Guidelines for Submission of Articles
The Editor invites submission of articles on the announced themes of forthcoming issues. Submissions will be acknowledged promptly and decisions communicated within six months of the receipt of the paper. Your name and institutional affiliation (with full mailing address and email) should appear on a separate sheet, plus a brief biographical profile of not more than six lines. The editor cannot undertake to return materials submitted, and contributors are advised to keep a copy of each material sent. Please note that all articles outside the announced themes cannot be considered or acknowledged. Articles should be submitted in the English Language.
Length: Articles should not exceed 5,000 words.
Format: Articles should be double-spaced, and should use the same type face and size all through. Italics are preferred to underlines for titles of books. Articles are reviewed blindly, so do not insert your name, institutional affiliation and contact information on the article itself. Instead, provide such information on a separate page.
Style: UK or US spellings are required, but be consistent. Direct quotations should retain the spellings used in the original source. Check the accuracy of citations and always give the author’s surname and page number in the text, and a full reference in the Works Cited list at the end of the article. Italicize titles of books or plays. Use single inverted commas throughout except for quotes within quotes which are double. Avoid subtitles or subsection headings within the text.
Citations: Limit your sources to the most recent, or the most important books and journals, in English. Cite works in foreign languages only when no English-language books are available. Cite websites only if they are relatively permanent and if they add important information unavailable elsewhere.
Citations should be based on the latest MLA style sheet. For in-text citations, the sequence in parentheses should be (Surname: page number). No year of publication should be reflected within the text. All details should be presented in the Works Cited list at the end of the article. Consistency is advised. Examples:
Cazenave, Odile. Rebellious Women: The New Generation of Female African Novelists. London: Lynne Reinner Publishers, 2000.
Duerden, Dennis. ‘The “Discovery” of the African Mask.’ Research in African Literatures. Vol. 31, No. 4 (Winter 2000): 29-47.
Ukala, Sam. ‘Tradition, Rotimi, and His Audience.’ Goatskin Bags and Wisdom: New Critical Perspectives on African Literature. Ed. Ernest N. Emenyonu. New Jersey: Africa World Press, 2000: 91-104.
Ensure that your works cited list is alphabetized on a word-by-word basis, whether citations begin with the author’s name or with an anonymous work’s title.
Please, avoid footnotes or endnotes.
Do not quote directly from the Internet without properly citing the source as you would when quoting from a book.
Use substantive sources for obtaining your information. Depend less on general reference books such as Encyclopedias, World Books, etc.
Copyright: It is the responsibility of contributors to clear permissions.
All articles should be sent to the Editor:
Ernest N. Emenyonu, African Literary Today
Department of Africana Studies
University of Michigan-Flint
303 East Kearsley Street
Flint MI 48502
USA
Email: eernest@umflint.edu
Fax: 001-810-766-6719
Reviewers should provide full bibliographic details, including the extent, ISBN and price, and submit to the Reviews Editor:
James Gibbs, 8 Victoria Square, Bristol BS8 4ET, UK