Submissions

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, URLs for the references have been provided.
• The text is single-spaced; uses a 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.
• The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines.

Author Guidelines

Author Guidelines for Auto/Biography Review

Manuscript Format

File Format:

• Submit in Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx) format.

Length:

• Maximum 8,000 words, including references, notes, figures, and tables.

• Include the final word count at the end of the manuscript.

Font and Layout:

• Use Times New Roman for the main text.

• Use Calibri for the abstract.

• No paragraph indents; use a hard return to start a new paragraph.

• Single spacing, using UK English spelling.

Manuscript Structure

1. Title

• Centred and informative.

2. Abstract

• Maximum 250 words.

• Use Calibri font.

• Provide a summary of the article’s focus, approach, and key contributions.

3. Keywords

• 4 to 6 keywords, all lower case (except proper nouns).

• Separate with semicolons.

4. Headings

• Use the following structure:

  • Heading 1: Main section titles

  • Heading 2: Subsections

  • Heading 3: Sub-subsections (in sentence case)

5. Quotations

• Use block quotes for quotations longer than 40 words.

• Shorter quotes should be embedded in-text with quotation marks.

6. Notes

• Add under a section titled Notes, before the References.

• Use manually superscripted numbers in-text.

• Do not use Word’s automatic footnote/endnote features.

7. References
Follow the BSA House Style:

• Books
  Briggs A (1961) Social Thought and Social Action: A study of the work of Seebohm Rowntree, 1871–1954. London: Longmans.

• Book Chapters
  Cook M (2014) Sexual Revolution(s) in Britain. In: Hemka G and Giami A (eds) Sexual Revolutions. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp.121–140.

• Journal Articles
  Snape R and Pussard H (2013) Theorisations of leisure in inter-war Britain. Leisure Studies 32(1): 1–18.

8. Figures

• Clearly label: Figure 1, Figure 2, etc.

• Include source and permission details (e.g. "Photo by Author", "Courtesy of Museum Archive", or "https://link [accessed June 2025]").

• Authors are responsible for obtaining necessary permissions to reproduce any images or third-party materials.

9. Acknowledgements

• Do not include any identifying information before peer review if possible

10. Funding

• State any funding received or used: “The authors did not receive any funding for this piece.”

Submission and Peer Review

• All submissions undergo double-anonymised peer review, where possible

• Do not include author-identifying details in the manuscript if possible/applicable

Ethics and Permissions

• Authors must ensure all research is ethically conducted.

• Include ethical approval statements for studies involving human participants, where applicable.

• Ensure permission is granted for all images and copyrighted materials.

Copyright Notice

Copyright Notice and Publishing License Agreement

As part of the submission process to Auto/Biography Review, authors are required to agree to the following terms:

Publishing Licenses

We offer a choice of Creative Commons licenses to support open access and academic sharing. Authors must select one of the following options upon acceptance:

a. CC BY 4.0 (Attribution)
This license permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon your work—even commercially—provided they give appropriate credit and indicate if changes were made.

b. CC BY-NC 4.0 (Attribution-NonCommercial)
Recommended License
This license allows others to reuse and adapt your work for non-commercial purposes, with appropriate credit and disclosure of changes. This is the most commonly selected option.

c. CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives)
This license allows others to download and share your work for non-commercial purposes, as long as they credit you, but they cannot change the work in any way or use it commercially.

Please ensure that all images, figures, or third-party content included in your submission are compatible with your chosen license and that permission has been obtained where necessary.

Copyright Retention

Authors retain full copyright of their work. By submitting to Auto/Biography Review, you grant first publication rights to BSA Publications Ltd, the trading arm of the British Sociological Association.

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