The Journal of Transport History

Manuscript Submission Guidelines: Journal of Transport History

This Journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics

Please read the guidelines below then visit the Journal’s submission site http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jtrh to upload your manuscript. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned.

Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of Journal of Transport History will be reviewed.

There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this Journal. Open Access options are available - see section 3.3 below.

As part of the submission process you will be required to warrant that you are submitting your original work, that you have the rights in the work, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you, that you are submitting the work for first publication in the Journal and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere. Please see our guidelines on prior publication and note that Journal of Transport History may accept submissions of papers that have been posted on pre-print servers; please alert the Editorial Office when submitting (contact details are at the end of these guidelines) and include the DOI for the preprint in the designated field in the manuscript submission system. Authors should not post an updated version of their paper on the preprint server while it is being peer reviewed for possible publication in the journal. If the article is accepted for publication, the author may re-use their work according to the journal's author archiving policy. If your paper is accepted, you must include a link on your preprint to the final version of your paper.

1. What do we publish?
   1.1 Aims & Scope
   1.2 Article types
   1.3 Writing your paper
2. Editorial policies
   2.1 Peer review policy
   2.2 Authorship
   2.3 Acknowledgements
   2.4 Funding
   2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
   2.6 Data
3. Publishing policies
   3.1 Publication ethics
   3.2 Contributor's publishing agreement
   3.3 Open access and author archiving
4. Preparing your manuscript
   4.1 Formatting
   4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
   4.3 Supplemental material
   4.4 General style notes
   4.5 Reference style
   4.6 English language editing services
5. Submitting your manuscript
   5.1 ORCID
   5.2 Information required for completing your submission
   5.3 Permissions
6. On acceptance and publication
   6.1 Sage Production
   6.2 Online First publication
   6.3 Access to your published article
   6.4 Promoting your article
7. Further information

 

1. What do we publish?

1.1 Aims & Scope

Before submitting your manuscript to Journal of Transport History, please ensure you have read the Aims & Scope.

1.2 Article Types

The Journal of Transport History publishes five different types of work in transport history, without restriction to place or period.

The Abstract of the article must be less than 150 words and should focus on findings, argument, methodology and sources, not on the research background and context. Identify at least three key words that will ‘tag’ your paper for meaningful electronic searches. Do not simply repeat words already in the paper title. 

See the website tabs ‘Description’ and ‘Aims and Scope’ for more detail.

Original research papers of up to 8,000 words, including endnotes, are the backbone of the Journal. Contributions should combine a scrutiny of (handpicked) cases with a broader picture of transport history, and naturally of history in a broader way. We welcome papers that use innovative tools, and those which use multidisciplinary approaches, under the condition of dealing with history of transport.

Surveys and Speculations are essays of up to 8,000 words in length. Speculative essays are argumentative pieces which may not be fully supported by evidence, but which open up new lines of enquiry by suggestion, provocation and reflection.  They are theoretical and methodological, and should suggest new research and thematic paths. The surveys tend to be of bodies of literature rather than masses of data. If the latter, we would expect the data to be used to counter prevailing wisdom, or to be used to challenge some orthodoxy or methodology.

Panorama contributions (above 2,000 words) are comprehensive state-of-the-art reviews of research in the field of transport history, presenting synopses of recent research, international reviews of research across many countries, thematic reviews, and retrospective assessments of classic works in the area. Panorama submissions should provide essential and comprehensive overviews. Submissions can also take the form of combined review of several different books (or articles), presented together by one reviewer.

Viewpoint are short articles, a space for critical comments about current controversial topics or key challenges in the fields. While they keep a scholarly discipline, they can contain more opinion-based information, alike a book review. Viewpoints can be peer reviewed.

Please note that generally panorama papers are not double-anonymize peer-reviewed

Book reviews (maximum 800 words) are invited commentaries on newly published books, offering readers a view of the strengths but also the weaknesses and shortcomings of the volumes.

Museum and exhibition reviews (maximum 1,200 words) offer commentaries on curated public and visual histories of transport. These reviews treat the concept of transport and history in a broad way, encompassing topics well beyond classical ways of displaying collections of machines.

