Submissions

Author Guidelines

General points about submissions

The EJHR publishes two kinds of papers: full-length original research articles (6,000 to 10,000 words) and shorter commentary pieces (3,000 to 6,000 words) which critically examine and take a clear persuasive stand on the literature and research direction of a particular topic of interest relating to humour in the European context. The EJHR also publishes research notes. These take the form of very brief articles (1,000 to 1,500 words) which detail new research projects (could be work in progress for example part of a PhD dissertation) in terms of aims, objectives, methods and outcomes.

The authors are kindly requested to specify the type of their contributions when choosing the appropriate template provided below. Text must be pasted piece by piece into the template so that the original highlighting is retained.

• Article template
• Commentary article template
• Research note template

Authors are kindly requested to follow the guidelines as consistently as possible. If the general guidelines are not properly followed, the publication schedule will be slowed down.

All submissions (with the exception of book reviews) will undergo peer-review.

Book reviews

The EJHR regularly publishes book reviews. If you would like to recommend a book for review please contact the EJHR Book Review Editor. The book reviews are also required to be submitted in their own template.

Special issues

We also encourage special issues edited by Guest Editors. If you think you would like to edit an EJHR guest issue, please contact the Editors at europeanjournalofhumour@gmail.com. The procedure is described below. 

• The prospective Guest Editors of a new special issue submit a general description of the issue with abstracts of individual articles to the journal Editors, who consider it, and if it meets their approval the detailed timeline is negotiated and then accepted by journal Editors and Guest Editors.
• Guest Editors receive and read the articles which are to constitute the issue. Only when an article is approved by them can it be submitted to the journal .
• Submitted articles are subjected to the external double blind peer review independently of the Guest Editors.
• When the articles receive an acceptance, request for changes or resubmission review, they are returned to the authors with the journal Editor's decisions. When the publication is declined, the Guest Editors receive the reviews as well
• Once the articles reach the Copyediting stage,  the Guest Editors receive the copies of all of them for final reading and editing.
• In the final stage the Guest Editors submit the Editorial article which is subject to approval and editing of the journal Editors.
• The special issue is published when it is scheduled. The journal Editors plan special issues  so that they alternate with regular issues, thus making sure their is no backlog of articles submitted to regular issues.

Approximate publication timeline (since  submission):

• 3 weeks - assignment of handling Editor and reviewers
• 2-3 months - reviews returned to the author(s)
• 6 -12 months - publication time after acceptance (depending on the journal's publication schedule)

Assessment criteria of particular types of articles

More specific points about submissions

Please submit articles adjusting to the styling required by the journal template. Below are the format highlights.

• Articles should be in MS Word format, Times New Roman font, size 12.
• The title of the article should appear at the top of the first page, followed by the author’s full name, affiliation and email address.
• Each article must include an abstract of not more than 250 words and a list of up to 5 keywords..
• Manuscripts should be divided into sections and subsections with numbered headings.
• Contributions should be in English. Contributors whose native language is not English are asked to have their paper carefully checked by a native speaker.

The editorial staff of the EJHR reserves the right to edit articles and book reviews, both for content and style. All substantial changes will be referred back to the author before publication.  Authors will receive page proofs for correction, which must be returned by dates determined by the publication schedule.

Abstracts

Abstracts should comprise the following elements:

1. subject matter
2. research perspective
3. research material (source, their nature and quantity)
4. most important conclusions

Figures

Figures must be submitted as electronic graphic files, gif or jpeg. Captions must be provided for all figures. Figures should NOT be placed in separate files to the text files but rather IN the body of the text, in their appropriate position and they should clearly labeled.

Footnotes

Footnotes should be kept to an absolute minimum. Endnotes should NOT be used.

Emphasis

Emphasized and foreign words should be italicized.

References

Please check the references systematically to ensure that all works cited in the text are also listed in the reference section, and vice versa. Please note the journal uses the APA version 7 format of in-text citations and end references. 

