Submissions

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Submission Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.
  • The submission has not been published previously, nor is it before another journal for consideration.
  • The submission has been presented as a paper at the annual Postgraduate Forum of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Amerikastudien (PGF of the DGfA). Please note: This is only required for PGF issues. If you are submitting your work for a thematic issue, please just check this box!
  • The submission is in Microsoft Word document file format (.doc or .docx).
  • The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in these submission guidelines.
  • The text has been formatted using the COPAS document template. All illustrations, figures, graphs, and tables are placed within the text at the appropriate points, rather than at the end.
  • Where available, URLs have been provided for references.

Author Guidelines

COPAS is dedicated to publishing original work by early career scholars working in the disciplines associated with American Studies. Submitted texts should be between 5,000 and 8,000 words in length, including a list of works cited. Authors/guest editors should submit their texts (preferably) online.

Style and Document Template

Please read the COPAS Style Sheet and use our document template when preparing your submission. Submitted texts should not be hyphenated, neither automatically nor manually. The use of typographical quotation marks is encouraged, as is the use of m-dashes (Geviertstrich) instead of shorter n-dashes. Please note that closing quotation marks should follow the punctuation marks. A carriage return (paragraph mark) should only be used at the end of paragraphs; there is no need to enter it twice for spacing paragraphs. Indentations, such as at the beginning of new paragraphs, should not be made by authors. Please use emphasis, such as italics, bold print, and single quotation marks, sparingly.

Abstract, Keywords, and Short Biographical Note

Please provide five to ten keywords for your article. Furthermore, contributors are kindly asked to include an abstract of about 60 to 100 words (for the contents page). Submissions should also include a brief note on the contributor(s) to be presented in the journal; so please sketch:

  • your academic development and career;
  • the focus of your research;
  • relevant previous publications.

Documentation of Works Cited

The guidelines of the 8th edition of the MLA Handbook apply (for a quick overview of the differences between the current and previous editions see the respective pages of the MLA Style Center and/or the Purdue Online Writing Lab). COPAS requires the use of a parenthetical system of documentation rather than footnotes or endnotes. Footnotes should be used sparingly and should be reserved for actual comments. Citations in parentheses within the text point to the respective entries in the works cited list. The latter should include only sources actually referenced in the submission.

Right of Use for Copyrighted Material

Contributors are responsible to resolve the legal status of copyrighted material (photographs, illustrations, lyrics, etc.) to be included in their COPAS submission.

Copyright Notice

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

  • Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work’s authorship and initial publication in this journal.
  • Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal’s published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository, publish it in a journal or a book), with an acknowledgment of its initial publication in this journal.
  • Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories, disciplinary repositories, or on their website) prior to and during the submission process.

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