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Journal Article Submission Guidelines

Submissions are accepted both from members and non-members of the Police History Society. We very much look forward to receiving your articles. Please bear in mind though that if you submit as a non-member, you will only receive a digital copy of your article as a proof. You will not have access to the full Journal. Please consider becoming a member if you are not already.

 

Length and style

  • Journal articles are requested to be no more than around 5000 words in length and a minimum of 1000. Exceptions above 5000 will be made in the event of particularly insightful or well-researched articles. Please contact the editor if you are considering submission of a longer piece.

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  • Please ensure all submissions are done via Microsoft Word documents and not pdf files.

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  • We welcome both academically written articles and personal accounts or recollections. Both of these contribute meaningfully to the study and recording of police history, which we see as the primary function of the Journal.

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  • If you wish to submit an academic essay with references, we prefer the use of footnote Harvard referencing, but if that's not something you are familiar with, the editor can adjust it for you as long as it is clear what the source relates to.

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  • Dates are represented as "1st January 2000"

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  • Numbers up to and including one hundred are to be typed in full. Anything 101 and over can be represented numerically.

 

  • Referencing Examples

    • Books:

      • First Instance: Andrews, Tom (2020) The Greatest Policeman? A Biography of Capt Athelstan Popkess CBE OStJ London: Blue Lamp Books p.1

      • Subsequent instances: Andrews The Greatest Policeman p.1

    • Journal Articles:

      • First instance: Andrews, Tom and Haunschild, Michael 'Cops and Clobbers: An Attempted "knock-out for politics" between inter-war Britain and Germany' Journal of the Police History Society 37(1) pp. 3 - 16

      • Subsequent instances: Andrews & Haunschild 'Cops and Clobbers' p. 3 - 16

    • Newspapers:

      • Nottingham Evening Post 7th November 1935 p. 8

    • Archives:

      • First instance: The National Archives (TNA) HO 45/24711 Appointment for Chief Constable: Form of Application Capt Athelstan Popkess

      • Subsequent instances: TNA HO/24711

 

​Images

  • We are particularly grateful if there are pictures that accompany your submission, but please be aware that due to formatting and amendments to ensure consistency throughout the Journal, these may not appear in exactly the same place and size they do in your original submission. Our best recommendation is to put all the images at the conclusion of the text and put (parenthesis) in the text where you would ideally like the pictures to be placed.

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  • For cost reasons, all images inside the Journal will be in greyscale (black & white). Images of particular importance can be included on the inside covers, but these are at the editor's discretion.

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Pen Picture

  • If submitting an article, please can you include a short (2 - 3 sentences roughly) pen picture of yourself to include at the end of the piece.

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Review Policy

  • This is not a peer-reviewed Journal but is subject to Editorial review. Articles may or may not be included at the Editor's discretion. Reasons for non-acceptance can include, but are not limited to:

    • Under-length or over-length. In the first instance a referral is usually made to our newsletter editor with a view to inclusion in that. If i the Editor's opinion the submission is over-length negotiations will often be entered into for a revised (shorter) submission.

    • The article relates to a subject already in general knowledge, or the subject of pre-existing publications in which the article's content is broadly or exclusively already covered.

    • Articles are vague, lacking detail or make conclusions that do not appear based on their content, are factually incorrect or misleading.

    • Articles subject to political, cultural or other bias. Articles should be from a neutral standpoint and if covering a potentially controversial topic, make that clear.

  • The Editor's decision on inclusion is final, but representations can be made to the Chair or Vice-chair of the Society in the event of disgareement.

  • In any instance of rejection, the reasons will be provided by return of e-mail.

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Publication

  • The Journal is published on a yearly basis, currently around November / December to co-incide with our annual conference

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  • All Journals are distributed to our membership physically and/or electronically. Issues are also held by the legal deposit libraries and National Archives Library. We cannot be accountable for subsequent onward distribution of Journals in either medium.

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  • After a period of 5 years membership exclusivity, all Journals are made publicly available on our website, open access. This is in accordance with our aims and objectives of the furtherance and knowledge exchange in the subject of policing history.

 

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