Author Guidelines
We are interested in publishing articles, and other submissions, which explore contemporary themes and developments in law (both domestic and international), jurisprudence, legal history and philosophy of law.
Forms and Word Limits
Manuscripts that are considered for submission take the following forms.
Research Articles – between 8,000 to 15,000 words (excluding footnotes and references). These should be scholarly, with citations and references – exploring (with conclusions) a topic of significant interest. Articles of more than 15,000 words will be considered, but anything more than 25,000 words is unlikely to be accepted without good reasons.
Articles – between 5,000 to 8,000 words (excluding footnotes and references). These communicate interim results/data from original research interesting to many researches and facilitating further research in the field (e.g. those in highly competitive or quickly-changing disciplines).
National and International Jurisprudence – between 3,000 to 4,000 words. We would like to expand our journal with an infrequent section, where significant new cases are reported and commented on. Those should highlight the issues and boundaries of the judgements or other decisions.
Book Reviews – between 1,500 to 4,000 words. Important new books can be reviewed, with knowledgeable commentary placing them in the context of the other literature in the field and the new contributions that they make.
Academic Events, Comments and Notes – between 3,000 to 4,000 words.
All manuscripts are subject to blind peer review and receive at least two reviews before being accepted or rejected for publication. All manuscripts may be subject to requirements for modifications before they can be published.
Style Guidelines
Times New Roman font in size 12 with double-line spacing.
Margins – 2.5 cm (1 inch)
Authors should submit their manuscript as Microsoft Word documents (.doc or .docx format).
The text must be fully justified. The first line of each paragraph must be indented, and there is no linespace under headings or subheadings.
The submission must include:
- The title of the article – in capital letters, centred on the page, with the name of the author (tagged with a footnote, the text of which is to be merely an asterisk (*) for the Editorial Office to insert the text.
- The author’s position, academic credentials, including ORCID, Researcher ID (if applicable), place of work, contact information (postal address, phone, and email).
- An Abstract of the Article – between 150-250 words. The purpose of the Abstract is to identify the subject matter of the article, and summarize its unique contribution to the field under discussion.
- Keywords – 5-10 keywords that can be used for indexing purposes.
- Acknowledgements (if applicable). Acknowledgments of people, grants, funds, etc. should be placed in a separate section on the title page. The names of funding organizations should be written in full.
For your manuscript to be considered for publication it should include the following:
- Introduction
- Body of the article
- Conclusion
Headings
In all submissions, a maximum of four levels of heading is allowed, one of which is reserved for the title and three of which can be within the article. Type with initial capitals for main words only title, headings and subheading. Headings and subheadings should be centered.
Citations and References
All citations and references should conform to Harvard referencing style.
In-text references must be included following the use of a quote or paraphrase taken from another piece of work and contain the author(s)’s or editor(s)’s surname, year of publication and page number(s), e.g. (Przhilenskiy, 2020).
A reference list is the detailed list of references that are cited in your work. This list includes information about the sources like the author, date of publication, title of the source and more. The list of references should only include works that are cited in the text and that have been published or accepted for publication.
- Reference list entries should be alphabetized by the last names of the first author of each work.
- Journal names and book titles should be italicized.
- Transliteration of Russian names and titles should be presented with the BGN standard.
- Please always include DOIs as full DOI links in your reference list (g., “https://doi.org/abc”) (if applicable).
An example is:
Przhilenskiy V.I. (2020). Social technologies and principles of criminal justice in the conditions of its digitalization. Lex russica, 73(4), 84-91. DOI: https://doi.org/10.17803/1729-5920.2020.161.4.000-000. (In Russ., abstract in Eng.).
Footnotes
All footnotes should provide the following information:
- Interesting additional information, which would be a pause in the main flow of the text, should be in a footnote.
- Significant points, which are fundamental to the main ideas, should be in the body of the text.
- Anonymous source materials or references to them, used as foundations for the points being discussed, should be in the footnotes.
- Jurisprudence and case law should be in the footnotes rather than in the reference list.
- Footnotes should not normally account for more than 3-5% of the overall text. Footnotes do not count towards the overall word count.
- Footnotes should be in 10 point Times New Roman font.
Quotations
Quotations in the main text should be indented and linespaced from the text with quotation marks and be in italic text. Quotations within quotations should use single marks. The footnote indicator should be placed after the quotation. As a guide, quotations should be minimal, and certainly no more than 5% of the overall text wordcount.
Punctuation and spelling
Please keep to the American English spelling and punctuation rules.
Submission Process
All manuscripts should be submitted via email to kulawr@msal.ru together with a scanned copy of the submission form below. Please do not send a hard copy of your submission. Each author / co-author must complete and sign their own form for our record purposes.
A submitted manuscript will be considered for publication even if the author does not conform to the required style. However, once the manuscript is accepted, an author will be asked to revise it in line with principles highlighted above.
Database and Copyright matters
Authors are required to agree to the Journal, and the University holding their personal information and details on their internal computer databases. Such information will not be shared with other individuals or organizations – but may be used by the Journal and University to further correspond with the Author on matters related to the work of legal academics and practitioners.
Authors retain full copyright in their material, but agree and grant Kutafin Law Review journal the right of first publication with a simultaneous grant of license under a Creative Commons Attribution License (allowing others to share and reference the work provided there is an acknowledgement of the work’s authorship and initial publication in Kutafin Law Review).
Authors can make separate, additional arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (such as posting it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), provided there is an acknowledgement of it being first published in Kutafin Law Review.
We are pleased to see our Author’s posting their work online (for example on their personal websites) prior to and during the submission process. If you would like to do this, please let us know. In particular, we think it can give additional opportunities for the Author to receive critical and useful comments, as well as enabling wider citation and use by other authors.
Proofs
We will send you a proof copy of your submission. Proofs will be sent via e-mail (as provided with the submission) to the author for checking. We do ask you to check and return this within 5 working days. Corrections should be returned by means of a “tracked changes” revision of the original submission word file, via e-mail (with a filename extension such as Rev01). If we do not hear back from you within a reasonable time, Kutafin Law Review reserves the right to postpone publication of the submission.
To the Chief Editor, Kutafin Law Review (KuLawR) journal
Dear Sir,
I send you the following submission, for consideration for publication
From: (full name)…………………………………….
Address…………………………………………….
Name of Submission………………………………….
I confirm, by my signature, the following:
- This article or text has not been published – or submitted for publication – elsewhere
- I agree to Kutafin Law Review, and Kutafin Moscow State Law University (MSAL) retaining my personal information and details in electronic format in their internal databases and systems, all in accordance with Russian law.
- I agree to abide by, and agree to, the information provided in the Author’s Guidelines of Kutafin Law Review as appearing on their official website (https://kulawr.msal.ru/jour/about/submissions#authorGuidelines)
Signed:
………………………………………
Name…………………………………
Date…………………………………
