CONTENT GUIDELINES

Authors are first requested to read the aims and scope of Religious Inquiries to learn about its purpose, and to determine whether their manuscript is appropriate for the journal. Before submitting their manuscripts, authors need to peruse the instructions provided here to know the journal’s standards, and how to prepare their manuscripts.

1. Submission of Manuscripts  

1.1  Publication Type

Religious Inquiries publishes research articles. This journal has constraints on the length of the manuscript. Normally, manuscripts should have a minimum of 7000 words and not exceed 10000 words. Manuscripts submitted to the journal should not be under consideration at the same time in another journal or any other venues of publication. Also, the manuscripts must be submitted in English.

1.2 Process of Submission

For Religious Inquiries, authors should submit manuscripts via the online submission portal of the journal’s site: https://ri.urd.ac.ir/contacts. During the submission and peer review process, the manuscript is usually under the control of the corresponding author. The corresponding author must make sure that the author list contains the names of all eligible co-authors, and that the submitted version of the manuscript has been read, understood, and approved by all co-authors.

1.3 File Format

The suggested file type for submitting manuscripts is Microsoft Word (.DOCX files). The manuscript’s font should be preferably set in Times New Roman.

2. Manuscript Preparation

A submitted manuscript covers three important parts: front matter, main text, and back matter. Here, we discuss all these parts in detail.

2.1 Structure of Front Matter

Please provide a front matter that includes the title, full names of all authors, e-mail addresses, affiliations, an abstract of no more than 200 words, and 4-7 keywords. It should be noted that keywords are separated by semicolons (;).

2.2 Main Text

The main text of a manuscript consists of some sections, such as introduction, discussion, and conclusion.

Please note that tables, figures, and images should be saved in the main document. Indeed, you do not need to submit a separate file for tables.

2.3 Structure of Back Matter

The back matter of the manuscript should consist of the following items:

• Funding: In this section, please reveal all funding sources for your study. Otherwise, add: “This study received no external funding.”

• Acknowledgments: This section allows you to acknowledge assistance received regardless of those listed in the Funding and Author Contribution sections.

• Author Contributions: Since each author is required to have contributed to the idea or design of the work, as well as collection or analysis of data, each author’s contribution should be explained, and outlined in a short paragragh.

• Conflicts of Interest: All authors are required to disclose any interests or relationships that would sway or bias their submitted manuscripts. A conflict of interest includes all financial interests such as share or stock ownership, educational grants, and honoraria and non-financial interests such as personal beliefs, affiliations, and personal or professional relationships. If there are no conflicts, the authors should state: “No conflict of interests has been reported by the authors.”

• References: The reference list should be placed at the end of the text. The author’s last name, the publication year of the cited work, and, if necessary, page numbers are included in the text when citing sources. This is typically done in parentheses. Here are some points about all the references mentioned in the text, and the reference:

In the text

1) Reference to a verse from the Bible or Surah of the Quran: (Cor. 13:4), (Luke 1:26-27), (Q 2:5).

2) Reference to Nahj al-Balaghah:

(Nahj al-Balaghah: Sermon 50).

3) For Shamsi and Hijri Dates, use the letters Sh and AH:

 (1376 Sh /1422 AH).

4) If more than one source is inserted into the text, separate them with a semicolon (;).

5) If there are four or more authors, the corresponding reference should be cited in “the first author et al. date” format.

Reference List

1) The Bible, the Qur’an, and Nahj al-Balaghah should be listed at the beginning of the list of references and should not be listed in alphabetical order.

2) If an article has been assigned a DOI, add it to the reference list.

3) Only sources that are cited in the text should be included in the reference list.

4) All sources should be listed alphabetically by the author’s last name.

5) If there is more than one source by a single author, repeat the author’s name in each reference (do not enter a line (-) instead of the author’s name).

6) If a source does not specify a date of publication or manuscript, substitute n.d. (for “no date”).

Here are several examples of a reference list and the corresponding in-text citation. For more details and examples, see the following link:

https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide/citation-guide-2. Html

Journal article

Bernhardt, Reinhold. 2018. “Truth in the Context of Christian Faith and its Relation to Other Religions.” Religious Inquiries 7, no. 14 (Summer and Autumn): 37-57.

In-text citations:

(Bernhardt 2018, 37-57)

Book

Grazer, Brian, and Charles Fishman. 2015. A Curious Mind:  The Secret to a Bigger Life. New York: Simon Schuster.

Smith, Zadie. 2016. Swing Time. New York: Penguin Press.

In-text citations

(Grazer and Fishman 2015, 12), (Smith 2016, 315-16)

Translated book

 Lahiri, Jhumpa. 2016. In Other Words. Translated by Ann Goldstein. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

In-text citations:

(Lahiri 2016, 146)

Thesis or Dissertation

 Rutz, Cynthia Lillian. 2013. “King Lear and Its Folktale Analogues.” PhD diss., The University of Chicago.

In-text citations:

(Rutz 2013, 99-100)

Website content

Bouman, Katie. 2016. “How to Take a Picture of a Black Hole.” Filmed November 2016 at TEDxBeaconStreet, Brookline, MA. Video, 12:51.

https://www.ted.com/talks/katie_bouman_what_does_a_black_hole_look_like.

Google. 2017. “Privacy Policy.” Privacy & Terms   . Last modified April 17, 2017.

https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/.

Yale University. n.d. “About Yale: Yale Facts.” Accessed May 1, 2017.

https://www.yale.edu/about-yale/yale-facts.

In-text citations:

(Bouman 2016)

(Google 2017) (Yale University n.d.)

3. Research and Publication Ethics

This journal follows the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). For more detail, refer to Publication Ethics.

4. Open Access Statement and Copyright Policy

Religious Inquiries is an open access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to users or their institutions. The journal’s content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0). The authors retain unrestricted copyrights and publishing rights. 

5. Similarity Check

The journal uses Crossref Similarity Check to screen papers for unoriginal material. The authors should agree to originality checks during the peer-review and production processes.

6. Peer Review Statement

Once a manuscript is received by the editorial office, an experienced internal managing editor will review the submitted manuscript to make sure it has been prepared properly and complies with the journal's standards. Before peer review, manuscripts that do not adhere to the journal's standards or ethics policy will be rejected. After passing the initial screening, for peer review, a manuscript will be assigned to at least two independent experts who are not part of the journal’s editorial staff. The authors' identities are not revealed to the reviewers during the double-blind peer review process. This journal does not guarantee manuscript acceptance or very short review times.

7. Publication Fee

Religious Inquiries charges no publication fee.