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.

  • File Type: ACME heartily accepts rigorously prepared manuscripts of the following types: Research, Interventions, Roundtables, Interviews, Review Essays, Translations, Visuals, Letters, Performances, Podcasts, Creative Works, Editorials, and Tributes/Remembrances.


    File Type: Most manuscripts should be submitted in Word (.doc or .docx) format, with limited exceptions for muti-media submissions noted in the “Submission Types” section above (about which, please consult with an ACME editor regarding any questions). For image submissions, see notes on “Figures, Tables, and Illustrations” below.

  • Length: Please see list of “Submission Formats” above for specific details on the lengths of different formats. For standard article submissions, manuscripts submitted should not exceed 9,000 words, inclusive of abstract, footnotes, references, and acknowledgements. As a general guideline, editorials, interventions, observations, and review essays tend to be shorter (1,500 to 4,000 words) than theoretical- and empirical-based research papers (minimum 5,000 words).

  • Format: Text in manuscripts should be set out in double-spaced, indented (0.5 in. or 1.27cm) paragraphs, with consistent margins (1 in. or 2.47cm). Please use a Times font (e.g. Times, CG Times, Times New Roman), size 12pt. Do not include extra lines between paragraphs. (More on the manuscript details below.)


    Title Page: If you are submitting a manuscript for single- or double-blind peer review, you must provide the title of your manuscript along with your name, affiliation, and contact information (including e-mail address) on a separate title page, and which should be uploaded as a Title Page. The title of the paper+ should also be included on the first page of the manuscript (prior to the abstract).


    Abstract: Include an abstract of 250 words or less on the first page of the manuscript. Please make sure that this abstract describes the entire paper+ and is not an introduction to the paper+.


    Keywords: Include 4-6 keywords for indexing the main topics and themes addressed in your submission

  • Language: Reviews of manuscripts are conducted in English, French, Italian, or Spanish. Manuscripts written in other languages may be accepted for review after consultation with the editors.

  • Length: Manuscripts submitted should not exceed 9,000 words, inclusive of abstract, footnotes, references, and acknowledgements. As a general guideline, editorials, interventions, observations, and review essays tend to be shorter (1,500 to 4,000 words) than theoretical- and empirical-based research papers (minimum 5,000 words).

    Type: Editorials, literature reviews, oundtables, interviews, speculative fiction, letters, remembrances, debates, pictorial essays, poetry, mini-collections on specific topics, interventions, and research papers.

    Language: Reviews of manuscripts are conducted in English, French, Italian, or Spanish. Manuscripts written in other languages may be accepted for review after consultation with the editors.

    Writing Style: The style that ACME advocates emphasizes clarity, accessibility, and care in writing. Manuscripts are accepted in a wide range of writing styles, e.g. informal, personal, jargonistic, story telling, academic.

    Use of Language: Manuscripts must be written in non-sexist, non-racist, non-ableist, anti-cis-heteronormative, inclusive, and anti-oppressionist language.

  • Writing Style


    ACME advocates clarity, accessibility, and care in writing. Manuscripts are accepted in a wide range of writing styles, e.g. informal, personal, jargonistic, story telling, academic.


    Use of Language: Manuscripts must align with the goals of ACME’s Mission Statement.


    Quotations: Quotations of less than 40 words should be integrated in the text using quotation marks  Quotations of more than 40 words must  be indented (left side only) by .5 inches or 1.27cm, and single-spaced with a line inserted both before and after the block of text. Do not use quotation marks (single or double) to mark the blocked text.


    Figures, Tables, Illustrations: All must be in electronic format and included in the body of the paper+ for the initial submission. Please do not use tabs. Use the table creation tool in your writing software. Once a paper+ is accepted, authors must provide images at 300dpi resolution uploaded individually as unique files. Should your manuscript reach the copyediting stage, you will also be asked to indicate approximately where you would like each figure to be placed in the document, using a system with a full description of and captions for any figures.


    Section Headings: Use bold type for first-order section titles (i.e. Heading 1). Use type that is both bold and italic for second-order section titles (i.e. Heading 2). Use italics for third-order section headings (i.e. Heading 3). Do not indent paragraphs and begin text on the same line as third-order headings. Following Chicago Style guidelines, please capitalize the first and last words of titles and subtitles; capitalize "major" words (nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and some conjunctions); use lowercase for the conjunctions “and”, “but”, “for”, “or”, and “nor”.


    Spelling: There is no spelling style preferred (i.e. American vs. Canadian English). Consistency within the manuscript is required.


