Submission Information and Guidelines for Authors

Download pdf of Guidelines

Southern Jewish History is an annual publication of the Southern Jewish Historical Society. As a refereed journal, the editor and two peer reviewers will review all manuscripts. Not all papers delivered at conferences, receiving grants, or otherwise submitted will be accepted, and typically authors are asked to revise their work.

Only original articles will be accepted. Previously published articles will not be considered for publication in the journal. If the article or substantive portions of it appear on the Internet, that is considered prior publication. Do not submit articles currently being considered by another publication.

Southern Jewish History publishes articles that reflect original research, creative methodologies and interpretations, and historiography. Memoirs and other primary sources suitably introduced and annotated will also be considered and should be submitted to the Primary Sources section editor. Autobiography/ memoir suitably introduced and annotated should be submitted to the Autobiography/Memoir section editor.

Authors should prepare and submit articles via email attachment in MS Word format (.docx) for Windows or Mac. The author's name, contact information, and affiliation should not appear on the article but should be included separately. Although articles may be submitted throughout the year, it is preferable that they be received by March 1 to be considered for publication in the forthcoming volume. If the article is accepted, the managing editor will work with the author to select and obtain illustrations. These should not be submitted with the article except in unusual circumstances—for an article on architecture, for example. Even in these cases, illustrations should not be embedded in the manuscript but rather submitted on separate pages. Only images that are properly credited will be used, and permission for their use must be secured by the author. The placement of illustrations in the text will be determined by the managing editor in final page design.

All submissions and inquiries should be forwarded to:

Dr. Mark Bauman, Editor
Southern Jewish History
6856 Flagstone Way
Flowery Branch, GA 30542
Phone: 678-828-7484 (h), 678 428-3622 (c)
[email protected]

Journal Style and Reference Works

  1. The style used by Southern Jewish History is based on the Chicago Manual of Style (CMS), 16th edition. For spelling and word usage, the journal uses Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (WCD), 11th edition; Merriam Webster’s Geographical Dictionary, 3rd edition; and Joyce Eisenberg and Ellen Scolnic, Dictionary of Jewish Words (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2006).
  2. Endnote formatting follows CMS. (See examples below.) A quick and useful citation guide can be found at www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html.
  3. If a foreign word appears as a regular entry in WCD, it is not italicized. Foreign terms that are not in WCD should be translated. Hebrew, Yiddish, and other Jewish-related words should be defined, although the definitions for these words will be moved to a journal glossary compiled by the editors.
  4. Capitalization should be kept to a minimum. (E.g. gentile, civil rights movement)
    1. Titles should be lower case except when the individual's name is used (the president; President Roosevelt; the rabbi; Rabbi Cohen; college professor David Jones, Professor David Jones).
    2. Organizational names should be capitalized when they are the formal title but not when used generically (the Women of Reform Judaism, the sisterhood).
    3. As common practice evolves, SJH leaves it to the discretion of our contributors whether or not to capitalize black/Black and white/White when referring to people and ethnic identities.
  5. Numbers and dates should conform to the following guidelines.
    1. Whole numbers from one through ninety-nine should be spelled out, as are any of these followed by hundred, thousand, million, etc. For others use numerals. (5,234, 101 Dalmatians, one thousand attended.)
    2. Except always use numerals with percent.
    3. In year spans, use four digits and separate them with an en-dash, not a hyphen (1935–1945, not 1935-45.) Decades are expressed either as the 1920s or the twenties, not the 1920’s, the’60s, the 60s, or the 60’s. 
    4. Dates should show full month, day (as number only), and year and should not conclude numbers with ordinal suffixes, th, nd, or st (March 12, 1997, not March 12th, 1997 or March 12th, 1997).
    5. Monetary amounts below one dollar should be spelled out (forty-two cents) as should round dollar amounts (one hundred dollars), but use numerals for odd amounts ($5.24, $163, $1,225,623).
    6. Time of day should be in numerals with abbreviations in small caps (2 p.m., 3:45 a.m.).
  6. Other usages
    1. Use serial commas before “and” and other conjunctions (red, white, and blue).
    2. Do not hyphenate ethnic groups (African American, Jewish American women), even when used as an adjective.
    3. The words “antisemite” and “antisemitism” are not hyphenated, and the “s” is lower case.
    4. Birth-death dates in parentheses may only be used for the major subject(s) of the article and only if these dates cannot be otherwise worked into the text.