In-text references

References in the text should be indicated by giving the author’s name with the year of publication and pages in parentheses, e.g. (Ruch, 1998: p. 7), (Chapman & Foot, 1976); or if there are more than two authors Ruch et al. (2010, p. 3). If several papers from the same author(s) and from the same year are cited, (a), (b), (c), etc. should be put after the year of publication, e.g. (Ruch, 2009a, pp. 5-7). If you refer to more than one work at the same time, enclose all the references within the same parentheses and separate each reference from the next by a semi-colon (Davies, 1998, p. 12; Ruch, 1998, p. 23).

End references

References should be listed in full alphabetical order at the end of the paper in the following form (please note: initial letters of  journal titles should be placed in capitals, while book and article titles in lower-case letters as shown below). Please make sure al the available doi numbers (including the prefix, e.g. https://doi.org/ when part of the doi address) and URL references have been provided.

Appiah, K. A. (2005). The ethics of identity: Racism in everyday life. Princeton University Press.

Archakis, A., & Tsakona, V. (2005). Analyzing conversational data in GTVH terms: A new approach to the issue of identity construction via humour. Humor. International Journal of Humor Research, 18(1), 41-48. https://doi.org/10.1515/humr.2005.18.1.41.

Attardo, S. (2008). A primer for the linguistics of humor. In V. Raskin & S. F. Attardo (Eds.), The primer of humor research (pp. 101-155). Mouton de Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110198492.101

Baniya, S., & Weech, S. (2019). Data and experience design: Negotiating community-oriented digital research with service-learning. The European Journal of Humour Research, 6(1), 11–16. https://doi.org/10.5703/1288284316979.

Baumeister, R. F. (1993). Exposing the self-knowledge myth [Review of the book The self-knower: A hero under control, by R. A. Wicklund & M. Eckert]. Contemporary Psychology, 38(5), 466-467. Retrieved January 12, 2025, from https://collections.uakron.edu/digital/collection/p15960coll21/id/70737/.

Duis, J. M. (2008). Acid/base chemistry and related organic chemistry conceptions of undergraduate organic chemistry students (Publication No. 3348786) [Doctoral dissertation, University of Northern Colorado]. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global.

Gregorowicz, K. D. (2013). DeMOCKracy now: The effect of political comedy on knowledge and ideological constraint, a model of humour-triggered cognition. [Doctoral dissertation, University of Michigan]. https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/items/9dee12ca-5e02-4aae-ac8f-51f9594f3a49/full

Pegion, K., Kirtman, B. P., Becker, E., Collins, D. C., LaJoie, E., Burgman, R., Bell, R., DelSole, R., Min, D., Zhu, Y., Li, W., Sinsky, E., Guan, H., Gottschalck, J., Metzger, E. J., Barton, N. P., Achuthavarier, D., Marshak, J., Koster, R., . . .  Kim, H. (2019). The subseasonal experiment (SubX): A multimodel subseasonal prediction experiment. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 100(10), 2043-2061. https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-18-0270.1

Perreault, L. (2019). Obesity in adults: Role of physical activity and exercise. UpToDate. Retrieved January 12, 2020, from https://www.uptodate.com/contents/obesity-in-adults-role-of-physical-activity-and-exercise.

Peterzell, J. (1990, April). Better late than never. Time, 135(17), 20-21. https://time.com/archive/6714632/better-late-than-never-3/

Plato (1989). Symposium (A. Nehamas & P. Woodruff, Trans.). Hackett Publishing Company. (Original work published ca. 385-378 BCE). Retrieved  January 12, 2025, from https://archive.org/details/symposium0000plat_v7a5

For other specific bibliographical references check at: https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_style_guide/reference_list_basic_rules.html

Further details

Abbreviations: Where appropriate, common abbreviations (i.e., e.g., etc.) can be used. Excessive use of abbreviations should, however, be avoided.