    Punctuation: Consult Chicago Style guidelines


    Permissions: Obtaining copyright permission for image or graphic reproductions is the responsibility of the author(s). Consult with a librarian, public institutional archivist, or similar knowledgeable person for additional support.


    Citations: Use the Chicago author-date system for citations: (Katz 2004; Holmes et al. 2015; Muñoz 2016, 304-305).


    Acknowledgments: Acknowledgments (if included) must appear at the end of the body of the text, before the list of references. Specific acknowledgements may be added during the copyediting stage, should your manuscript be accepted. However, we would ask that conflicts of interest and sources of funding be identified at the start of submission, either in a note to the editor or on the manuscript title page.


    Footnotes: Footnotes are to be used sparingly. Do not use endnotes. Use the word processing feature for creating footnotes. Please use Arabic numerals.

  • References: List references alphabetically at the end of the manuscript using Chicago (author-date) referencing style.


    For more than one entry with the same author(s) and date, use letters to distinguish them, e.g. 1999a, 1999b, 1999c.


    Arrange entries under a particular author's name chronologically, with the most recent listed first.


    Indicate authors' full names (surname and first name).

  • Example citations (organized by genre):


    Journal article (solo authored):


    Muñoz, Lorena. 2016. “Entangled Sidewalks: Queer Street Vendors in Los Angeles,” Professional Geographer 68 (2): 302–8.


    Journal article (multiple authors):


    Holmes, Cindy, Sarah Hunt, and Amy Piedalue. 2015. “Violence, Colonialism and Space: Towards a Decolonizing Dialogue,” ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies 14 (2): 539–70.


    Book:


    Katz, Cindi. 2004. Growing Up Global: Economic Restructuring and Children’s Everyday Lives. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.


    Book chapter (by solo author):


    Klein, Melanie. 1946/1991. Notes on Some Schizoid Mechanisms. In The Selected Melanie Klein, edited by Juliet Mitchell, 175-200. London: Penguin.


    Book chapter (in edited volume):


    Wynter, Sylvia, and Katherine McKittrick. 2015. Unparalleled Catastrophe for Our Species?: Or, to Give Humanness a Different Future: Conversations. In Sylvia Wynter: On Being Human as Praxis, edited by Katherine McKittrick, 9–89. Durham: Duke University Press.


    Conference paper:


    Dyck, Isabel. 2002. "Embodied Knowledge in Place: Body, Gender, and Space in Immigration Research.” Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Royal Geographical Society with the Institute of British Geographers, Belfast, January.


    Newspaper article:


    Laura Rena Murray, “Some Transgender Women Pay a High Price to Look More Feminine,” The New York Times, August 19, 2011, sec. N.Y. / Region, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/21/nyregion/some-transgender-women-pay-a-high-price-to-look-more-feminine.html.


    Blog post/website:


    Christina Hanhardt, “Broken Windows at Blue’s: A Queer History of Gentrification and Policing,” Versobooks.Com (blog), June 14, 2016, http://www.versobooks.com/blogs/2704-broken-windows-at-blue-s-a-queer-history-of-gentrification-and-policing.


    Podcast:


    Camp, Jordan, Sunni Patterson, Khalil Shahid, Anna Brand, Shana Griffin, & Sue Mobley. Clyde Woods, Dispossession, and Resistance in New Orleans, Antipod (Turtle Island: podcast, 2019), https://soundcloud.com/antipodcollective/episode-01-clyde-woods-dispossession-and-resistance-in-new-orleans.


    Digital map:


    Jen Jack Gieseking, “AEQNY Organizations Map,” An Everyday Queer New York (website), 2021, http://jgieseking.org/AQNY/AEQNYorgsmap/index.html.


    Code repository:


    Nick Lally, Shaping, JavaScript, HTML, & CSS (repository), 2021, https://github.com/nicklally/shaping.

Author Guidelines

Author Guidelines

Alignment with journal aims and scope

ACME is an international journal for critical analyses of the social, the spatial, the ecological, and the political that publishes work in a wide array of formats, each of which are described in more detail below. Across all these formats, submissions must engage and reflect the core commitments of the journal as outlined in ACME’s Mission Statement.

All submissions are through our online Open Journal System ACME submissions page. Details on the various submission formats—including research papers, interventions, roundtables, interviews, review essays, translations, visual analyses, creative works, letters, performances, podcasts, editorials, and tributes—can be found in the “Format Types and Guidelines” section, below. Manuscript lengths for various submission formats are specified in the Submission Formats section below. Please discuss with your ACME editor if your manuscript word count falls outside the guidelines.

