Publication format guidelines for authors
Content
1. Overview
2. Submission of scientific papers, theses
1. Overview
There are three formats in which you can publish on LawThek:
All publications are to be understood as professionally based contributions, i.e. no political statements or promotional writings etc. In general, the editorial team is always free to reject texts, even without justification.
The requirements for the respective formats are as follows:
2. Submission of scientific papers, theses
In order to submit a paper for publication.
- submit the PDF file of the paper corresponding to the status at the time of submission to the university/institute;
- submit an abstract in German and English for the paper;
- provide proof of positive review by the reviewer(s) (for example, a reference to the successful inclusion of the work in the university library is sufficient).
The submission will be reviewed by the LawThek editorial staff based on the abstract. As a matter of principle, the content and form of the paper will not be reviewed.
3. Submission blog post
Blog posts can be written on any legal topic. Possible are original contributions on court decisions, upcoming changes in the law or legal problems and issues outlined by the author himself, etc. Blog posts can be submitted in German or English. The editorial team decides at its own discretion whether to translate and publish the submission into the other language, if necessary. Articles are submitted as Word documents or in a comparable document format (not as PDF files).
The following formal requirements also apply to blog posts:
LENGTH AND STRUCTURE
- Articles should be approximately 4-5 paragraphs - or 200 to 300 words - long and have a meaningful title.
- There are no subheadings.
CITATION RULES
- No footnotes are required; instead, cite relevant sources at the end of the paper.
- For example, in a decision review, citing the judgment as the source may be sufficient.
FORMATTING
- Formatting (bold, underline, italics) should be avoided whenever possible unless it is important for comprehension.
- Bullets or lists and tables may be used (if necessary).
ABBREVIATION
- Common abbreviations are to be used. In the interest of reader-friendliness, the term to be abbreviated may be written out the first time it is used in the text, and the abbreviation may then be placed in parentheses.
- As a general rule, abbreviation points are not used.
GENDER MAINSTREAMING
- Texts are to be gendered and, if possible, gender-neutral terms or formulations are to be used. If this is not possible, the colon ( : ) should be used.
Any pre-selection will be based on the originality and relevance of the topic. The blog contributions are then formally checked by the editorial team for plausibility of content.
If the blog contribution is accepted, the editorial team will, at its own discretion, place LawThek-internal links to relevant content in the blog contribution (and, if applicable, links elsewhere in the LawThek that refer back to the blog contribution), as well as external links in individual cases (e.g., if the source mentioned in the blog contribution is outside the LawThek, such as legislative materials on the parliamentary website).
4. Submission article
Articles can be written on any legal topic in German or English (cf. “Submission blog post” above). Articles are submitted as a Word document or in a comparable document format (not as a PDF file).
The following format requirements also apply to articles:
LENGTH AND STRUCTURE
- Articles should be approximately two to four A4 pages in length or 8,000 to 14,000 characters.
- The articles should have a meaningful title and subheadings, and follow the usual structure of an article (introduction, main body, conclusion).
- The use of a subtitle is optional.
- No more than three levels of outline should be used.
CITATION RULES
- In accordance with scholarly standards, all required source citations should be placed in footnotes in accordance with the General Citation Rules (GCR). In the LawThek document, footnotes may be technically mandated to appear as endnotes.
- At the end of the article, the sources used (literature, case law, etc) must be listed collectively in the form of a list of sources.
FORMATTING
- Formatting (bold, underline, italics) may be used if it is important for comprehension.
- Bullets or lists and tables may be used (if needed).
ABREVIATION
- Common abbreviations are to be used. In the interest of reader-friendliness, the term to be abbreviated may be written out in full the first time it is used in the text, and the abbreviation may then be placed in parentheses.
- As a general rule, abbreviation points are not used.
GENDER MAINSTREAMING
- Texts are to be gendered and, if possible, gender-neutral terms or formulations are to be used. If this is not possible, the colon ( : ) should be used.
Any pre-selection will be based on the originality and relevance of the topic.
The articles will then be checked by the editorial staff in terms of form and content.
If the article is accepted, the editors will, at their own discretion, place LawThek-internal links to relevant content in the article (and, if applicable, links elsewhere in the LawThek that refer back to the article), as well as external links in individual cases (e.g., if the source mentioned in the article is outside the LawThek, such as legislative materials on the parliamentary website).
For each article, an executive summary is created, i.e. an abstract or summary of the article, which precedes the article or is used for the meta data in the LawThek. The editorial office decides at its own discretion whether the executive summary is prepared by the author or by the editorial office itself.