Guidance for student contributors

Publishing Student Work in the Queen Mary Law Journal

As a student contributor, you might have written essays or dissertations that you might be looking forward to publishing with us. While we encourage you to adapt your student work to be an academic article and submit it, we want you to re-work and develop the manuscript in a publishable manner before submission. To meet the standards, we advise you to follow the following pointers:

• Please ensure that your submission is in accordance with our guidelines.
• More than likely, your dissertation (or other student work) will require some editing to conform with the requirements of an academic article. Some primary requirements of an academic article that our editors will require include:
  • Going beyond the merely ‘descriptive’: Make sure the article advances a clear argument throughout the paper by clearly stating the argument in the introduction, showing how each section provides the necessary information to support that argument, and strongly making the argument by the conclusion. The number one reason we reject student work is because it is merely descriptive.
  • Stating the paper’s importance: Tell the reader why they should want to read your article. Does it advance a new theory; Explore an issue from a new perspective; Discuss new developments in the law that no one else has yet analysed; Etc. In the introduction, set out what sets this paper apart from others on the same or similar topics. It is okay if the difference is minimal, but make it clear how it differs.
  • Having a clear structure that serves the central argument: outline the structure of the paper in the introduction and then sign-post the structure (and argument) throughout the article. Be very clear in the introduction, including a paragraph devoted to explaining the structure of the paper, for example: “Part 1 explores X. Part 2 describes Y. Part 3 shows Z.” etc.
• We regret that we are unable to offer speculative feedback on papers. We are already very busy editing the submitted papers, so we can only send feedback on an article through submission.

Even if a paper is not perfect, our editors will work with you to make it better if we believe it can get to the point of being published.

In case of any query or clarification, write to us at qmlj-submissions@qmul.ac.uk.