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 author of the article is a person who has already graduated (exception: book reviews).
  • 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 Microsoft Word format, another current word processing format, or RTF.
  • The text is single-spaced and only has basic formatting (italic, underlined, bold). Illustrations, graphs and tables are included at appropriate locations in the text; illustrations and graphics are also submitted separately as JPG or TIFF.
  • The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines.
  • DOIs were added to the literature references (optional).

Author Guidelines

Thematic scope of submissions:

The Zeitschrift für Katalanistik / German Journal for Catalan Studies (ZfK) publishes original and innovative research papers on issues related to Catalan studies, with a focus on linguistic, literary, cultural and media studies, or which take into account elements of Catalan language, literature or culture in a comparative approach. Contributions which include aspects of Catalan vs. German languages, literatures or cultures are particularly welcome. With regard to the treated subjects and the applied concepts and theories, the submitted texts should be linked to current research questions and ongoing scientific debates, or should address new research questions or open new scientific discussions. Texts must be problem-oriented and go beyond the mere documentation of facts. Primarily documentary texts, such as bibliographical surveys or text editions, may exceptionally be submitted if they are acknowledged to be valuable resources for current or new research discussions. Exclusively essayistic and purely opinion-based texts are not receivable for publication.

 

Formal indications:

The ZfK accepts texts in all major Romance languages – preferably Catalan –, in German and in English. Before sending the manuscript, authors are requested to assure the completeness of scientific documentation and bib- liography as well as linguistic and stylistic exactness. If the text is written in a language that is not the author’s mother tongue, the author should get her / his text revised by a (near-)L1 speaker of that language before submitting it.

Contributions must be original texts written by the mentioned author(s). If for parts of a text Artificial Intelligence (AI) devices have been used (e.g. for AI-based translations), this must be clearly stated in the text.

Submitted texts (with abstract, bibliography and – if necessary – appendices; cf. below) should not exceed 60.000 signs (blanc spaces included). Every text must include, after its main title, a summary in English which gives brief information on the treated subject and the main findings of the reported research. The abstract must be followed by 5 to 10 key-words in English.

Articles have to be structured using the decimal system (1, 1.1, 1.2, 1.2.1, etc.). Should the paper contain illustrations, diagrams or tables, they have to be referred to within the text; therefore, all illustrations, diagrams and tables have to be numbered and given a short descriptive title. (For technical requirements of illustrations, diagrams and tables, cf. below.)

Quotes should be made in the original language. Translations of quotes are required only when the quotes are from other languages than the major Romance languages (Catalan, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish), German or English.

Examples quoted and discussed in linguistic contributions have to be set off from the running text, numbered (in parenthesis) and indented. They may be accompanied by aligned interlinear morphological glosses according to the Leipzig Glossing Rules. If the examples come from Romance languages other than Catalan, French, Italian, Portuguese or Spanish, from dialectal or non-standard varieties of Romance languages, from older periods of Romance languages, or from languages other than English and German, an idiomatic translation into the language of the article must be provided; this includes also examples from Latin.

The sources of quotes and indications of bibliographic references have to be stated in the main text using the so-called Harvard referencing style, i.e. they have to be given in the (Author name(s), year: page number(s)) system (e.g. (Badia i Margarit, 1995: 337)). Authors are asked to pay attention to the gaps and punctuation signs of this model.

Notes should be formatted as footnotes (no final notes) and should contain additional information, yet no bibliographic references or abbre- viations of titles. They should be limited in number and extension. Footnotes must not contain illustrations, diagrams and tables.

All the bibliographic references quoted or mentioned in the text figure in the bibliography at the end of the text. Authors are invited to carefully observe the following set-up models and examples for bibliography entries (concerning especially the spaces and punctuation signs):

Monographs or collective volumes:
Badia i Margarit, Antoni M. (1995): Gramàtica de la llengua catalana: descriptiva, normativa, diatòpica, diastràtica, Barcelona: Proa.
Wheeler, Max W. / Yates, Alan / Dols, Nicolau (1999): Catalan. A comprehensive grammar, London / New York: Routledge.

