Submissions

Author Guidelines

Only original contributions will be published in Studia Socjologiczne. The manuscripts submitted to Studia Socjologiczne will not have been published before and they will not be under consideration for publication anywhere else at the time of their submission, notwithstanding the language and the form of the publication (paper or electronic). We do not plan to publish accepted articles online ahead of print, so please do not upload in any repositories, databases, etc. texts that have not yet been officially published (i.e. are under review, proofreading, or waiting for the publication of an issue). We will treat the publication of an article online before the publication of the respective issue of Studia Socjologiczne as a violation of the principle that we do not accept for publication articles previously published elsewhere, whether in print or online.

We publish articles in English, provided that they have been written in clear academic English as customary for publications in social sciences and that they are reviewed positively. All submissions, including book reviews, should have a title. For articles and review essays please provide an abstract and keywords.

Any and all submissions should be made online through the Editorial System available at  https://www.editorialsystem.com/stsoc/. Please follow the guidelines below. 

We do not have any article processing charges (APCs) or article submission charges.     

Ethical Standards

The editors of Studia Socjologiczne are committed to maintaining academic integrity and high standards of research practice. All instances of breaching the legal and the ethical principles of the academic practice, including plagiarism and self-plagiarism, will be registered and publicized.

Instructions for artificial intelligence (AI) tools

The rise of AI systems affects the possibilities of creating texts and images, including scientific publications. By referring to AI, we mostly suggest solutions known as large language models (LLM) and generative artificial intelligence, which can be implemented in IT tools (e.g., text editors, chatbots, or data analysis programs). 

Due to these developments, the following guidelines apply to Studia Socjologiczne from the first of July 2023 onwards. 

1. The authorship of a text requires, among others, consent for publishing as defined contractually. Moreover, authors must ensure the originality of their work, bearing full responsibility for its content. Therefore, only human individuals can be authors of scientific publications, and AI systems cannot be listed as an author or co-author. 
2. The assistance of AI for the sole purpose of improving the readability and quality of a text (e.g., grammar, spelling, bibliography, etc.) does not require further disclosure. 
3. Studia Socjologiczne does not recommend using AI tools for generating academic-related work. Nonetheless, if AI was used for important reasons, this should be done with strict supervision and control of the authors. Thus, paying careful attention to the AI output is necessary. Moreover, authors must submit an additional statement declaring the reasons and scope of the AI’s specific usage and output. This statement must be submitted to the editorial office. Lastly, the reader of the text should be informed about the use of AI in a footnote at the beginning of the text. 

Title

As concise as possible, unequivocal. The title should be easy to memorize both in English and in Polish.

Word Count

The submissions should be between 7,000 and 9,000 words, including references, tables, graphs, and annexes, if any. Book reviews should be between 3,000 and 4,000 words.

General Formatting Guidelines

Please apply the following formatting throughout the text:  

• A-4 paper size; MsWord or equivalent file format
• Times New Roman 12; 1.5 interline spacing
• 25 mm margins on all sides 
• justified
• continuous page numbers in bottom right-hand corner
• title of the article in bold and centred
• all headings left-aligned, bold and indented
• paragraphs indented
• tables inserted into the body text.     

Formatting Guidelines for Graphs and Pictures

Graphs, pictures, diagrams etc. must be in black and white (grayscale). Please make sure that these elements are readable. Each graph or picture should be attached as a separate vector graphic file, with a filename such as ‘Graph 1’, ‘Graph 2’, ‘Picture 1’, etc. Five graphic files per article can be included. 

Popular software such as Word, Excel, Power Point and equivalent allow to save vector graphic as a .pdf file. To do that, click on the ready graph or picture, then select ‘Save As’, and then choose the ‘PDF’ format. Apart from the .pdf, graphics can be saved as .epg, .svg or other compatible with vector format.

Graphs and pictures should be numbered with subsequent natural numbers and they should have titles. Their location in the text should be marked. We recommend the following way to refer to graphs and pictures in the text: ‘the data presented in Graph 2…’, ‘see Picture 3’, etc.

Please avoid:

• gradient fill, frames, solid fill and other similar visual effects
• placing the title in the graphic area
• using significantly different font sizes; for example, do not use font 9 for the description of value axis and font 16 for the category axis.

Submissions which fail to comply with the general formatting guidelines or with the guidelines regarding graphs and pictures will be returned to the authors for correction.

Footnotes 

Footnotes in the text should be kept to a minimum and as short as possible. They may be placed at the bottom of the page or at the end of the text, according to the authors' preference.  Literature references are placed in the text, never in a footnote.