1.3 Writing your paper

The Sage Author Gateway has some general advice and on how to get published, plus links to further resources. Sage Author Services also offers authors a variety of ways to improve and enhance their article including English language editing, plagiarism detection, and video abstract and infographic preparation.

1.3.1 Make your article discoverable

When writing up your paper, think about how you can make it discoverable. The title, keywords and abstract are key to ensuring readers find your article through search engines such as Google. For information and guidance on how best to title your article, write your abstract and select your keywords, have a look at this page on the Gateway: How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online.

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2. Editorial policies

2.1 Peer review policy

Sage does not permit the use of author-suggested (recommended) reviewers at any stage of the submission process, be that through the web-based submission system or other communication. Reviewers should be experts in their fields and should be able to provide an objective assessment of the manuscript. Our policy is that reviewers should not be assigned to a paper if:

•  The reviewer is based at the same institution as any of the co-authors

•  The reviewer is based at the funding body of the paper

•  The author has recommended the reviewer

•  The reviewer has provided a personal (e.g. Gmail/Yahoo/Hotmail) email account and an institutional email account cannot be found after performing a basic Google search (name, department and institution). 

2.2 Authorship

All parties who have made a substantive contribution to the article should be listed as authors. Principal authorship, authorship order, and other publication credits should be based on the relative scientific or professional contributions of the individuals involved, regardless of their status. A student is usually listed as principal author on any multiple-authored publication that substantially derives from the student’s dissertation or thesis.

Please note that AI chatbots, for example ChatGPT, should not be listed as authors. For more information see the policy on Use of ChatGPT and generative AI tools.

2.3 Acknowledgements

All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or a department chair who provided only general support.

Please supply any personal acknowledgements separately to the main text to facilitate anonymous peer review.

For the purpose of double-anonymize reviewing, the article should be anonymised in the text, and in the numbered notes where single or multiple citations could reveal the author of the paper being reviewed. 

2.3.1 Third party submissions

Where an individual who is not listed as an author submits a manuscript on behalf of the author(s), a statement must be included in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript and in the accompanying cover letter. The statements must:

• Disclose this type of editorial assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input
• Identify any entities that paid for this assistance
• Confirm that the listed authors have authorized the submission of their manuscript via third party and approved any statements or declarations, e.g. conflicting interests, funding, etc.

Where appropriate, Sage reserves the right to deny consideration to manuscripts submitted by a third party rather than by the authors themselves.

2.4 Funding

Journal of Transport History requires all authors to acknowledge their funding in a consistent fashion under a separate heading.  Please visit the Funding Acknowledgements page on the Sage Journal Author Gateway to confirm the format of the acknowledgment text in the event of funding, or state that: This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. 

2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests

Journal of Transport History encourages authors to include a declaration of any conflicting interests and recommends you review the good practice guidelines on the Sage Journal Author Gateway.

2.6 Research data

The journal is committed to facilitating openness, transparency and reproducibility of research, and has the following research data sharing policy. For more information, including FAQs please visit the Sage Research Data policy pages.

Subject to appropriate ethical and legal considerations, authors are encouraged to:

• share your research data in a relevant public data repository
• include a data availability statement linking to your data. If it is not possible to share your data, we encourage you to consider using the statement to explain why it cannot be shared.
• cite this data in your research

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3. Publishing Policies

3.1 Publication ethics

Sage is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors and view the Publication Ethics page on the Sage Author Gateway.

3.1.1 Plagiarism

Journal of Transport History and Sage take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software. Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarised other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article; taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author's institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action.

3.1.2 Prior publication

If material has been previously published it is not generally acceptable for publication in a Sage journal. However, there are certain circumstances where previously published material can be considered for publication. Please refer to the guidance on the Sage Author Gateway or if in doubt, contact the Editor at the address given below.

3.2 Contributor's publishing agreement

Before publication, Sage requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. Sage’s Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement is an exclusive licence agreement which means that the author retains copyright in the work but grants Sage the sole and exclusive right and licence to publish for the full legal term of copyright. Exceptions may exist where an assignment of copyright is required or preferred by a proprietor other than Sage. In this case copyright in the work will be assigned from the author to the society. For more information please visit the Sage Author Gateway.

