Submissions

Author Guidelines

Malala International Journal of the Middle East and Muslim World is a plural periodical publication open to all who have original works, directly about or in dialogue with Islam and the Muslim World.

In this space, we seek analyses and debates related to developments in the Middle East in its most general sense (which may also include North Africa). As for the Muslim world, we also seek a broader understanding of meaning – including not only the majority Muslim societies in Asia and Africa, but also their non-Muslim minorities – as well as Muslim minorities in Europe, the Americas and elsewhere – and their interaction with the West. We also seek contributions on religion itself and/or concerning theoretical issues that fit within our orbit.

Malala Journal is an annual publication that receives contributions in Portuguese, English and Spanish. Sometimes containing calls for thematic publications and dossiers. Texts must be submitted in Word format through the Journal's OJS portal  according to the schedule defined by the calls.

Contributions may be in different formats: essays, seeking reflections and impressions of a broader scope with reflections and results of more mature research; articles, with reflections in an academic format, presenting results of ongoing or completed research; book and film reviews that contribute to the contemporary debate on the Middle East and the Muslim world; field reports aimed at researchers who have recently been to the Middle East or to a country where the theme of Islam or Muslim presence is prominent.  We also welcome opinion texts or debates in which an argumentative defense is expected in the face of a theme or issue of contemporary debate, respecting the respectful academic language of debate. Finally, specialists or scholars of a specific author whose work dialogues with or fits into the theme of the journal may also propose an intellectual portrait, briefly presenting the author's trajectory, his main concepts, intellectual dilemmas and developments of his reflections. Exclusive interviews and thesis chapters are also welcomed.

All proposals will be initially evaluated by the journal's editorial board through desk review. Articles and essays will necessarily be reviewed by independent reviewers who are experts in the field of the text, with high academic qualifications (Double blind peer review). Under this system, files are evaluated both without the author being identified by the reviewer and without the reviewer being identified by the author. Other types of submitted texts are evaluated blindly, but not double-blindly.

No fees will be charged at any time during the process of submitting papers and publishing the journal. There will also be no financial compensation of any nature to authors for submission.

Please adhere to the following limits for your texts:

• Articles - minimum 20 pages and maximum 25 pages (with references) or maximum 7500 words.
• Essays - minimum 20 pages and maximum 25 pages (with references) or maximum 7500 words.
• Thesis or dissertation chapter - minimum 20 pages or maximum 30 pages (with references) or maximum 8500 words.
• Intellectual profile - minimum 10 pages and maximum 15 pages (with references) or maximum 3500 words.
• Field reports or research - minimum 10 pages and maximum 15 pages (with references) or maximum 3500 words.
• Reviews (books and films) - minimum 10 pages and maximum 15 pages (with references) or maximum 3500 words.
• Opinion texts or debates – minimum 10 pages and maximum 15 pages (with references) or 3500 words.

Authors must strictly follow the following formatting for submitted texts, otherwise they may be returned before being evaluated.

Abstract (articles, essays and research reports):

Without citations, with a maximum of 700 characters, with space and at the beginning of the text, containing up to 5 keywords.

Titles (with or without subtitles) and keywords must also be in English.

Font

Cambria (all text).

title (with or without subtitle) 16, in small caps aligned to the right and in bold.

Subtitles 14 (right-aligned, bold).

Body text 12.

Footnotes, size 10.

Paragraph

Line spacing 1.5. 0pt before and 10pt after. Justified.

First line, 1.25 in the body of the text.

Footnote, single spaced and justified.

Attention: formatted with the Word tool. This formatting should not be done by hand or by tabs, as it distorts the text when it is finished and makes it difficult to correct paragraphs.

Author's name and biography

In the case of co-authored texts, regarding the order in which the authors are mentioned, Malala Journal is guided by the need to ensure equality between authors. In this sense, the journal strongly recommends that alphabetical order be adopted.

Nevertheless, Malala Journal understands that publications are autonomous in the decision to define the order of authorship, as long as this decision is expressed to the Journal up until the review stage.

Aligned to the right, spaced 14, with a footnote containing a brief biography for each author, with a maximum of 350 characters without spaces.

The biography must include the author's education and areas of interest, affiliation/institution where the research was developed, as well as ORCID ID, Link to the Lattes Platform and email for contact.

Quotations and citations

Less than 3 lines: in the text, in italics and accompanied by the reference.

With more than 3 lines: 4cm indent, no first line, single space, no initial or final marking and font 10 and accompanied by the appropriate reference e.g. (J. Silva, 2009: 23) or (Silva, 2009: 23).

