should not appear elsewhere in the manuscript. Footnotes that identify the authors should be typed on a separate page. Authors should make every effort to ensure that the manuscript contains no clues to their identities.
    
6. In case there are two or more authors, the corresponding author’s name and contact details should be clearly indicated on the first page.
    
7. Endnotes should be short and kept to a minimum, using the endnote function of your word processor.
    
8. British spellings throughout; universal ‘s’ in ‘-ise’, ‘-isation’ words.
    
9. Use single quotes throughout. Double quotes only to be used within single quotes. Spellings of words in quotations should not be changed. Quotations of 45 words or more should be separated from the text and indented with one space with a line space above and below.
    
10. Use ‘19th century’, ‘1980s’. Spell out numbers from one to nine, 10 and above to remain in figures. However, for exact measurements, use only figures (3 km, 9 per cent, not %). Use thousands and millions, not lakhs and crores. Avoid saying ‘recently’ but rather give the year.
     
11. Use of italics and diacriticals should be minimised, but used consistently. Use italics only for the first time the word or phrase is used. Do not italicize abbreviations like etc., et al., and ibid. An exception is sic, which should be italicized and placed in square brackets.
     
12. Tables and figures to be indicated by number separately (see Table 1), not by placement (see Table below). Present each table and figure on a separate sheet of paper, gathering them together at the end of the article. All figures and tables should be cited in the text. Source for figures and tables should be mentioned irrespective of whether or not they require permissions.
     
13. All photographs and scanned images should have a resolution of minimum 300 dpi/1500 pixels and their format should be TIFF or JPEG. 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 endeavor). All photographs/scanned images should be provided separately.
     
14. A consolidated listing of all books, articles, essays, theses and documents referred to (including any referred to in the tables, graphs and maps) should be provided at the end of the article.
     
15. Arrangement of references: Reference list entries should be alphabetised by the last name of the first author of each work. In each reference, authors’ names are inverted (last name first) for all authors (first, second or subsequent ones); give the last name and initials for all authors of a particular work unless the work has more than six authors. If the work has more than six authors, list the first six authors and then use et al. after the sixth author’s name.
    a) Chronological listing: If more than one work by the same author(s) is cited, they should be listed in order by the year of publication, starting with the earliest.
    b) Sentence case: In references, sentence case (only the first word and any proper noun are capitalized – e.g., ‘The software industry in India’) is to be followed for the titles of papers, books, articles, etc.
    c) Title case: In references, Journal titles are put in title case (first letter of all words except articles and conjunctions are capitalized – e.g., Journal of Business Ethics).
    d) Italicize: Book and Journal titles are to be italicized.
     
16. Citations and References should adhere to the guidelines below (based on the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 6th edition). Some examples are given below:

(a) In text citations:
One work by one author: (Kessler, 2003, p. 50) or ‘Kessler (2003) found that among the epidemiological samples..’.
One work by two authors: (Joreskog & Sorborn, 2007, pp. 50–66) or Joreskog and Sorborn (2007) found that..
One work by three or more authors: (Basu, Banerji & Chatterjee, 2007) [first instance]; Basu et al. (2007) [Second instance onwards].
Groups or organizations or universities: (University of Pittsburgh, 2007) or University of Pittsburgh (2007).
Authors with same surname: Include the initials in all the in-text citations even if the year of publication differs, e.g., (I. Light, 2006; M.A. Light, 2008).
Works with no identified author or anonymous author: Cite the first few words of the reference entry (title) and then the year, e.g., (‘Study finds’, 2007); (Anonymous, 1998).
If abbreviations are provided, then the style to be followed is: (National Institute of Mental Health [NIMH], 2003) in the first citation and (NIMH, 2003) in subsequent citations.

• Two or more works by same author: (Gogel, 1990, 2006, in press)
• Two or more works with different authors: (Gogel, 1996; Miller, 1999)
• Secondary sources: Allport's diary (as cited in Nicholson, 2003).

(b) Books:
Patnaik, Utsa (2007). The republic of hunger. New Delhi: Three Essays Collective.

(c) Edited Books:
Amanor, Kojo S., & Moyo, S. (Eds) (2008). Land and sustainable development in Africa. London and New York: Zed Books.

(d) Translated books:
Amin, S. (1976). Unequal development (trans. B. Pearce). London and New York: Monthly Review Press.

(e) Book chapters:
Chachra, S. (2011). The national question in India. In S. Moyo and P. Yeros (Eds), Reclaiming the nation. (pp. 67–78). London and New York: Pluto Press.

(f) Journal articles:
Foster, J.B. (2010). The financialization of accumulation. Monthly Review, 62(5), 1-17. doi: 10.1037/0278-6133.24.2.225 [Doi number optional]

(g) Newsletter article, no author:
Six sites meet for comprehensive anti-gang initiative conference. (2006, November/December). OOJDP News @ a Glance. Retrieved from http://www.ncrjs.gov/html

(h) Newspaper article:
Schwartz, J. (1993, September 30). Obesity affects economic, social status. The Washington Post, pp. A1, A4.

(i) In-press article:
Briscoe, R. (in press). Egocentric spatial representation in action and perception. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. Retrieved from http://cogprints.org/5780/1/ECSRAP.F07.pdf

(j) Non-English reference book, title translated into English:
Real Academia Espanola. (2001). Diccionario de la lengua espanola [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (22nd ed.). Madrid, Spain: Author.

(h) Special issue or section in a journal:
Haney, C., & Wiener, R.L. (Eds) (2004). Capital punishment in the United States [Special Issue]. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 10(4), 1-17.

1. Book reviews must contain name of author/editor and book reviewed, place of publication and publisher, year of publication, number of pages and price.
    
2. Authors will receive a PDF/e-print of their article and one copy of the journal issue in which the author’s article appears.

Copyright

Submission is a representation that the manuscript has not been published previously and is not currently under consideration for publication elsewhere. A statement transferring copyright from the authors (or their employers, if they hold the copyright) to the Editor will be required before the manuscript is accepted for publication. The Journal of Land and Rural Studies will supply the necessary forms for this transfer.

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