3.3 Open access and author archiving

Journal of Transport History offers optional open access publishing via the Sage Choice programme and Open Access agreements, where authors can publish open access either discounted or free of charge depending on the agreement with Sage. Find out if your institution is participating by visiting Open Access Agreements at Sage. For more information on Open Access publishing options at Sage please visit Sage Open Access. For information on funding body compliance, and depositing your article in repositories, please visit Sage’s Author Archiving and Re-Use Guidelines and Publishing Policies.

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4. Preparing your manuscript for submission

Please see the full style guidelines for submissions to the Journal of Transport History.

4.1 Formatting

The preferred format for your manuscript is Word. LaTeX files are also accepted. Word and (La)Tex templates are available on the Manuscript Submission Guidelines page of our Author Gateway.

Articles accepted for publication should be presented in exactly the way indicated in the sections below. Final submissions which depart substantially from the JTH house style will be returned for revision. 
•    The preferred word processing format is MS Word. 
•    Use double line spacing throughout (including notes and quotations). 
•    Indent new paragraphs, except after (sub)headings. 
•    Don’t indent continuing paragraphs after an extract. 
•    Do not leave line spaces between paragraphs. 
•    Align text with the left margin only; do not justify text to both left and right margins. 
•    Pages should be numbered throughout. 

For the purpose of double-anonymize reviewing, the article should be anonymised in the text, and in the numbered notes where single or multiple citations could reveal the author of the paper being reviewed. 

4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics

For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures and graphs in electronic format, please visit Sage’s Manuscript Submission Guidelines.

Figures supplied in colour will appear in colour online regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in colour in the printed version. For specifically requested colour reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from Sage after receipt of your accepted article.

4.2.1 Illustrations

Inclusion of illustrations in the final article is subject to approval by the Editor and the Publisher. Upload your desired illustrations to ScholarOne when submitting your manuscript for consideration. Referees and the Editor will assess if your illustrations are appropriate in number and focus, and if they will reproduce well and be legible. 

The journal prints in black and white but colour will be retained for the online edition. Figures must be numbered as “Figure 1”, “Figure 2” etc. in the order they are to appear. If an illustration consists of more than one image then label them as Figure 1 (a), (b), etc. Please indicate the desired position of the figure in your article by inserting the figure caption into the text of your article. Due to typesetting constraints it may not always be possible to place the figure in the same precise location. The caption should be brief and should be followed by the named source / credit for the illustration. 

Also insert the caption / shortened version when uploading the illustration to ScholarOne, but it must also be included in the article text to avoid any confusion. 

Permissions 

All permissions to reproduce images should be cleared with the copyright holder before final submission of the revised typescript, and proof of permission should be uploaded as “Supplemental file not for review” at Step 6 of the online uploading process. It can be a time-consuming duty! However, please do not contact institutions regarding permission for the use of images before your article has been accepted. Instead, bring any queries about illustrations and permissions you have to the attention of the Editor.

Scans and electronic images 

Please note that images embedded in Word documents will not be accepted. Images should ideally have a resolution of 300 dpi and be of a reasonable size and clarity. Preferable formats are Jpegs and Tiffs but GIFs, EPS, PSD and PDFs are also acceptable. Screen grabs and images saved from websites are usually low resolution, rarely usable and difficult to get copyright for. Scans and electronic images can be checked in advance of publication. Please submit them to your Editor who will forward them to Sage for checking. 

Line drawings 

These are non-half-tone images such as bar charts and line graphs. They should be submitted as electronic files in their original file format (e.g. Excel). Do not use colour coding to differentiate data as the files are converted to black and white for printing and lines must be legible in this two-tone register. 

