Theory, Culture & Society

Manuscript Submission Guidelines: Theory, Culture & Society

This Journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics

Please read the guidelines below then visit the Journal’s submission site https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/tcs 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 Theory, Culture & Society 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, 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, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you.

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 Declaration of conflicting interests
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 Supplementary material
   4.4 Reference style
   4.5 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 Revised Papers
   6.2 Accepted with Minor Revisions
   6.3 Accepted Papers: Preparation of Manuscript for Publication
   6.4 Key to Editorial Decision Categories
   6.5 SAGE Production
   6.6 Online First publication
   6.7 Access to your published article
   6.8 Promoting your article
7. Refereeing for Theory, Culture & Society
8. Further information

 

1. What do we publish?

1.1 Aims & Scope

Before submitting your manuscript to Theory, Culture & Society, please ensure you have read the Aims & Scope.

1.2 Article Types

TCS operates with a range of manuscript types. All manuscripts are considered for publication on the understanding that they have not been previously published and that they are not under consideration elsewhere. Copies or similar versions of the article should not be available on the internet while the submission is under review.

The main manuscript types are as follows:

1.2.1 Standard Articles

1. Articles published in TCS are refereed.  The refereeing process is blind, so contributors should take care to remove any obvious indications of authorship. 
2. The language of publication is English, and the preferred language of submission is English. The difficulties of getting papers refereed in languages other than English means that non-English submissions are not encouraged and can only take place in exceptional circumstances. Authors who wish to submit an article in another language should contact the editorial office (tcs@sagepub.co.uk) first. 
3. Articles should generally contain between 6,000 and 8,000 words (including all notes and references).
4. The refereeing process normally takes around three to four months.
5. TCS receives hundreds of manuscripts every year and accepts less than 10% of the papers submitted to the journal. Those that are successful are usually accepted for publication subject to revision. Very few papers are accepted outright.

1.2.2 Special Issue/Special Section Articles

The above also applies to all special issue and special section articles. However, these articles will have been commissioned by the editors of these issues and sections. Authors of special issue and special section pieces should carefully read the TCS Special Issue guidelines. These can found here. Please make sure you select the appropriate special issue or special section category from the drop-down menu in the Author Centre on TCS Manuscript Central before you upload your piece.

1.2.3 Notes & Commentary Pieces

Shorter commentaries of 4,000 to 6,000 words (including all notes and references) are also invited. Normally these are not blind-refereed, but are commented on by editorial board members and associate editors.

Please make sure you select ‘Notes & Commentary’ from the Manuscript Type drop-down menu in the Author Centre on TCS Manuscript Central before you upload your piece.

1.2.4 Interviews

We welcome the submission of interviews with prominent figures in the social sciences and humanities. Normally these should be between 3,000 and 8,000 words (including all notes and references). Usually these are not blind-refereed, but are commented on by editorial board members and associate editors.

Please make sure you select ‘Interview’ from the Manuscript Type drop-down menu in the Author Centre on TCS Manuscript Central before you upload your piece.

1.2.5 Global Public Life

Shorter articles of between 4,000 to 6,000 words (including all notes and references) are also welcomed for the journal’s ‘Global Public Life’ section, which is usually included in the year-end Annual Review. This section encourages a wide range of views and deliberations across various issues and debates of the day. Articles should attend to the intersection of critical theory and cultural and social analysis, as per the scope of the journal, although the section allows further flexibility in subject matter and approach. By way of extending the form of debate and critical consideration of social life evoked by the ‘public sphere’ (whereby individuals come together to freely discuss and identify societal problems), Global Public Life is concerned with a range of lived experiences of the political and also cultural fabric and mediation of our lives. Articles with a global reach and that attend to topical matters are particularly welcomed. The submissions are normally reviewed through a combination of blind-review and non-blind consideration by editorial board members and associate editors. Please make sure you select ‘Global Public Life’ from the Manuscript Type drop-down menu in the Author Centre on TCS Manuscript Central before you upload your piece.

