Submissions

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Submission Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.
  • The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
  • The submission file is in OpenOffice, Microsoft Word, or RTF document file format.
  • Where available, DOIs and/or URLs for the references have been provided.
  • The text uses a neutral 10- or 12-point font; employs italics, rather than underlining (except with URL addresses); and all illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text at the appropriate points, rather than at the end. All author information has been removed.
  • The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines.
  • The text uses gender-sensitive and inclusive language.
  • The submission, including translations of titles, abstract, and keywords, has been proof-read and edited.
  • You have considered adding an abstract in an indigenous African language.

Author Guidelines

Author Guidelines

Language Policy in Africa accepts manuscripts in English and French. All manuscripts are subject to double-blind peer-review and must be submitted via the journal’s online submission system. All submissions are first anonymized. They then go through an initial review in the editorial team. If accepted for peer review, each article is assessed by at least two anonymous peer reviewers. 

Style of the Text

  • The submission file is in .odt, .docx, or .doc document file format.
  • Block quotes of more than 40 words must be indented
  • Title: maximum title length is 90 characters, for subtitles 120 characters.
  • Headings: first order heading is in bold (use the same font as the body text), second order heading is italicized. Insert an empty line before a heading.
  • Footnotes are numbered consecutively, using Arabic numerals (not Roman numerals)
  • Images: 300 dpi
  • Referencing and Citation:  LPIA employs APA 7th edition style referencing.

Plagiarism 

LPIA places a strong emphasis on the importance of academic integrity and expects authors to thoroughly acknowledge the scholarly contributions of others. LPIA is committed to publishing only original material that has not already been published elsewhere. Any manuscript that raises concerns about plagiarism will be reviewed and cases of plagiarism will be sanctioned.

Conflict of Interests

Reviewers, authors and editors must disclose any and all possible financial or non-financial conflicts of interest regarding the manuscript. Please contact the journal editors with any questions.

Research Articles

Submissions should not exceed 8,000 words, including notes and references. The submission includes a title, an abstract that does not exceed 250 words, 4-6 keywords, and a word count of the main manuscript. We strongly encourage authors to add an abstract in an indigenous African language of their choice.

Revised manuscripts should include a cover note explaining point by point how the author has responded to reviewers’ comments.

Submission Procedure 

  1. Check your submission against the Submission Preparation Checklist shown above.
  2. Registration: If you have never submitted a manuscript to, or reviewed a manuscript for LPIA, you must first register using the Register button in the navigation panel.
  3. Login using the Login button on the navigation panel. If you have forgotten your username and/or your password, select "Forgot your password?" and enter your email address to receive this information. LPIA identifies you through your email address, so please refrain from using multiple email addresses.
  4. On the main page, select Edit my Profile. There you can select multiple roles, namely Reader (for receiving announcements), Author (for submitting manuscripts), and Reviewer (for reviewing other manuscripts). Make sure that the Author role is selected.
  5. On the main page, select New Submission: This will lead you through several pages for submitting a new manuscript. If you do not see [New Submission], check your profile to ensure you have selected Author as one of your roles.

Revisions

If requested by the editors, revised manuscripts and responses to reviewers must be submitted to LPIA.

Final Submission

After the manuscript has been accepted for publication, please submit an editable file containing the accepted final  manuscript. Please ensure that all references follow the APA (7th edition) style. 

 

Reviews

Book reviews should discuss recent and relevant publications that make important theoretical or empirical contributions to language issues in Africa as spelled out in LPIA’s vision/mission. They should not exceed 2000 words. 

Copyright Notice

The content is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0) that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.

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