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 submission has not been previously published, nor is it currently before another journal for consideration.
  • If your study involves surveys, interviews, focus groups, etc. (i.e., human subjects research), you have obtained the required institutional review (IRB) approvals or other required institutional approvals. It is recommended that you explicitly state this somewhere in your manuscript.
  • Any competing interests have been identified or disclosed in the manuscript. Competing interests are situations that have the potential to influence people’s judgments. Competing interests may be personal, financial, intellectual, professional, political or religious in nature. Questions about what counts as a competing interest may be directed to the Co-Editors-in-chief (Hannah Lee (halee@csudh.edu); Sarah Tribelhorn (stribelhorn@sdsu.edu)).
  • The submission file is in Microsoft Word or RTF document file format.
  • Where available, URLs or DOIs for all references have been provided. All references are formatted in APA 7th edition style (see Submission Guidelines for examples).
  • The text is double-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. It may be necessary to request image files for all figures later in the editing process.
  • The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines.

Author Guidelines

Submitting Manuscripts

  • Authors will register on the ISTL site and submit manuscripts directly in the OJS system. See the links above to submit.
  • Submissions may be made at any time. Since the review process can be open-ended, ISTL cannot guarantee publication of an accepted article in a specific issue. It will be published in the next issue scheduled after the review and editing process is complete.
  • No Article Processing Charges (APCs) or publication fees are charged for submitting or for accepted manuscripts.

To make a submission:

Manuscript Guidelines

  • The submission file should be a single Microsoft Word .docx file. All illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text at the appropriate points, rather than at the end or in separate files. It may be necessary to request image files for all figures later in the editing process. 
  • DOIs or URLs are provided for references, where available.
  • References are presented in a “References” section at the end of the article and any parenthetical information is presented within the main text. ISTL does not accommodate footnotes or endnotes.
  • Figures and Tables:
    • Submit one Microsoft Word .docx file that contains the main text, all tables and figures, and appendices. Place tables and figures within the text at the appropriate points in the text. In addition, submit each figure as a separate .jpg or .png file. Images should be sized no larger than 700 pixels wide.
    • Figure and Table numbers (e.g., Figure 1, Table 1) appears above the table title and body in bold font.
    • Figures and Tables should be clearly numbered and captioned. Caption text should not repeat text in the body of the article.
    • Figure captions should appear below the figures. Table captions should appear above the tables.
    • Bar and line charts should be accessible to visually-impaired readers. Avoid colors with poor contrast, and use patterns and shapes where possible.
    • Avoid the use of "word cloud" diagrams.
    • Alt-text should be added for all images.
  • The text is double-spaced; uses a standard 12-point font.
  • The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the guidelines on this page and the column-specific guidelines on the relevant column’s page.

Length, Layout, & Style

ISTL is a web-based journal, so article length is very flexible. In general, articles of about 2,000 words seem to work well for the columns; however, if you need more space to describe your ideas, feel free to write a longer article.  Refereed articles tend to range from 4,000-8,000 words, but there are no strict limits. 

Submissions should be double-spaced and organized as follows:

Title
Author(s) including title(s), institutional affiliation(s), and e-mail address(es)
Abstract
Keywords
Body of Paper
References
Acknowledgements

Also see additional layout guidelines for different ISTL columns by visiting the appropriate page.

ISTL uses U.S. English spelling conventions.

References

ISTL uses the American Psychological Association (APA) 7th edition format for in-text citations and the reference list (not the paper formatting). See this guide from the APA Style Website or the APA Publication Manual for examples.

Quotations from sources in the text must include page or paragraph numbers. For example: (Diller & Wallin, 2023, p. 685).

In-line references should be cited in the text in the following form:

Smith ... (2002)
Smith ... (2002a, 2002b)
Smith ... (2002, 2005)
Smith and Jones (2005)
(Smith, 2009, p. 36)
(Smith & Jones, 2008, p. 123)
(Smith et al., 2010) for three or more authors
(Jones, 2008; Smith, 2005) [i.e., alphabetical by last name]
(Williams, n.d.) - for sources with no date (use in the end reference as well)

Inline references should come at the end of a sentence, before the period. Avoid repeating the same inline reference in one section of text.

  • Include DOIs (preferred) or URLs in the References list wherever possible.

Bibliographic references should be presented alphabetically in a “References” section at the end of the article, in the following standard form, giving journal titles in full. Please italicize titles of books and journals. Include DOIs whenever possible. If a DOI is not available, include a URL if possible.

Book:
McCormac, J. S., & Kennedy, G. (2004). Birds of Ohio. Lone Pine.

Book Chapter:
McDaniel, T. K., & Valdivia, R. H. (2005). New tools for virulence gene discovery. In Cossart, P. et al., (Eds). Cellular microbiology (2nd ed., 473-488). ASM Press.

Conference Papers:

Damm, C. J., Zloza, W. A., Staf, S. J., & Radlinger. B. (2017, June 25-28). Development of a web-based decision tool for selection of distributed energy resources and systems (DERS) for moving college and corporate campuses toward net-zero energy [Paper presentation]. ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Columbus, OH, United States. https://www.asee.org/public/conferences/78/papers/20444/view

Journal Articles (Print/Online with DOI):
Markham, J. W., & Hagmeier, E. (1982). Observations on the effects of germanium dioxide on the growth of macro-algae and diatoms. Phycologia, 21(2), 125-131. https://doi.org/10.2216/i0031-8884-21-2-125.1

Journal Articles (no DOI):
Leng F., Amado, L., & McMacken, R. (2004). Coupling DNA supercoiling to transcription in defined protein systems. Journal of Biological Chemistry, 279(46), 47564-47571. http://www.jbc.org/cgi/reprint/279/46/47564

Articles from ISTL
Gunapala, N. 2014. Meeting the needs of the "invisible university": Identifying information needs of postdoctoral scholars in the sciences. Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship, 77. https://doi.org/10.29173/istl1610

Web Pages (no author listed):
Welcome to ASAP at the University of Wisconsin. (2022). University of Wisconsin-Madison. https://asap.ahabs.wisc.edu/asap/home.php

Inclusive Language

Submitted articles should use inclusive language throughout. Inclusive language recognizes the equality of all persons. It avoids biases, assumptions, and judgements (explicit or implicit) based on characteristics such as (but not limited to) age, gender, race, ethnicity, culture, sexual orientation, disability, health condition, geographic community, or belief. 

Examples of inclusive language include:

  • using non-gender-specific nouns (e.g., "a librarian", "a student") instead of gendered pronouns when a person's gender is not known
  • using neutral terms instead of vocabulary that may be considered offensive or exclusionary (e.g. "primary" instead of "master", "blocklist" instead of "blacklist", "chairperson" instead of "chairman")
  • using person-first language instead of identity-first language (e.g., "a person with a disability" instead of "a disabled person")
  • avoiding violent language (e.g., "tried" instead of "took a shot at")

The APA provides more examples of inclusive language at https://www.apa.org/about/apa/equity-diversity-inclusion/language-guidelines

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