If the author is cited for the first time, the first name must necessarily appear (abbreviated or not): e.g. João Silva (2009: 23) or (João Silva, 2009:23) or (J. Silva, 2009: 23) and on other occasions cited, it can be just the surname (Silva, 2009:23).

All citations must necessarily have the corresponding pages, if there is no pagination, indicate according to “online” or “s.p.”, exs: (João Silva, 2009: 23) or (Silva, 2009: 23) or João Silva (2009: 23) and (J. Silva, 2009: online) or (Silva, 2009: s.p.)

Attention: notes should be in the footnotes and not at the end of the text. Of an explanatory and/or complementary nature to the text.

When there is an author citation in the body of the footnote, use the same format as the body of the text, for example: Iran and Israel lose a lot by not having stable relations (Silva, 2009: 23) or Iran and Israel lose a lot by not having stable relations (João Silva. 2009: 23).

In the footer, citations from videos and online newspapers must be followed by the corresponding link and the last access indication.

If a newspaper or video or online material is cited in the body of the text, a footnote should be opened to indicate the link and the last access.

Attention: before submitting your text, check that all corresponding pages are cited correctly and that the cited links are correct and can be accessed normally.

References

At the end of the text, only the references mentioned throughout the text should be listed, in alphabetical order, and with all corresponding information. It is highly desirable to include the DOI, ISSN or ISBN number.

ATTENTION: check that all references cited throughout the text are included in the list at the end of the text. Do not cite any references not used throughout the text.

Follow these guidelines:

Cambia font size 12, single spacing (0pt before and 12pt after) justified. All references must include the author's surname (in capital letters) and first name in full (without abbreviations), the title and subtitle of the work (italics, if it is a complete work and in quotation marks if it is an article), the place and year of publication.

If the reference does not contain a place of publication, indicate it with (s.i.) and if it does not contain a year or date of publication, indicate it with (s.d.).

Examples:

[full book] SAID, Edward W. Fora do Lugar: Memórias. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2004.

[article] ASHLEY, Richard K. & WALKER, R. B. J. “Speaking the Language of Exile: Dissident Thought in International Studies”. International Studies Quarterly, v. 34, n. 3, Sep 1990.

[online newspaper article] SAID, Edward W. “The Clash of Ignorance. The Nation”. Nova Iorque: out., v. 273, n. 12, p. 11-14. 2001. Available at: http://www.thenation.com/article/clash-ignorance/ . Accessed: July 27, 2015.

[book chapter] GÖLE, Nilufer. “The quest for Islamic self within the context of modernity”. In BOZDOGAN, Sibel and KASABA, Resat. Rethinking modernity and national identity in Turkey. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1997, pp. 81-94.

[dossier] LAWYERS COMMITTEE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS. Islam & Equality. Debating the future of women’s and minority rights in the Middle East and North Africa. 1999.

[thesis and dissertation] VENCHI, Mariane. A sedução interrompida – sexualidade e poder em narrativas árabe-muçulmanas sobre a circuncisão feminina. Master's dissertation, Unicamp, 2008

Attention: before submitting your text, check that all citations in the body of the text have their corresponding complete references at the end of the text.

Filling in the metadata

Correctly filling in the submission and author metadata fields is of fundamental importance for data collection and indexing of contributions. For this reason, authors must pay special attention when filling in the following fields:

• Article title: fill in not only the title in Portuguese, but also the titles in other languages, always in accordance with the information contained in the article. Do not use any punctuation at the end of the title, even if there is a subtitle. Use capital letters only for proper nouns and the word that begins the title.
• Fill in the title and subtitle in the Title field. Do not use the subtitle field, as this information is lost when the DOI is activated. Example of a correct title: Social life: a case study. If there is any update to the article title during the editorial process, the author must also update the title metadata on the platform.
• Article summary: fill out not only the summary in Portuguese, but also the summaries in other languages, always in accordance with the information contained in the article. If there is any update to the summary present in the article during the editorial process, the author must also update the summary metadata on the platform.
• Article summary: avoid using italics or bold in the Resumo, Abstract or Resumen
• Author and Co-author (also called Contributors): the Name field must contain the first name and middle name(s) when applicable, while the Last name field must contain only the last name, except in compound surnames such as Souza Junior and Spanish surnames. So, here's a tip: do not fill in "da Silva", because the surname is just Silva.
• Author and Co-author: use upper and lower case letters to identify authors. Ex. Antonio Carlos Souza
• Author and Co-author: ensure that authors are correctly identified in relation to their country, institutional affiliation (full name of the institution to which they are linked) and that the link to ORCiD is filled in, which is mandatory for any submission. Crossref DOI does not accept authorship titles that use corporate names, it only accepts the first and last names of the author(s).
• Author and Co-author: you cannot use the expression in memorian after the author's surname. It causes an error in the DOI (Crossref). Do not use the expression in memorian
• Author and Co-author: the surname cannot be abbreviated. Ex: Silva Jr. > Jr. cannot be used. It must be Silva Junior. 
• Author's Affiliation/Institution: Do not use acronyms. Do not translate into other languages, as proper names should not be translated. Always write the name in full, from largest to smallest. Use upper and lower case letters to identify the affiliation.