1.2.6 Review Articles

Normally review articles are 4,000 to 6,000 words long (including all notes and references). In all cases review articles must conform to the TCS house style (which is detailed below).

Review articles can be of a single important book, or a series of books on a particular topic, or a more sweeping ‘decade review’ of a particular field or emergent area.

They are commented on by editorial board members and associate editors and occasionally blind-refereed.

Please make sure you select ‘Invited Manuscript’ and ‘Review Article’ from the Manuscript Type drop-down menu before you upload your piece.

Please note that TCS does not accept unsolicited review articles.

1.2.7 Book Reviews

We now concentrate on publishing book reviews online rather than in the journal pages of Theory, Culture & Society and Body & Society. This will enable us to publish a much greater quantity of reviews much more quickly.

Our website review editors will regularly commission book reviews. At the same time we are always interested in extending our panel of reviewers. Should you wish to review books for https://www.theoryculturesociety.org you should write to the website review editors with your biographical details and interests along with information on the proposed book. We are also interested in reviews of books published outside the English-speaking world.

Our Website Book Review Guidelines are available here.

If you are a book author or publisher and would like us to consider reviewing one of your books, we welcome email alerts and catalogues of recent and forthcoming titles. Once we have arranged for an author to write a review of a particular book, we will request that the publisher send the book direct to the reviewer. We also welcome hard copies of books for our consideration. Please contact us at:

tcswebreviews@gmail.com

1.2.8 Video-Abstracts

Authors of articles in TCS are strongly encouraged to provide supplementary materials for https://www.theoryculturesociety.org. Authors have options to provide different types of material, but the video-abstract has become a key means on the site for authors to communicate the key issues in their article to a broad audience. Article authors are asked to prepare a short 3-5 minute video that discusses the key issues and ideas that are developed in their articles. We have had a wide range of such pieces on the site. Examples can be watched here. Our video-abstract guidelines can be found here.

1.2.9 Special Issue/Special Section Proposals

TCS regularly produces special issues and sections. We welcome proposals from prospective guest editors. Before submitting special issue and special section proposals, you should carefully read and follow the TCS guidelines for special issues and sections. These can be found here. In particular, proposals should include names, affiliations and short biographical notes for each prospective contributor, and draft titles and abstracts for each proposed article. Over the years, TCS has featured numerous translations and we continue to welcome suggestions for important work to be translated into English. If any contributions to a section or issue are likely to require translation or permission costs please set out approximate costs and word counts. In most cases we would expect editors/authors to confirm permissions and to obtain grants or financial support for translations from various national, research, university or other sources. However, we appreciate the complexity of such undertakings and can discuss matters in more detail following the submission of a proposal.

We assume that issue editors will have read drafts of papers and, in some cases, even asked authors to revise papers prior to formal submission to the journal.

Editors should recognise that Theory, Culture & Society receives a high number of papers each year and is only able to publish a small percentage. Although we wish to support the initiative of special issue editors in commissioning papers, the final decision on any paper will be made by the editorial board.

In this process, editors should expect a significant number of papers that they have solicited to be turned down. The journal seeks to maintain its high standard in both special issues and ordinary issues, and to this end takes seriously the views of referees and editorial board members.

Please email your Special Issue/Special Section Proposal to tcs@sagepub.co.uk

1.2.10 Book Series Proposals

The TCS Book Series currently has well over 100 published titles, many by leading figures in the social sciences and humanities.  A complete list and details of the titles in the series can be found at https://uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/eur/series/Series694

Prospective authors should submit a proposal (four to six pages) with a rationale for the book and a paragraph outline for each of the main chapters, along with some reflections on the market potential of the book. 

Full guidelines for Book Series Proposals are available here.

Please email your Book Proposal to tcs@sagepub.co.uk

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.

For interviews the interviewer will be listed as an author; unless the interviewee has contributed to the article by emailing responses or helping to edit the manuscript they will not be included as an author.