Though ACME is rooted in geography, its critical mission is deeply interdisciplinary. The journal aims to amplify and bridge critical scholarship from an array of locations and contexts, and our authors hail from and draw on a multitude of intellectual backgrounds. To that end, we request you—as a prospective author—carefully consider the ways in which you may situate yourself and your work in relation to the following:

  1. contemporary concepts and debates at intersections among space, place, location, and relationality (from geography and other spatially-attuned disciplines);
  2. formations of race, gender, class, species, sexuality, disability, disciplinary training, and/or other axes of difference and intersectionality as pertinent to the debates in which the paper+* intervenes (and as related to your own positionality, as appropriate); [* We use “paper+” to indicate the range of formats we accept—see “Submission Format Types” section below] 
  3. the history of imperialism and colonialism in relation to the land studied with appropriate land acknowledgements; and
  4. the full breadth and diversity of relevant literatures pursuant to point 1-3 above, to enact citational practices that leverage diverse perspectives that question and challenge--rather than reproduce--status quo structures of power and knowledge.

This list is not intended to suggest that there is (or could be) any uniform requirement or formula for addressing the considerations outlined above. Rather, in keeping with the critical, boundary-bridging spirit of the journal, ACME the list is simply intended to signal considerations that we expect you will do your utmost to address reflexively and conscientiously. Such reflexive practices extend and enrich the intellectual content of and capacities for generative connections across the diverse critical scholarship which ACME is proud to support.   

 

Review types and choices

As a submitting author to ACME, you can select a double-bind, single-blind, or open peer review process. To facilitate a closed, double-blind review process, manuscripts must include a separate, supplementary file in the form of a title page that includes all authors' names and affiliations; four to six keywords for indexing; and any acknowledgments, funding sources, and/or conflicts of interest. You must also remove any author names or identifiers from the manuscript. When submitting the manuscript in the comments, denote that you are choosing a double-blind peer review.

Alternatively, authors may choose an open review process or single-blind review process. In an open review process, reviewers’ and authors’ names are both known to one another. In a single-blind review process, the reviewers know the authors names but not vice versa. In open or single-blind review processes, manuscripts may contain personal information and identifiers, and a title page is not required. To choose either of these options, when submitting the manuscript indicate in the comments that you are choosing either a single-blind or open peer review.

See the “Submission Preparation Checklist” below for more details about manuscript preparation.

Figures, images, and multimedia elements

Please ensure that figures (maps, photos, graphs or charts) are of high resolution and good quality. You can place these figures directly into the manuscript, and please be sure to label and then refer to them in the text as Figure 1, Figure 2, and so on. Also be sure to confirm in advance any necessary permissions and the ability to reprint these materials by contacting a university-based librarian, public archivist, or other appropriate resource for making these determinations.

Your manuscript submission may be accompanied by multimedia or supplementary files. Please upload interactive content such as audio, video, or data visualization files as Multimedia files. The editor will share a link to these documents with the reviewers. At this time, ACME is only publishing in PDF format, which means we cannot embed interactive content into the article text, but we can create live links in the PDF and store materials from those links in perpetuity. We can also embed interactive contents in article abstracts[CA1] . Therefore, we ask that authors provide still images for inclusion in the PDF. The types of submissions for which there can be interactive or multimedia components are noted with an asterisk (*) in the Format Guidelines section below. You may submit supplementary files such as research tools, data-sets, or creative works along with the manuscript. Supplementary files are intended to enhance the readers' engagement with the primary submission.

Reciprocity and data privacy

There is no fee to publish in ACME. However, as a measure of reciprocity, authors whose papers+ are accepted for publication in ACME agree to participate in the peer review process that is necessary for the journal's operation. In this regard, we ask that you complete a minimum of two peer reviews per published article. By agreeing to have your paper+ published in ACME, you agree to these terms.

All manuscripts will be screened using a reputable text-matching software for possible plagiarism, a practice increasingly common to academic journals. No manuscripts or identifying information will be stored outside of secure ACME servers. As stipulated by our copyright (see Copyright Notice below), authors retain copyright of their manuscript during the review process and, if selected, after publication of their manuscript. To that end, authors can choose to republish their manuscript elsewhere as a chapter or as part of a monograph, or have it translated into another language. ACME’s permission is not needed for any of these actions since the author retains copyright; however, we ask that you notify us of these reprints. We believe it is important to share with our funding agency (SSHRC) that the work published in ACME is valued and sought after in diverse venues and places.

