Submissions

Author Guidelines

Information concerning the journal Approaching Religion, published by the Donner Institute for Research in Religious and Cultural History.

The journal appears twice or thrice yearly in the spring and in the autumn.

Articles should not exceed 8,000 words (including references) and should be accompanied by a short author’s presentation. Book reviews should not exceed 1,500 words. A book review should be accompanied by a picture of the book cover. For the file requirements, see below. Contributions to the discussion section should also be restricted to 1,500 words.

Articles should be written in English and should be ready for printing. After an article has been accepted for publication by the journal and the editorial process has been initiated, new revised copies of the manuscripts are accepted only after consulting the editor.

It is the author’s responsibility to obtain written permission to reprint any material that is under copyright and to supply such permissions when submitting the article. The manuscript is to be submitted electronically via this website. The publisher keeps regular electronic records of the key review information and documents related to the manuscripts accepted for the review process.

Author presentation

Each author is asked to write a short presentation of her/himself. The presentation should include title/degree, fields of interest and study, main publications, and email address. 

General

Please avoid all extra formatting, the use of styles, tabulation etc.

In order to point out the hierarchy of headings in the text (excluding title and subtitle), please use boldface, italics and underlining. Boldface and underlining are not to be used elsewhere in the text unless they have been used, for example, in the original text of a quotation. Italics can be used, although sparingly, when a certain word, term or sentence is emphasized.

Throughout the text, titles of books, journals/periodicals, or individual works are italicized whereas titles of articles are put in double quotation marks.

Double quotation marks (“ ”) should be used for quotations or original texts. If the quotation exceeds three sentences the quotation should be indented as a separate paragraph. Double quotation marks should also be used for translations of original texts, and to set off certain words or terms. Omissions in quotations are indicated by three dots separated from the preceding and following word by a single space.

On request, grant ID (compatible with e.g. Academy of Finland’s requirements) may be included in the article and its metadata.

Research data management

Authors are encouraged to follow the FAIR principles (findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable) in their data management. When the nature of the data and the research process allow, it is recommended to open the data. At least the metadata should be open. The possibilities for data management and digital storage are dependent on ethical and juridical issues related to the nature of the data (especially sensitive data).

If you choose to implement the FAIR principles in your work, please consult the national and institutional guidelines relevant for your work. For example, for research conducted in Finland, the Finnish Social Science Data Archive (FSD) is recommended, or any other reliable national or international repository for data archiving which meet the criteria of permanent storage. 

Notes and references

The reference system used in Approaching Religion is twofold. Citations should be placed within the body of text.

Footnotes can be used when there is a need for a secondary discussion. Please use the insert footnote -command when preparing the file. Bibliographic information is to be added in the list of references, not in the text or in footnotes, unless it serves a particular purpose. References to web materials should be treated as printed references. In cases when the name of the author is unknown, the reference must be named. The address of the web page is never to be inserted in the text or in the footnotes, but always only in the list of references.

We follow the Author-Date system of Chicago Manual of Style (CMS).

Examples for a bibliographic reference:

The question of authenticity and authority over the use of religious symbols and expressions are contested by a set of authorities – religious and media-based (Hoover 2008, 33–34).

According to Anthony Giddens (2006, 163–67, 534) the agencies of socialization push the individuation process towards self-awareness.

If two or more references are cited, they are separated by semi-colon (e.g. Hoover 2008, 33–34; Giddens 2006, 532).

Example for a quotation:

“Computer-mediated communication is not just a way of exchanging messages but is also a powerful way to create narratives” (Ornella 2013, 157).

Example for a data reference:

Within text, electronic data sources are referenced with the author’s last name. If there is no author named, dataset title is used. Data collection year is included in the reference.

The respondents’ religiosity was investigated with questions about religious affiliation, religious identity (e.g. whether they identified themselves as spiritual persons and/or conservative in their religion) and how they believed in God (Pohjola 2019).

List of references

The alphabetical list of works and other (e.g. archive, web) material is to be placed in the end of the article.

Transliterations from non-Latin script system into English should follow the transliteration systems of the British Library.

NB. It is the responsibility of the author to list the Digital Object Identifier (doi) to all works to which it has been issued. It is advised by the OJS to give the doi in a full URL link, for example, https://org/10.1080/1461670X.2012.657908, instead of the short address consisting only of numbers.

Examples for books and other works:

Bianchi, Robert. 2004. Guests of God: Pilgrimage and Politics in the Islamic World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Brohm, John Frank. 1957. “Burmese Religion and the Burmese Buddhist Revival.” Ph.D. diss., Cornell University.

Hakamies, Pekka, and Anneli Honko, ed. 2013. Theoretical Milestones: Selected Writings of Lauri Honko. FF Communications 304. Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica.