4.2.2 Tables

Tables should be submitted electronically and should be integrated into the typescript. See example below for table layout. Unless the table is the original work of the author it should have a source line underneath, indicating where the information, statistics, etc. came from. 
•    Solid rule above and below column headings and solid rule at foot of columns. 
•    No rules in body of table and no vertical rules used at all.
•    Any notes should be given at the foot of the table (they should not be included among notes to the text). Use lower-case, superscript letters rather than numbers, to avoid confusion. 

4.3 Supplemental material

This journal is able to host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc) alongside the full-text of the article. For more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplementary files.

4.4 General style notes

For information on general style notes, please refer to the full style guidelines for submissions to the Journal of Transport History.

4.5 Reference style

The Journal of Transport History uses i) numbered footnotes and ii) final bibliography which includes archival and/or oral sources. Please download The Journal of Transport History reference guidelines to ensure your manuscript conforms to this reference style.

4.6 English language editing services

Authors seeking assistance with English language editing, translation, or figure and manuscript formatting to fit the journal’s specifications should consider using Sage Language Services. Visit Sage Language Services on our Journal Author Gateway for further information.

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5. Submitting your manuscript

Journal of Transport History is hosted on Sage Track, a web based online submission and peer review system powered by ScholarOne™ Manuscripts. Visit https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jtrh  to login and submit your article online.

IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in the system before trying to create a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the journal in the past year it is likely that you will have had an account created.  For further guidance on submitting your manuscript online please visit ScholarOne Online Help.

5.1 ORCID

As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review process Sage is a supporting member of ORCID, the Open Researcher and Contributor ID. ORCID provides a unique and persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from every other researcher, even those who share the same name, and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between researchers and their professional activities, ensuring that their work is recognized.

The collection of ORCID iDs from corresponding authors is now part of the submission process of this journal. If you already have an ORCID iD you will be asked to associate that to your submission during the online submission process. We also strongly encourage all co-authors to link their ORCID ID to their accounts in our online peer review platforms. It takes seconds to do: click the link when prompted, sign into your ORCID account and our systems are automatically updated. Your ORCID iD will become part of your accepted publication’s metadata, making your work attributable to you and only you. Your ORCID iD is published with your article so that fellow researchers reading your work can link to your ORCID profile and from there link to your other publications.

If you do not already have an ORCID iD please follow this link to create one or visit our ORCID homepage to learn more.

5.2 Information required for completing your submission

You will be asked to provide contact details and academic affiliations for all co-authors via the submission system and identify who is to be the corresponding author. These details must match what appears on your manuscript. The affiliation listed in the manuscript should be the institution where the research was conducted. If an author has moved to a new institution since completing the research, the new affiliation can be included in a manuscript note at the end of the paper. At this stage please ensure you have included all the required statements and declarations and uploaded any additional supplementary files (including reporting guidelines where relevant).

Upload a separate “Title Page” at step 6 of the online file upload procedure, that includes the paper title, author name(s), abstract, key words, affiliation(s), professional biography (less than 100 words), acknowledgements (and any other identifying information) as you would like them to appear in the final, published article. 

5.3 Permissions

Please also ensure that you have obtained any necessary permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please see the Copyright and Permissions page on the Sage Author Gateway.

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6. On acceptance and publication

6.1 Sage Production

Your Sage Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will be made available to the corresponding author via our editing portal Sage Edit or by email, and corrections should be made directly or notified to us promptly. Authors are reminded to check their proofs carefully to confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence and contact details are correct, and that Funding and Conflict of Interest statements, if any, are accurate. 

6.2 Online First publication

Online First allows final articles (completed and approved articles awaiting assignment to a future issue) to be published online prior to their inclusion in a journal issue, which significantly reduces the lead time between submission and publication. Visit the Sage Journals help page for more details, including how to cite Online First articles.

6.3 Access to your published article

Sage provides authors with online access to their final article.

6.4 Promoting your article

Publication is not the end of the process! You can help disseminate your paper and ensure it is as widely read and cited as possible. The Sage Author Gateway has numerous resources to help you promote your work. Visit the Promote Your Article page on the Gateway for tips and advice. 

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7. Further information

Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the manuscript submission process should be sent to the Journal of Transport History editorial office as follows:

Editor: Massimo Moraglio
jth.editor@gmail.com