Please direct questions about the scope and focus of the journal, the review process, or anything else to our Editorial Collective: acmegeography@gmail.com. Note that editors cannot preview or approve manuscripts prior to submission.

For more on Special Issues and Themed Sections, see the Special Issues & Themed Issues Submission Guidelines.

Research

Theoretical- and/or empirically-based research papers not exceeding 9,000 words inclusive of abstract, footnotes, references, and acknowledgements.

Interventions

Critical commentaries and/or observations ranging from 1,500 to 5,000 words, inclusive of abstract, footnotes, references, and acknowledgements.

Roundtables

Three or more people in a conversation, transcribed and edited for readability, ranging from 3,000 to 9,000 words. We are particularly interested in conversations that explore the contours of critical intersections which are shifting or still in formation. For instance, conversation among people engaging shared interests in a theory, method, or subject but who may be differently situated and seeking to better understand possible connections; conversations seeking to stage critical engagements between previously disparate fields; etc. Contributing authors should reach out to the editorial team with queries or clarifying questions about potential roundtables and / or include a brief cover letter explaining how you believe your roundtable submission embodies such critical intersections, although slightly longer pieces will be considered with editor approval.

Interviews

Structured or semi-structured conversational exchange that seeks to engage one or more spatial thinkers to draw out previously unarticulated, supplementary, or biographical dimensions of the interviewee’s critical thought, practice, body of work, etc. Contributing authors should reach out to the editorial team with queries or clarifying questions about potential interviews and/or include a brief cover letter explaining how you believe your interview submission embodies and extends our critical commitments. Interviews should range from 3,000 to 9,000 words, although slightly longer submissions will be considered with editor approval.

Review Essays

State-of-field reviews which explicate shifting or emerging developments across critical debates, and are limited to 9,000 words. We are especially interested in coverage of topics that do not receive multi-year or multi-report consideration in other journals.

Translations

Critical geography originally published in languages other than English and translated for English readers. The goal of this section is to create a platform for geographies/geographers from different locations and language contexts to be published within ACME and to provide access to new translations of work previously published in other languages in order to expand access to those texts. The texts will be preceded by a brief commentary (2,000-3,000 words) that contextualizes the translated text and highlights its importance for the advancement of critical geography.

Visual Analyses

Analytical visual images that require textual interpretation, including maps, photographs and images, infographics, or creative graphs. Visual work must present critical content and arguments in ways that are aligned with the scope and aims of ACME. Visuals must be accompanied by a commentary or explanatory text (500-1000 words not including references). Visual submissions are reviewed by our collective and, if accepted, published in the next appropriate issue. (Note*: we will be accepting interactive visuals at a later date.)

Creative Works

Including poetry and speculative fiction that critically explores space and place, ACME now welcomes comics and photography, including submissions using non-linear writing or fragmented disposition. Limit of 9,000 words.

Letters

What are letters if not iterative modes of written communication shared between two or more people, that blur the intellectual, contextual, personal, historical, and biographical. ACME is interested in publishing curated (deliberately selected, appropriately condensed, and edited) collections of letters that convey the fluid, collective and subjective coming together of the often fragmented character of ideas, concepts, projects, communities, individuals, critiques, disciplines, and historical moments. Submissions may range from 3,000 to 15,000 words, depending on the number of letter writers.

Performance

Performance and performance-based methods have the capacity to reveal and unsettle relationships between performer and audience, subject and object, knower and known, fixed and ephemeral, and space and time in ways that other approaches cannot. Recognizing that written formats often fail to do justice to these relational nuances, ACME is happy to consider performances submitted as videos or stills, along with a written reflection about the work ranging from 1,000 to 5,000 words.

Podcast

Podcasts are recorded, streamable audio features which use sound to explicate critical spatial knowledge and sonic landscapes that other formats may fail to adequately convey. Podcasts must be submitted with a transcript as well as a written framing statement to situate the audio material, with the total word count (including transcript and framing statement) not exceeding 15,000 words. As this is a new publishing format for ACME, please contact us in advance of submission to ensure the selection of appropriate file types and formats.

Copyright Notice

Authors agree to publish their articles in ACME under the Creative Commons "Attribution/Non-Commercial/No Derivative Works" Canada licence. To read and review the agreement, click here. In line with fair attribution and proper permissions, note any copyrights of materials cited in your paper. Do not use materials that are not fair use without express written consent.

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. While we do not post numbers of downloads--as a statement against “impact factor” measurements--we understand that many emerging scholars are required to ascertain these numbers, for which purpose we will share them directly with the author(s) upon request at any time.