Lahiri, Jhumpa. 2016. In Other Words. Translated by Ann Goldstein. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Melville, Herman. 1851. Moby-Dick; or, The Whale. New York: Harper & Brothers. http://mel.hofstra.edu/moby-dick-the-whale-proofs.html.

Examples for articles:

Barzilai-Nahon, Keren, and Gadi Barzilai. 2005. “Cultured Technology: The Internet and Religious Fundamentalism.” The Information Society 21, no. 1: 25–40.

Cohen, Yoel. 2001. ”Mass Media in the Jewish Tradition.” In Religion and Popular Culture, edited by Daniel Stout and Judith Buddenbaum, 95–108. Ames: Iowa State University Press.

Hänska-Ahy, Maximilian T., and Roxanna Shapour. 2013. “Who’s Reporting the Protests?” Journalism Studies 14, no. 1: 29–45. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2012.657908.

Leskelä-Kärki, Maarit. 2020. “Ethical Encounters in the Archives: On Studying Individuals in Esoteric Contexts.” In Approaching Esotericism and Mysticism: Cultural Influences, edited by Maarit Leskelä-Kärki and Tiina Mahlamäki, 28–48. Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis 29. Turku/Åbo: The Donner Institute. https://doi.org/10.30674/scripta.85671.

Solayman, Hanan. 2010. “Cyber Hajj Season Begins in Second Life.” EMAJ Magazine, November 14, 2010. http://emajmagazine.com/2010/11/14/cyber-hajj-season-begins-in-second-life.

Always give inclusive pages for articles, reviews, etc. that appear in journals or in edited volumes.

Examples of book reviews:

Andersson, Lars M. 2021. “How Do You Jew in Finland?” Review of Intermarriage, Conversion and Jewish Identity in Contemporary Finland, by Mercédesz Czimbalmos, Nordisk Judaistik / Scandinavian Jewish Studies 32, no. 2: 94–98. https://doi.org/10.30752/nj.112296.

Honigmann, David. 1989. “Wars and Rumours of Wars.” Review of The View from the Ground by Martha Gellhorn. Listener, October, 1989: 31.

Examples for web sources:

Åbo Akademi. 2023. “Hur är det att studera på svenska som finskspråkig?” Facebook, November 7, 2023. https://www.facebook.com/aboakademi/posts/pfbid0GhdQmGF4V2UsrSkzgcyJ8gtqcJcWCHen2g2ga2vqegnwhPkN1Wjmvx1kaDYoEzdal.

The Afro Animist Podcast. n.d. Accessed October 31, 2023. https://www.afroanimist.com.

Google. 2017. “Privacy Policy.” Privacy & Terms. Last modified April 17, 2017. https://www.google.com/policies/privacy.

Ravenz Craft Arts. 2019. “RavenzCraft Arts presents Daudr.” December 29, 2019. https://ravenzcraftarts.blogspot.com/2018/01/ravenzcraft-arts-presents-daudr.html.

“Three Things About Islam.” 2011. Accessed December 1, 2011. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_8RoxqpeGc.

Website content:

When writing publication references, it is important to give sufficient information about electronic data. The following elements should be included in the citation, as they are important in identifying the data: name of the original creator(s) of data, title of the dataset, year of data collection, version, archival number, URN identifier, and distributor.

Church Research Institute, and Kirsi Pohjola. 2019. Professional Identity and Religious Beliefs of Children’s Instructor Students 2017. Version 1.0 (2019-07-31). Finnish Social Science Data Archive. http://urn.fi/urn:nbn:fi:fsd:T-FSD3263.

Archive sources:

Usually archives have their own system of referring to their materials. These systems may be used in the text as long as they are used consistently. Abbreviations used in the references are to be opened in the list of archive sources and the archive where the material is preserved must be mentioned. If the material is in the possession of the author, that is to be noted accordingly.

Photographs and other illustrations

Photographs accompanying articles that are accepted for publication must be at the resolution of 72 ppi or higher and should be in jpeg, png, or pdf format. Line drawings and maps should be submitted at a resolution of 300 ppi.

It is the author’s responsibility to obtain permission to reprint any material that is under copyright. Photographs are not to be inserted in the text file, but uploaded as supplementary files. No supplementary files need to be submitted until editors have indicated acceptance of the manuscript. The preferred place of the photograph in the text may be designated by the caption of the photograph, e.g., <Fig. 1 here>. The source of the illustration, name of the photographer, or other indication of the copyright must always be included in the caption of the illustration.

For more information on the style and guidelines of Approaching Religion, please contact the Donner Institute (donner.institute@abo.fi).

Publication ethics and malpractice

The author is committed to following ethical guidelines in his or her research field, for general instructions see “Responsible conduct of research and procedures for handling allegations of misconduct in Finland” issued by Finnish Advisory Board on Research Integrity.