Turell, M. Teresa (ed.) (2001): Multilingualism in Spain. Sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic aspects of linguistic minority groups, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

Journal articles or contributions to collective volumes:

Schlieben-Lange, Brigitte (1996): «Der Torsimany und die scholastische Grammatik», Zeitschrift für Katalanistik 9, 7–19.

Pradilla, Miquel Àngel (2001): «The Catalan-speaking community», in: Turell, M. Teresa (ed.): Multilingualism in Spain. Sociolinguistic and psycholin- guistic aspects of linguistic minority groups, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 58–90.

The authors’ and editors’ complete first name must be stated compulsorily, as well as with both monographic publications and collective volumes the name of the publishing company; however stating any publication series (with volume number; after the book’s title in parenthesis) is optional, as is the indication of a DOI (Digital Object Identifier) if the reference has been consulted, or is available, in electronic form. If a DOI is mentioned, it should be given as in the following example:

Sunyer, Magí (2015): «L’11 de setembre en la literatura: Els símbols i els mites de la derrota», Estudis Romànics 40, 215–228, https://doi.org/10.2436/20.2500.01.243.

If translated research literature is used or quoted instead of the original version, the original’s title, place and year of publication have to be stated in the bibliography along with the translated edition; cf. the following example:

Dietrich, Wolf (1983): El aspecto verbal perifrástico en las lenguas románicas, Madrid: Gredos (original: Der periphrastische Verbalaspekt in den romanischen Sprachen, Tübingen, 1973).

If genuine sources from the Internet / WWW are quoted, different norms apply according to whether in the on-line source an author, editor or responsible person or institution is mentioned or not. If in the on-line resource an author / editor / responsible person or organization is mentioned, the reference of this resource appears among the regular references to printed (or print-replica) sources, with the DOI, if available, or otherwise indicating the WWW address (URL) and the date when the document was accessed for the last time; cf. the following example:

Institut d’Estudis Catalans (ed.) (s.a.): “Corpus Textual Informatitzat de la Llengua Catalana”, <http://www.ctilc.iec.cat> [15.10.2020].

If the on-line resource lacks the name of an author, editor or responsible person or institution, it is mentioned after the bibliographical references to printed (or print-replica) work, with its title (or, if there is no recognizable general title, with the title of the first paragraph), the on-line address (URL) and the date when it was last accessed, as in the following example:

“Joanot Martorell, Tirant lo Blanch, València 1490”, <http://www. tinet.org/bdt/tirant> [05.02.2008].

The languages’ specific punctuation rules in both the main text and the quotes should be (carefully) obeyed by. Typographic symbols like quota- tion marks, apostrophes (“ ”, « », ‘ ’) and medium-sized dashes should be used.

Additional data, diagrams and tables that cannot be accommodated within the main text may be placed in an appendix after the bibliography; however, appendices should only be included if absolutely necessary.

At the very end of the contribution, the author’s (or authors’) name(s), institutional postal address(es), (institutional) e-mail address(es), and ORCID identifier(s) (if available) must be mentioned. If the article was written by several co-authors, one of them may be identified as corresponding author.

The ZfK welcomes the use of inclusive language. If this is employed, a common model of inclusive language should be applied consistently throughout the text.

 

Technical indications:

Manuscripts should be sent in electronic format as an e-mail-attached common word-processing file (preferably .DOCX) to the editors of the ZfK at <zfk-team@rub.de>. Should a text include special signs or characters (phonetic symbols, alphabets from Central or Eastern Europe or non-Latin alphabets) or if it contains illustrations, diagrams or tables, an additional PDF version (with the special character sets embedded) should be forwarded.

Authors are requested to use only basic formatting features (italics, bold face, underlining). For typographic reasons, combining italic and bold character formatting in the same word must be avoided, as well as fine-grained formatting of the submitted manuscript (i. e. hyphenation, running head and foot lines, page numbers etc.; all this will be added in the layout process once the submitted text has been accepted).