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.

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.

2.3.2 Writing assistance

Individuals who provided writing assistance, e.g. from a specialist communications company, do not qualify as authors and so should be included in the Acknowledgements section. Authors must disclose any writing assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input – and identify the entity that paid for this assistance. It is not necessary to disclose use of language polishing services.

2.4 Declaration of conflicting interests

Theory, Culture & Society encourages authors to include a declaration of any conflicting interests and recommends you review the good practice guidelines on the SAGE Journal Author Gateway.

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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

Theory, Culture & Society 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

Theory, Culture & Society 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

1. The article should be uploaded as the 'main document', and begin with the title, a 150-word abstract and three to seven keywords. A brief biographical note (max. 100 words) should be included in a separate document and uploaded as the 'biographical note'. The latter document will not be sent to referees. The title, abstract and keywords should also be entered separately into the system when uploading your manuscript.
2. The titles should clearly identify the subject of your article. This is an important strategy to increase the chance of articles coming up in Google searches and therefore improving the likelihood of your article being read and cited.
3. Keywords can be selected from the keyword list available on the TCS Manuscript Central website, or you may enter a new keyword. Keywords are essential in helping editors select referees from our referees’ database. Choosing the most relevant keywords is again an important strategy to increase the chance of articles coming up in Google searches and therefore improving the likelihood of your article being read and cited.
4. To protect anonymity, please make sure that you do not include your name anywhere within the main document (e.g. as a running head or at the end). When referring to your own work, you should either replace your name with ‘Author’ (both in the body of the text and in the list of references at the end) or if you are referring to yourself in the third person, then replace your name as shown in this example: "as 'Author' (2005) has  demonstrated". Do not black out your name or use any other method to conceal it.
5. Please try to minimize the use of acronyms and avoid using your own inventions, or those known only to a specialist audience. It is best to only use acronyms which are familiar to the general public, such as UN.
6. The number and length of notes should be strictly limited. They should be numbered serially and included at the end of the text prior to the references section. We do not accept footnotes.
7. Images are encouraged and should be as clear and as high a resolution as possible, preferably at 300 dpi.
8. Please make sure you insert page numbers into your manuscript.

Book Reviews and Review Articles

Review Articles

1. Review articles commence with a title, a 150-word abstract and three to seven keywords, in the same manner as a standard article.
2. These elements are followed by the book(s) listed in the following way:
   Political Machines: Governing a Technological Society
   by Andrew Barry
   London and New York: Continuum, 2001, pp. 305, ISBN 0 485 00634 0,
   Pbk £16.99
3. References to other publications should follow the TCS house style outlined earlier in this document.
4. Notes should be kept to a minimum.
5. Authors should add a brief biographical note (max. 100 words) in a separate document.

Book Reviews

Our full Website Book Review Guidelines can be found here.

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.

4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics

Images are encouraged and should be as clear and as high a resolution as possible; preferably at 300 dpi.

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.

4.3 Supplementary material

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

4.4 Reference style

To ensure that our referencing system is consistent with other SAGE journals, TCS has now switched to the Harvard system (with the exception that we now ask for full first names in the reference list).

SAGE Harvard

4.4.1. General

1. Up to three authors may be listed. If more are provided, then list the first three authors and represent the rest by et al. Fewer authors followed by et al. is also acceptable.

4.4.2. Text citations

1. All references in the text and notes must be specified by the author’s last name and date of publication, together with the page number, if given.
2. Do not use ibid., op. cit., infra., supra. Instead, show the subsequent citation of the same source in the same way as the first.
3. Where et al. is used in textual citations, this should always be upright, not italic.
4. Check that all periodical data are included – volume, issue and page numbers, publisher, place of publication, etc.
5. Journal titles should not be abbreviated in SAGE Harvard journal references

Note the following for the style of text citations:

1. If the author’s name is in the text, follow with year in parentheses:
   ... Author Last Name (year) has argued ...
    
2. If author’s name is not in the text, insert last name, comma and year:
   ... several works (Author Last Name, year) have described ...
    