Preparation of Text

  1. All text should be double-spaced, including quotations and citations. Use 12-point, Times New Roman font.
  2. Length is typically 7,500 to 10,000 words (excluding citations), although longer articles may be considered and even requested by the editor. The important consideration is completeness of coverage and analysis.
  3. Quoted text running four or more lines should be indented.
  4. Citations should appear as endnotes. Endnote numbers should be in Arabic and not roman numbers (1, 2, 3, not i, ii, iii), and fonts should be in the same size as the main text.
  5. Endnotes should be autogenerated and not manually numbered.
  6. Subheads are required, however no subhead is used at the top of the article. Subheads should be in italics, on a separate line, flush left, and in title case – not all caps.
  7. All pages including endnotes should be numbered sequentially.
  8. The first line of new paragraphs should be indented. Extra lines should not be added between paragraphs or between endnotes.
  9. Use one space (not two) between sentences.
  10. Do not use fancy fonts or ornaments.
  11. Do not use hyphenation for word division at the end of lines. The editors will do this.
  12. Diacritical marks should be used as appropriate (for example, vis-à-vis).
  13. Use italics for book, newspaper, and journal titles.
  14. Margins should be one inch along all sides.
  15. Use tabs instead of spaces for indents.
  16. Quoted text should be presented as it originally appeared, even with errors, inconsistencies, or when contrary to journal style. In these instances, [sic] may be used. However, [sic] is not used for transcripts of primary sources.

Use of Websites as Secondary Sources

  1. It is acceptable to draw information from websites and other online sources, but authors should exercise caution and selectivity.
  2. If websites are used to establish fact, authors should make every reasonable effort to find the most authoritative web sources available. The editor reserves the right to discard material taken from unreliable or unverifiable web sources, or to ask authors to locate more reliable documentation to support their claims.
  3. Internet sources should be cited following CMS, including the date of access, as shown in examples 11 and 12 below.
  4. Blog entries or comments may be cited in running text (“In a comment posted to The Becker-Posner Blog on February 23, 2010, . . .”) or in a note. See example 12 below.
  5. Wikipedia, social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, and posts to online discussion boards are not acceptable as factual sources in scholarly citations. Any information located in such places must be corroborated elsewhere, with the more authoritative source used in the citation. Blogs and comments may be acceptable for citation if the blogger is a credible authority.

All articles accepted for publication will be edited for style.

End Note Format

  1. Eli Evans, The Provincials: A Personal History of Jews in the South (New York, 1973), 23.
  2. Ibid., 36–38.
  3. Leonard Dinnerstein and Mary Dale Palsson, eds., Jews in the South (Baton Rouge, 1973), 126–128; David Schwartz to Isaac Nussbaum, January 25, 1875, folder 5, Isaac Nussbaum Collection, Jacob Rader Marcus Center, American Jewish Archives (hereafter cited as AJA).
  4. Evans, Provincials, 188.
  5. John Scott, “Judaism in Louisiana,” New York Times, November 15, 1996; Robert Neufield to Isaac Nussbaum, March 5, 1901, folder 2, Nussbaum Collection.
  6. Stephen J. Whitfield, "The Braided Identity of Southern Jewry," American Jewish History 77 (March 1988): 363-379.
  7. Interview with Jack Schwartz conducted by Jane Adams, October 25, 1996; Whitfield, "Braided Identity," 366.
  8. Encyclopaedia Judaica, 5th ed., s.v. "Korn, Bertram W;” James K. Guttheim, “Judaism and Christianity,” sermon notes, May 2, 1861, folder 1, James K. Guttheim Papers, AJA.
  9. Marcia G. Synott, "Anti-Semitism and American Universities," in Anti-Semitism in American History, ed. David A. Gerber (Urbana, 1986): 76-85; Schwartz interview.
  10. Bobbie S. Malone, "'Standing Unswaying in the Storm': Rabbi Max Heller, Reform and Zionism in the American South, 1860–1929" (Ph.D. dissertation, Tulane University, 1994), 46-50.
  11. John James, "American Jewish History Reconsidered," accessed November 15, 2012, http://www.jj.history/~lib.htm
  12. Jack, February 25, 2010 (7:03 p.m.), comment on Richard Posner, “Double Exports in Five Years?,” The Becker-Posner Blog, February 21, 2010, http://uchicagolaw.typepad.com/beckerposner/2010/02/double-exports-in-fi...