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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 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).

  • Authors are required to make sure submitted content does not infringe 3rd party copyright. More information from the Intellectual Property Office here: http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/copy.htm

  • The submission file is in Microsoft Word document file format.
  • Where available, URLs for the references have been provided.
  • The text is single-spaced; uses a 12-point font; employs italics, rather than underlining (except with URL addresses); and all illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text at the appropriate points, rather than at the end.
  • The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines, which is found in About the Journal.
  • If submitting to a peer-reviewed section of the journal, the instructions in Ensuring a Blind Review have been followed.

Author Guidelines

Please note that this journal has ceased publication; backfiles remain available here.

Please make sure that your work adheres to the following guidelines before submission. Only work that complies with these guidelines will be considered.

General Requirements:

1) Work must be original and unpublished.

2) Essays, book reviews, and original photographs are all eligible for submission as long as they adhere to the guidelines listed in this document.

3) Hydra publishes material of high academic quality. Academic work that received at least a 65 in the University marking scale is eligible for submission. In some cases, work that received a lower mark, but that has been substantially revised, may be considered on an individual basis. In this situation, please contact us via email [spshydra@exseed.ed.ac.uk] before submitting your work.

4) We welcome work from all fields in the social and political sciences, as well as related fields, such as law. Work that is interdisciplinary in nature and brings a unique approach to the subject matter will take priority in publishing.

Length and Formatting Requirements for written material:

1)Essays should be close to, but not exceed, 4,000 words (excluding the bibliography)

2)Book reviews should not exceed 1,000 words

3)All documents should be submitted in MS Word. Other formats will not be considered. (No PDFS)

Citations:

1)All submissions should utilize Harvard style referencing and should include both in-text citations and a reference list. Please follow the provided guidelines: http://www.citethemrightonline.com/Basics/sample-text-and-reference-list-using-the-harvard-style

2)All articles should be submitted using British English spelling.

3)All tables and images must be cited and used with permission, unless original.

Photography Requirements:

1)Original (or copyright free) photographs are welcome either in conjunction with a piece or as stand-alone submissions.

2)Any people who are recognizable in the photograph must have given the author permission to distribute the image

Copyright:

Authors grant Hydra the right to publish their work in the online journal. Authors retain the right to submit their work to other publications.

Copyright Notice

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

a. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 UK: Scotland license that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.

More information on Creative Commons here: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/scotland/

b. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

c. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).

Privacy Statement

The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.

The University and this journal adhere to the UK Data Protection Act 1988.

More information on Data protection: https://www.gov.uk/data-protection

The University’s privacy policy: https://www.ed.ac.uk/about/website/privacy/policy