Acronyms: Spell out in full first time, use initials thereafter.

Appendices:  Appendices should be placed at the end of the article before the References. 

Capitalisation: Use minimum capitalisation for all headings, i.e. only use capitals for the first letter and proper nouns.

Citations: In the case of reprints, please use (Freud, 1960 [1905], p. 109). Page number ranges: (Apte, 1985, pp. 108–112); please do not drop digits (e.g., 108–12). Give page numbers in full: do not use “f.”, “ff. Always give the full author-date citation: do not use “op. cit.”, “loc. cit.”, or “‘ibid.” When citing more than one work by the same author/editor published in the same year, please differentiate the works by using letters: Kuipers (2008a, 2008b)

Centuries: Numbers are preferred, e.g. 21st century.

Cross-references: References to section or subsection numbers within the article should include the capitalized word “Section” followed by the section number: e.g., “see Section 5.4” References to tables or figures within the article should include the capitalized word “Table” or “Figure” followed by a number: e.g., “cf. Table 2”.

Dashes: Please do not use double hyphens. Unspaced hyphens should be used between inclusive numbers, e.g., 194-197, 2010-2012. Please DO NOT use EN-dashes or hyphens for any unnumbered lists. Use bullets instead.

Dates: Number, month and year, e.g. 1 August 2012.

Decades: use numbers and ‘s’, e.g. 1920s.

Foreign titles: use original titles (in transliteration for non-Latin scripts) followed by translations into English in square brackets , as in the example below. There is no need to translate names of journals, if they do not use official English names as well. 

Ivanova, E.M. et al. (2016). Russkoyazychnaya adaptatsiya oprosnika gelotofobii, gelotofilii i katagelastitsizma PhoPhiKat [Russian-language adaptation of the questionnaire of a gelotophobia, gelotophilia and katagelasticism PhoPhiKat]. Voprosy psikhologii, 2, 162–171.

Italics: Use to add emphasis to words and phrases. CAPITAL LETTERS and SMALL CAPS should not be used for emphasis.

Multiple authors:  

if a publication has more than three authors, use the first author's name followed by et al., as in the example below: 

Ivanova, E.M., et al. (2016). Russkoyazychnaya adaptatsiya oprosnika gelotofobii, gelotofilii i katagelastitsizma PhoPhiKat [Russian-language adaptation of the questionnaire of a gelotophobia, gelotophilia and katagelasticism PhoPhiKat]. Voprosy psikhologii, 2, 162–171.

Numbers: Numbers below 10 should be written in full e.g. five, otherwise as numerals, separate thousands using commas e.g. 1,000.

Percentages: Numbers followed by per cent are preferred. % should be used only in tables.

Quotations: Short quotations (fewer than 60 words) should run-on in the text and be enclosed in double quotation marks. Single quotation marks enclose quotations within quotations. Longer quotations should appear as a separate block and should not be enclosed in quotation marks. The citation to the source should be placed at the end of the quote following the punctuation. All quotations in languages other than English should be followed by a translation in square brackets.

Quotation Marks: Use double "quotation marks", except when quoting within a quote, when single 'quotation marks' should be used. Quotations should close after the full-stop which ends the sentence.

Spacing: Type one space (not more) after periods, commas, and colons.

Spelling: Use British English spelling, e.g. humour, behaviour, except in titles originally published in American English. For names in another alphabet, use standard English transcriptions. If in doubt about spelling, please refer to the Oxford English Dictionary.

Tables and Figures: Tables and illustrations must be inserted in the main text and not come on separate files. They should be numbered consecutively by Arabic numerals. Please be sure to obtain written permission for the use of material (e.g., caricatures, images, figures) for which the copyright is owned by others.

Web Address Referencing: it is important that you provide as many details as possible when referencing a web address. This includes, author if appropriate, title of webpage, full URL address, and date accessed.