Ex. Universidade de São Paulo. Instituto de Arquitetura e Urbanismo

Ex. Universidade de São Paulo. Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas

Ex. Universidade de São Paulo. Escola de Comunicações e Artes

Ex. Universidade Estadual Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho

Ex. Faculdade Cásper Líbero

• Author’s Affiliation/Institution – Never use the author’s activity or degree in the affiliation field
• Author's Affiliation/Institution - If the author has no affiliation with any institution or company, fill in the Affiliation field with the following sentence: No affiliation record
• Biography: this field, located immediately after the affiliation/institution field, is intended to present information about the authors' titles and activities, contact details, as long as they are mentioned in the article.
• Keywords: fill in the keywords one by one, not only in Portuguese, but also in other languages, always in accordance with the information contained in the article.
• Keywords: after each keyword entered press Enter. Do not copy and paste all the words at once, as this will hinder the retrieval of the content by Internet search engines.
• Funding: always consult the Article to retrieve and fill in funding metadata, including, in addition to the name of the Agency, the funding number, if this information exists.
• Funding Agency: The ‘Funding Data’ Plugin captures data directly from FunRef CrossRef. Ex. Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo. http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100001807
• Development/Financing Agency: do not translate into other languages, as proper names should not be translated.
• References: add the list of References in the appropriate field in the article's metadata.
• References: do not use dashes when there is repetition of authors. We remind you that ABNT NBR 6023 References was published in November 2018 and abolished the use of dashes when there is repetition of authorship. It is necessary to repeat the surname and name of the author(s) whenever there is more than one reference by the same author(s).
• References: review each Reference, making sure that it contains the correct authorship and correct links. DOI names should be inserted whenever possible in the form of an active link. Ex: https://doi.org/10.18535/ijsrm/v8i07.el01
• References: Include each reference on a new line so that it can be extracted.
• Reference with DOI link

Ex. Soleimani N, Mohabati Mobarez A, Farhangi B. Cloning, expression and purification flagellar sheath adhesion of Helicobacter pylori in Escherichia coli host as a vaccination target. Clin Exp Vaccine Res. 2016 Jan;5(1):19-25. https://doi.org/10.7774/cevr.2016.5.1.19

Copyright and Plagiarism Policy: Authors may hold copyright without restriction if they grant the journal the right of first publication, with the work simultaneously licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License. Malala Journal is committed to the ethics and quality of its publications; plagiarism or any other unethical behavior is unacceptable. For detailed information on our intellectual property, copyright, and ethics standards, please visit: http://www.revistas.usp.br/malala/about

Disclaimer:

The deadline for evaluating texts submitted to Malala Journal depends on the reviewers appointed to review them, but it takes around 8 months in total. Authors should be aware that texts accepted for publication may be published in the year of submission or in the following year's edition. Texts may be accepted without changes, accepted with mandatory changes, requested to be reformulated and resubmitted by Malala Journal reviewers, and the authors will be duly notified of the editorial decision. If the reviewers accept the texts without reservations, they will go directly to the final evaluation phase, which will decide whether or not to publish the text. If the text is accepted with changes, the authors will be invited to revise the text, assessing the suggestions presented and submitting it, which will be evaluated again by the reviewers and editors in the final evaluation phase. If the author does not submit the revised version, the original text will still proceed to the final evaluation phase.

Contributions must be unpublished and, once submitted, the text will be evaluated by the editorial board during the different stages of the review process. The text will only be made available for publication after the review process is complete. Otherwise, if the text is rejected by the board, the author will be free to submit it to other journals and publication sites. If the original text is still being evaluated by the editorial board and at any stage of the review process, it may not be submitted by the author to another journal or publication site, under penalty of being subject to copyright proceedings. Once submitted, the prerogative to publish the texts or not lies solely with the Journal, and no longer with the authors of the text.

If you have any questions, please contact our editorial committee via email at malala@usp.br