3. Where appropriate, the page number follows the year, separated by a colon:
   ... it has been noted (Author Last Name, year: page nos) that ...
    
4. Where there are two authors, give both names, joined by ‘and’; if three or more authors, use et al.:
   ... it has been stated (Author Last Name and Author Last Name, year) ...
   ... some investigators (Author Last Name et al., year) ...
    
5. If there is more than one reference to the same author and year, insert a, b, etc. in both the text and the list:
   ... it was described (Author Last Name, yeara, yearb) ...
    
6. Enclose within a single pair of parentheses a series of references, separated by semicolons:
   ... and it has been noted (Author Last Name and Author Last Name, year; Author Last Name and Author Last Name, year; Author Last Name, year) ...
   Please order alphabetically by author names.
    
7. If two or more references by the same author are cited together, separate the dates with a comma:
   ... the author has stated this in several studies (Author Last Name, year, year, year, year) ...
   Please start with the oldest publication.
    
8. Enclose within the parentheses any brief phrase associated with the reference:
   several investigators have claimed this (but see Author Last Name, year: page no.–page no.) 
    
9. For an institutional authorship, supply the minimum citation from the beginning of the complete reference:
   ... a recent statement (Name of Institution, year: page no.) ...
   ... occupational data (Name of Bureau or Institution, year: page no.) reveal ...
    
10. For authorless articles or studies, use the name of the magazine, journal, newspaper or sponsoring organization, and not the title of the article:
    ... it was stated (Name of Journal, year) that ...
     
11. Citations from personal communications are not included in the reference list:
    ... has been hypothesized (Name of Person Cited, year, personal communication).

4.4.3. Reference list

Brown, John (2003)
Brown, Trevor and Yates, Paul (2003)
Brown, Wendy (2002)
Brown, Wendy (2003a)
Brown, Wendy (2003b)
Brown, Wendy and Jones, Michael (2003)
Brown, Wendy and Peters, Philip (2003)
Brown, Wendy, Hughes, John and Kent, Tom (2003a)
Brown, Wendy, Kent, Tom and Lewis, Steven (2003b)

4.4.4. Reference styles

Book
Featherstone, Mike (2007) Consumer Culture and Postmodernism (Second Edition). London: Sage.

Book chapter
Friedman, Jonathan (1988) Global crises, the struggle for cultural identity and intellectual porkbarrelling. In: Werbner, Pnina and Modood, Tariq (eds) Debating Cultural Hybridity. London: Zed Books.

Journal article
Pieterse, Jan Nederveen (1997) Multiculturalism and museums: Discourse and others in the age of globalization. Theory, Culture & Society 14(4): 23–46.

Journal article published ahead of print
Beer, David and Burrows, Roger (2013) Popular culture, digital archives and the new social life of data. Theory, Culture & Society. Epub ahead of print 16 April 2013. DOI: 10.1177/0263276413476542.

Website
National Center for Professional Certification (2002) Factors affecting organizational climate and retention. Available at: www.cwla.org./programmes/triechmann/2002fbwfiles (accessed 10 July 2010).

Thesis/dissertation
Clark, James (2001) Referencing style for journals. PhD thesis, University of Leicester, UK.

4.5 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

Theory, Culture & Society is hosted on SAGE Track, a web based online submission and peer review system powered by ScholarOne™ Manuscripts. Visit https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/tcs 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.

To submit your paper, please follow these steps:

1. Go to the TCS Manuscript Central website and log in. If you are a new user you will need to create an account. You will be asked to provide your personal details and indicate your area(s) of expertise. You will then be asked for a password, containing at least 8 characters, two of which must be numbers. When you have your user name and password you will be able to log on to TCS Manuscript Central.