Structure

The article should include the following elements, which are to be easily identifiable for the reviewers (the authors may compose and name these elements in any way they choose, always bearing in mind that including them increases the chances of manuscript acceptance). 

1. Main thesis (research question, problem to be solved).
2. Theory/literature review (as well as an indication of direct connection between the theory and the research problem).
3. Method.
4. Data and analysis; interpretation of research findings and their discussion.
5. Conclusion.

Abstract  

The abstract provides an incentive for the reader to read the paper. It should include a summary of the main points, including:

• research problem, research questions, hypotheses
• data and method
• basic findings
• embedding of research in the current and recommended future research.

The abstract should be written in third person and should neither repeat nor paraphrase the title of the article. It should not include definitions or quotations, and should not be argumentative. It should be very concise, no longer than 200 words. Too long abstracts will be cut short. 

Keywords

The author should give 3-5 keywords. The first may be the name of sociological subdiscipline to which the submission belongs. Keywords should not be too general (e.g. globalization, social change), they can be proper nouns.

Keywords should make it possible for the reader to find the article in an electronic database. We suggest to use standard terminology both in Polish and in English, to refrain from using neologisms, metaphors etc.

Author’s Statement

Any submission is accompanied by a statement made by each of the authors confirming that the submission is her/his/their original work and that no person has been named as the author of the submission whose contribution is negligible (honorary authorship).

Author’s Statement

Research Funding

If work on the submission was financially supported by a fellowship, a research grant, etc. such support should be acknowledged at the bottom of the first page, next to the names, affiliations and e-mail addresses of the authors (without a footnote reference).

Acknowledgments

If any person contributed to the work on the final version of the text (including methodological consultants, critics of previous versions, etc.), their contribution can be mentioned in a short Acknowledgment section at the end of the main text (immediately before the references).

Reviews and acceptance

Submissions which fail to comply with the quality standards of Studia Socjologiczne or with the technical guidelines may be rejected by the editors or returned to the authors for correction. 

Upon the initial verification the submission is directed to the responsible editor who will take care of the submission on all stages of the reviews, until the final recommendation for the editor-in-chief.

Each submission is reviewed by two reviewers in a double-blind system (the reviewers do not know who the author or the other reviewer is, and the author does not know who the reviewers are). A list of reviewers is published on the journal’s website.

The reviews are made in writing and should be concluded by qualifying the submission into one of the following four categories:

1. Accept (without revision or with minor technical and editing corrections).
2. Accept subject to revision (a minor revision as suggested by the reviewer).
3. Revise and resubmit for review (a major, substantial revision as suggested by the reviewer).
4. Reject.

The main criteria which the reviewers take into account are:

• originality and theoretical impact of the problem (including research design and method)
• methodological correctness; credibility and relevance of the data
• clear presentation of the main thesis/research question; clear and logical argumentation
• the extent to which the submission increases or modifies the existing theoretical insights, research methods or findings
• formal correctness of the text (including compliance with editorial guidelines).

Depending on the form and content of the text, the further criteria may include:

• the potential to inspire a scientific debate
• teaching potential
• originality of the empirical data.

Revisions

Most reviews suggest minor or major revisions. Revisions should be clearly marked in the manuscript (e.g. through track changes option, different colour etc.). In case of a paper resubmitted after a major revision (reviewer’s decision no 3: ‘Revise and resubmit for review’), three documents should be submitted:

• draft version of the manuscript (the original text with clearly visible track of changes)
• clean version of the manuscript without track changes
• response to reviewers, containing the answers to the questions raised in reviews, indicating what has been changed and what has been left unchanged in the paper (and explaining why it has been done so).

Self-Citations

Academic journals are ranked according to various criteria. Rankings are important because the publication’s ‘value’ expressed in points depends on them. Self-citations (in this case meaning references to other articles published in the same journal) are a factor negatively influencing the journal’s position in rankings (the more self-citations there are, the worse it is for the journal). References to and citations from other journals are favoured. Naturally, in some cases referencing an article published in Studia Socjologiczne can be absolutely necessary for constructing an adequate argumentation. However, the manuscripts containing an excessive number of self-citations will not be forwarded to reviewers unless the number of self-citations is radically cut.

References according to APA7 standard

The texts should use the citation and bibliographic format according to the APA7 standard. A Polish description of the basics of the APA 7 standard can be found here: https://apa7.liberilibri.pl/. If necessary, please refer to http://apa7.liberilibri.pl or other sources describing APA 7 (e.g., https://apastyle.apa.org/).