Stylesheet for submission

Submission

The journal Acta litteraria comparativa publishes original articles that have not been published before and not under consideration by a journal elsewhere.

Authors are requested to submit their papers electronically at: info@llla.lt

Peer-review and decisions

The journal uses double-blind peer review (neither the authors nor the reviewers know the identity of each other) to avoid bias.

After submission all articles are evaluated by the Editorial Board and may be immediately rejected if they are considered to be out of the journal’s scope or otherwise unfit for consideration. If there is a suspicion of plagiarism, the Board reserves the right to reject the submission at any stage of its preparation or to recall articles that have already been published. If an article does not meet the submission requirements, the Board has the right to reject such a submission without considering them for publication, disregarding their content; the Board can also edit the texts for the purpose of clarity and volume. Fundamental corrections to the text are coordinated with the Author.

Articles which passed initial evaluation will be sent out for external review. Reviewers are selected by the Board, either from the members of the European Society of Comparative Literature (ESCL) or other persons, who are active scholars in the relevant field. The reviewers fill in the reviewer questionnaire and submit their motivated opinion, along with remarks and suggestions to the Author.

After review, the Editor will make a decision of: reject, accept, or revise. Revisions may be major or minor. If a decision of revision is made, Author is asked to make revisions as quickly as possible. Revised articles may be sent out for review again, depending on the level of revision requested.

Publication charges

Acta litteraria comparativa is an open access peer-reviewed journal owned by Lithuanian Comparative Literature Association. It is completely free of charge to both authors and readers.

Publication structure

Full name
Affiliation (where the author was positioned when the research was undertaken - if authors change affiliation before publishing this should be given as a footnote), academic degree, academic title
Postal address (in the language of the country)
Email address
Short bio (between 100 and 200 words) in English.

Each article must comprise:

An informative title: ensure that it clearly explains what the article is about (not exceed 20 words)
An abstract in English of up to 300 words (up to 2000 characters with spaces): this should summarize the article, not simply introduce the topic. Please avoid including bibliographic references in the abstract.
Between 4-8 keywords in English, separated by a semicolon
The main body of the text should not exceed 4000-6000 words (30000-40000 characters with spaces) and should comprise:
- An introduction to the topic, describing the research problem and its relevance
- Methodology and/or theoretical framework
- The level of investigation of the theme
- Analysis
- Results of the research
- Conclucions
- Acknowledgments, funding, declarations of conflict of interest, authors' contribution, etc.
- References/bibliographical sources

Language

Only English language articles are accepted. Authors are responsible for the language quality in their article, and are strongly recommended to have manuscripts checked by a native speaker or an English language specialist before submission, in order to ensure that the language is acceptable.

For all manuscripts non-discriminatory language is mandatory. Sexist or racist terms must not be used.

Funding

Please supply all details required by any funding and grant-awarding bodies in a separate paragraph as follows:

This work was supported by the <Funding Agency> under <Grant> [number xxxx].

General guidelines

The overall length of the article should not exceed 4000–6000 words (30000–40000 characters with spaces), inclusive of all the figure captions and the bibliography section. A publication of a larger volume requires a separate decision of the Editorial Board.

The manuscript should be formatted in MS Word, typed in Times New Roman 12-point font size, and 1.5-line spaced. Quotations and bibliographic references should be formatted in accordance with the standards of the APA style.

Use double quotation marks for all cases (including single words) except for quotes within quotes.

Subheadings within your article: For A-level subheadings, use 12pts, in bold. Leave two empty lines before, and one empty line after the subheading. For B-level subheadings, use 11pts in bold. Again, leave two empty lines before and one empty line after the subheading. Make sure all empty lines are 12pt.

Tables

Tables should be created in Word or Excel and should be designed so that they easily fit a regular journal page. Each table should be numbered sequentially throughout the article and mentioned in the main text.

Each table must have an informative caption.

References

The Journal uses the APA Style (author–date method) short reference system for citations in the text with an alphabetical list at the end of the paper. Please ensure that every reference cited in the text is also present in the reference list and vice versa. Please check if all names and surnames of the authors, also the details (title, year, volume, pages, etc.) in the list of references are correct.

Titles mentioned in the text should be given in the original language of the work mentioned, for example Su peteliške ant lūpų (With a Butterfly on his Lips, 1997), with translation into English and other additional information following in parentheses the first time the text is mentioned. Translated titles should be used directly in text only if a translation by that title actually exists and when this translation, rather than the original, is discussed in the article.

The list of works cited is organized alphabetically, works by the same author within the list also chronologically (the earliest first, the most recent last). Please follow the format given in the example on the style sheet, keeping the bibliographical information as concise as possible and accessible also to readers not very familiar with the language of the article and its traditional style of bibliography.

In the text use the following style:

This was discussed by Smart (2016)…" – single author item
This was discussed in full (Smart, 2016)" – single author item
This was discussed in full (Smart & Burkart, 2016) – two authors
This was discussed in full (Smart et al., 2016)…" – 3 or more authors
This was discussed in full (P. Smart, 2016; S. Smart, 2017)…" where items have similar author names
This was discussed in full (Smart, 2016a, 2016b)…" where two or more items are published in the same year

Formatting of long quotations and quotations in original language

The quotation of 40 words or more should be formatted as block quotation: the quotation marks should not be used to enclose a block quotation. Block quotations should begin on a new line and the whole block should be indented 1 cm from the left margin.

If the author needs to present a quotation in both original language and in English translation, the original-language quotation should be placed in quotation marks if it is less than 40 words long and in a block quotation without quotation marks if it is 40 words or more. After the original-language quotation, an English translation of the quotation should be placed in square brackets. Then the citation for the quotation should be added. For example:

Research has addressed that “Les jeunes qui terminent un placement à l’âge de la majorité dans le cadre du système de protection de la jeunesse sont plus vulnérables” [Youth who finish a placement at the age of majority in the framework of the youth protection system are more vulnerable] (Bussières, St-Germain, Dubé, & Richard, 2017, 354).

Reference examples

Book:

Boym, S. (2001). The Future of Nostalgia. New York: Basic Books.

Book chapter or article in a collective work:

Leerssen, J. (2007). Imagology: History and method. In M. Beller, & J. Leerssen (Eds.), Imagology: The cultural construction and literary representation of national characters. A Critical Survey (pp. 17–32). Amsterdam-New York: Rhodopes.

Journal article:

Raila E., & Subačius P. (2012). Language Standardization and Forms of Ideological Education. Lituanus, 58 (2), 18–30.

Translation

Piaget, J. (1966). La psychologie de l'enfant [The psychology of the child]. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

Baudrillard, J. (1995). Simulacra and Simulation (Sh. F. Glaser, Trans.). Michigan: University of Michigan Press.

Thesis or dissertation:

Jonkutė, V. (2020). Collective memory in the Lithuanian and Latvian literary press (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Vilnius University, Lithuania.

Internet documents / webpages

Bown, J. (2019, December 17). How charity apps may be making us more generous. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-50572939

Non-book and other formats

Sidra Intersections. (2008). User guide-introduction. Akcelik & Associates Pty Ltd.

Please use the transliterated (not translated) version of the names and sources in the non-Romanian alphabet. We encourage you to follow the rules for Romanization recommended by The Library of Congress https://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/roman.html

Vilnius, October 16, 2020