2. Go to the Author Centre and click the link to submit a new manuscript.

3. Make sure you select the correct manuscript type from the drop-down menu. Normally this will be a standard article, but in some cases it could be a review article, book review, notes & commentary piece, interview, or contribution for Global Public Life or another special issue or section – please make your choice carefully.

4. Only select the special issue or special section article, or a named special issue designation from the menu, if you have been invited by the editor to contribute.

If you have problems submitting your piece, please contact tcs@sagepub.co.uk

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. 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).

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 Revised Papers

1. If you are revising a paper for publication in TCS, please could you make sure that all changes to the original article are highlighted. The best way to highlight changes is to use the Microsoft (MS) Word facility which tracks changes. The ‘Track Changes’ facility can be found in the MS Word toolbar by clicking on ‘Tools’. This will enable deletions and new material to be visible to editors and will assist referees considering the revised version. It will also help board members check that the requested revisions have been made. Please also ensure to upload an additional 'clean' version of your revision (i.e. without the editing notations) to accompany your tracked version.
    

   To maintain anonymity, please ensure that any changes made do not reveal your name, abbreviated or otherwise, in the automatic tags. To do this, go into the Track Changes function in MS Word and either ‘remove all tags’ to make changes anonymous, or change your user name to ‘Anon’ or ‘Author, for example’.

   If you need any advice on using this facility, please contact the TCS Editorial Office at tcs@sagepub.co.uk

   If the revisions are too extensive for Track Changes to be appropriate, please highlight in yellow those sections of the text that have been revised the most extensively.

   Revised papers will be reviewed again, normally by the original set of reviewers.

2. When you upload the revised version of your paper via TCS Manuscript Central, please make sure you hit the correct button (click the ‘Create a Revision’ link which appears next to your original submission) to designate it as a revised version. This will add a new suffix to the paper’s code, R1 – e.g. 08-200-TCS.R1. Should a second round of revisions be needed, again the revised paper button needs selecting and an R2 suffix will be given. 
    
3. The refereeing process should again take around three to four months.

6.2 Accepted with Minor Revisions

1. All minor revisions to papers should be highlighted in the same manner described above for revised papers. This will enable deletions and new material to be visible to editors and will assist referees considering the revised version. It will also help board members check that the requested revisions have been made.
    
2. AMR papers do not normally go back to the original referees, but are commented on by editorial board members.
    

3. When you upload the revised version of your paper via TCS Manuscript Central, please make sure you hit the correct button (click the ‘Create a Revision’ link which appears next to your original submission) to designate it as a revised version. This will add a new suffix to the paper’s code, R1 – e.g. 08-200-TCS.R1. Should a second round of revisions be needed, again the revised paper button needs selecting and an R2 suffix will be given.

4. The refereeing process should take around one to two months.

6.3 Accepted Papers: Preparation of Manuscript for Publication

1. Authors should email the final version of accepted papers to tcs@sagepub.co.uk and indicate in the accompanying note that it is the final accepted version.
    
2. Authors should carefully check that the final version of their manuscript conforms to the TCS house style as specified within these guidelines.
    
3. The final version needs to be formatted in double space, with endnotes and not footnotes.
    

4. Notes for Contributors are also available inside the back cover of each copy of the Theory, Culture & Society journal.

5. A short biographical note (max. 100 words) should be included at the end of the article (this time in the same document).

6. Authors should include their current postal address and email, as well as any anticipated changes for the next year.

7. Provide emails giving written permission to reproduce illustrations from copyright holders. Hard copies of signed letters may be required in some instances.

8. Provide good quality copies of illustrations. Please provide two sets of images: a black and white one for publication in the hard copy journal and a colour one for publication in the electronic version. Details can be found by pressing the Instructions and Forms button which is available on each page of the TCS Manuscript Central website. Images should be 300 dpi.

9. Please make sure to number the images (e.g. Figure 1, Figure 2, etc.) and indicate clearly where they should go in the text (e.g. insert Figure 1 here).