If the text contains a large quantity of phonetic symbols, the phonetic transcriptions should be set in the TrueType font ‘SIL Doulous IPA 93’, which can be obtained, if necessary, from the journal’s editors. If the text contains words written in Greek, Cyrillic or other non-Latin alphabets, the author may be requested to detail and, if necessary, share the font s/he has used for setting these words.

Tables should be created with the word-processing program’s table tools and included with the text file. Connections with other programs via OLE e.g. by using spread-sheet programs like MS Excel must not be used. Due to the restrictions of the printed version of the ZfK, which is published in A5 format, tables should not exceed a width of 11.3 cm with a minimum of 9 pt character size. Exceptionally, tables may be 18 cm wide but will then be printed vertically; however, this option should only be used if absolutely unavoidable. Authors are invited to bear in mind these size restrictions when designing tables.

Illustrations and diagrams should not only be saved with the text-processing file, but forwarded separately as graphic files (preferably uncompressed JPEG or TIFF) in a resolution that is high enough to allow printing and optimal discernibility, with 300 dpi or higher being the best choice. For example, a graphic file for an illustration intended to cover the entire width of the printed page (i. e. 11.3 cm) can be optimally printed and viewed when it is at least 1200 pixels wide. Since the printed version of the ZfK allows no use of colors, illustrations and diagrams should also be discernible / readable when rendered in black and white. Authors are encouraged to forward illustrations and diagrams both in color (for on-line publication) and black-and-white / grey shades versions (for print publication). Illustrations intended to be published with an article must either be in the public domain, or the article’s author must be the owner of the copyright or provide permission for reproduction issued by the copyright-holder.

 

Indications concerning the reviewing and publishing process:

The reception of a paper submission will be confirmed within short time by e-mail. After this, the submitted text undergoes a peer-reviewing process that should not take more than four months. The text is first reviewed by the journal’s editors, who may ask one or more external specialist(s) in the respective field of study for additional reviews. The name(s) of the peer reviewer(s) is / are not communicated to the paper’s author. The result of the peer-reviewing process is then communicated to the author; if an article is accepted but does not comply with the technical and formal requirements mentioned here, the manuscript will be sent back to the author who is then invited to adapt it to this style-sheet.

Manuscripts submitted to the ZfK must not be submitted to other periodicals at the same time. If an author wishes to withdraw her/his submission, e. g. because s/he wants to submit it elsewhere, s/he is invited to immediately inform the ZfK’s editors at <zfk-team@rub.de> so that the reviewing process may be stopped.

Accepted manuscripts will be formatted according to the journal’s layout by the ZfK staff. The ZfK’s managing editor will then send out the galley proofs as an e-mail-attached PDF file. These proofs should be checked and corrected by directly annotating changes and comments in the PDF file (through the use of, e. g., the Adobe Reader program’s annotation and commentary tools). Exceptionally, corrected proofs may also be sent back in printed form by ordinary mail to the journal’s postal address.

The editors reserve the right to slightly modify the original text linguistically, stylistically and formally if such modifications turn out to be necessary for proper publication. However, the authors will be informed on such changes, when the galley proofs are sent to them.

Every individual author, or the corresponding author in the case of several co-authors, will receive a printed specimen copy of the ZfK volume in which her/his/their article is published. No offprints will be sent. In accordance with ZfK’s Platinum OpenAccess policy, publication of research articles in the ZfK is free for authors but will not be remunerated either. Authors are free to share articles they have published in the ZfK in repositories and on other scientific platforms.

Copyright Notice

OpenAccess and licensing policies:

ZfK pursues a Platinum OpenAccess policy under Creative Commons licenses. The default license attributed to articles published in the ZfK is CC BY-NC-ND, which includes the following elements to be respected by (re)users of the article: credit must be given to the author(s); only non-commercial uses of the work are permitted; no derivates or adaptations of the work are permitted. Authors of accepted articles may suggest alternative licenses for their work, as long as these are compatible with ZfK’s OpenAccess policy. For other license options see <https://creative commons.org/about/cclicenses>.

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