10. Proofs will normally be sent out to contributors approximately two months before the issue goes to press. Publication will be a further three months later. Make sure to key in any anticipated changes of address in the required fields at the Authors Centre.

11. Offprints. On publication authors will receive a downloadable version of their TCS piece, in PDF format, that can be resent 25 times, and contact authors will also receive a hard copy of the issue in which their paper is published.

6.4 Key to Editorial Decision Categories

ACCEPT: Your article has been accepted.

AMR (ACCEPT WITH MINOR REVISIONS): Your article will be accepted upon satisfactory completion of minor revisions. The revised version of the article will not be sent for peer-review but will be considered directly by the editorial board.

REVISE: Your article must be revised and the revision sent again for peer-review (normally to the same set of referees) before it can be considered again by the editorial board.

RESUBMIT: Your article has not been accepted, but requires a radical rethinking and recasting, not just major changes. You are encouraged to rethink the paper along the lines suggested and resubmit it as a new article. It will then be sent again for peer-review (normally to a new set of referees) before it can be considered again by the editorial board.

REJECT: Your article has been rejected.

6.5 SAGE Production

Your SAGE Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will be sent by PDF to the corresponding author and should be returned 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. 

6.6 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.

6.7 Access to your published article

SAGE provides authors with online access to their final article.

6.8 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. Refereeing for Theory, Culture & Society

If you’ve been invited to peer-review an article for TCS: 

To access the paper you’ve agreed to review, you should log on to TCS Manuscript Central and then click on ‘Review’. The paper for review can be found under ‘Review and Score’. Please click on the ‘Perform Review’ icon to the right of your paper. You will then be provided with ‘Instructions for Reviewers’. Please read these instructions carefully before submitting your report and completing your score sheet.

If you’d like to become a referee for TCS: 

We are always interested in people who would like to referee papers for the journal. We also welcome suggestions of people we could approach to be referees or contribute manuscripts to TCS. TCS Manuscript Central asks authors to submit papers with three to seven keywords that we use to identify prospective referees from our referees’ database.  If you are interested in becoming a referee please take a look at the keywords list and email some keywords to us which best reflect your interests, along with a short CV and details of your current work.

8. Further Information

8.1 Feedback/Correspondence

We welcome your views on all aspects of Theory, Culture & Society.  

The quality of the journal depends upon a wide network of editors, associates, referees and readers. We are interested in broadening our network at all times.

We welcome offers to review books and to act as a referee for TCS papers.  

We are also interested in suggestions for special issues and books.

TCS is involved in a wide range of activities aimed at increasing the interaction between editors, contributors, referees and readers. Details of these can be found at the TCS website: https://theoryculturesociety.org. Guidelines for TCS website submissions are available here.

General queries about the journal can be dealt with more easily and rapidly by contacting the Editorial Office at tcs@sagepub.co.uk

8.2 Contacts

Mike Featherstone – Editor-in-Chief – tcs@sagepub.co.uk

Sunil Manghani and Rainer Winter – Managing Editors – tcs@sagepub.co.uk

John Phillips – Standard Issues Editor – tcs@sagepub.co.uk

Scott Lash – Special Issues Editor – tcs@sagepub.co.uk

Ryan Bishop – Book Reviews Editor – tcs@sagepub.co.uk

Matthias Wieser – Global Public Life Coordinator – tcs@sagepub.co.uk 

Vicki Dabrowski – Book Reviews Associate – tcswebreviews@gmail.com

Samantha Schäfer – Editorial Assistant (Digital) – samantha.sagetcs@gmail.com

 

Theory, Culture & Society is based at Goldsmiths, University of London, UK. 

TCS website: https://theoryculturesociety.org

This provides a range of extra material for the journals Theory, Culture & Society and Body & Society, including: reviews, interviews, think-pieces, responses and video-abstracts with established scholars, authors and issue editors.

To subscribe to TCS, please visit: https://uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/journal/theory-culture-society#subscribe

For details of our companion journal, Body & Society, please visit: http://journals.sagepub.com/home/bod