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 author acknowledges that he/she has read and is in agreement with the legal and ethical considerations as stipulated in the Copyright Notice and that they have fulfilled all the legal and ethical requirements provided there.
  • The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines.
  • The submission file is in Microsoft Word document file format.
  • If submitting to a peer-reviewed section of the journal, the instructions in Ensuring a Blind Review have been followed.
  • The author acknowledges that he/she has read and is in agreement with the Article Retraction Policy: STJ is committed to keeping all published articles extant and intact. However, under exceptional circumstances involving plagiarism or data error, articles may need to be retracted, removed or replaced in order to protect the integrity of the literature. The need for a retraction will be determined by the Editor-in-Chief, but may be initiated, in cases of flawed data or conclusions, at the request of the author/s. To retract an article, a notice of retraction will be published in the next issue. This notice of retraction will: include the title and authors of the article, the reason for the retraction and who is retracting the article will be linked to the article online.

Author Guidelines

We cordially request that you submit articles according to the following guidelines - no registration, article submission or processing fees apply.

All submissions must be linguistically sound, making use of clearly formulated academic language without grammatical and spelling errors. Submissions should also comply with the formatting guidelines provided below. Should the article not comply it will be returned to the author for revision before being sent for review.

File format

Manuscripts should be submitted in Word format (i.e. as .doc files).

Language

Manuscripts may be submitted in English, Afrikaans or Dutch. English manuscripts should follow British conventions.

Length

Manuscripts should be between 4500 and 6500 words (excluding footnotes).

Anonymity & Cover Page 

To ensure anonymity with regards to the double-blind peer review process, remove any reference to the author’s identity from the main manuscript. Also be sure to remove identification of authorship that is automatically ascribed to documents by MS Word.

Author details should however be provided on a cover page, which is to be submitted as a separate "supplementary file" during the submission process. This cover page should include the following elements:

  • The article title;
  • The author’s name as he/she wishes it to appear on published article (STJ prefers using the author's first name and surname);
  • The current institutional affiliation(s) that should appear on the article. If authors (including non South African authors) are affiliated with a South-African institution and wish to apply for subsidy, please also indicate the institution that should be credited;
  • The author's contact details (phone number and email address).

Abstract and Keywords

Include a brief abstract (100-150 words) and 4-5 keywords in your submission. Abstracts should be in English and in the case of an Afrikaans or Dutch article, the title should also be translated and included as the abstract’s heading.

Font

12pt, Times New Roman, 1.5 Line Spacing, Justified Paragraphs

All Hebrew (Consonants only), Greek, Aramaic, Syriac and Coptic should also be given in Times New Roman font.

Headings

As far as possible, try to keep to a maximum of two levels of headings. The following formatting applies to headings:

First headings: normal case, bold, 14pt

Second headings: normal case, italics, 14pt

Paragraphs

Paragraph breaks are to be marked by line spaces.

Longer quotations (more than 50 words) should be provided in a separate paragraph and indented from the left.

Referencing and footnotes

Only Harvard and Chicago reference systems are accepted, but must be applied consistently within a single article.

Discursive footnotes should only be used where appropriate and be kept to a minimum.

A bibliography must be provided at the end of all articles and contain only the sources referred to in the article.

Guidelines for book reviews

We cordially request that authors submit book reviews according to the following guidelines.

All submissions must be linguistically sound, making use of clearly formulated academic language without grammatical and spelling errors. Submissions should also comply with the formatting guidelines provided below.

File format

Book reviews should be submitted in Word format (i.e. as .doc files).

Language

Book reviews may be written in English, Afrikaans or Dutch. English reviews should follow British conventions.

Book details

Reviews should begin with the details of the review copy set out in the following format:

Conradie, Ernst M & Klaasen, John (Book author(s))

The Quest for Identity in so-called Mainline Churches in South Africa (Book title)

2013, Stellenbosch: Sun Press (Year, City, Publisher)

ISBN: 9781920689223 (ISBN Number)

Reviewed by (Name and Surname)

Length

Book reviews should be between 500 and 800 words (unless requested otherwise).

Font

12pt, Times New Roman, 1.5 Line Spacing, Justified Paragraphs.

All Hebrew (Consonants only), Greek, Aramaic, Syriac and Coptic should also be given in Times New Roman font.

Headings

Please do not to use headings in book reviews.

Paragraphs

Paragraph breaks are to be marked by line spaces.

Longer quotations (more than 50 words) should be provided in a separate paragraph and indented from the left.

Copyright Notice

Once an article is published in Stellenbosch Theological Journal (STJ)extends an exclusive license agreement, where authors have copyright but license exclusive rights in their article to the  Pieter de Waal Neethling Trust (PDWN Trust). The PDWN Trust is a trust fund established in 1932. In this case authors have the right to:

  • Share their article in the same ways permitted to third parties under the relevant user license (together with Personal Use rights) so long as it contains the Creative Commons Attribution License, and a DOI link.
  • Retain patent, trademark and other intellectual property rights (including research data).
  • Proper attribution and credit for the published work.

The PDWN Trust pledges to maintain a legitimate scholarly record of the author’s work and to defend the author’s article against plagiarism and copyright infringement.

The PDWN Trust is committed to full Open Access publishing. This means that all articles published in STJ will be made freely available online. Authors maintain the right to:

  • Share and self-archive their work.
  • Make printed copies of their article for educational use.
  • Present their article at a meeting or conference and distribute printed copies of the article
  • Adapt and expand their published journal article to make it suitable for their thesis or dissertation.
  • Republish the article (ensuring that the original article is cited as published in STJ).

By submitting a manuscript for publication in STJ the authors commit themselves to the fulfilment of the following legal and ethical requirements:

  • That all authors involved are in agreement regarding the manuscript to be submitted for publication in STJ and allow the designated author to submit the manuscript on their behalf.
  • That the contents of the manuscript do not infringe on any rules or regulations of the responsible authorities where the research was carried out.
  • That the manuscript has not been published previously, in part or in whole, except as part of a published lecture or academic thesis.
  • That the manuscript has not been submitted to any other journal while being considered for publication by STJ.
  • That all relevant sources have been appropriately and correctly cited and that credit is given to the work or findings of others wherever it contributed to one’s own findings.
  • That all figures, tables, images or large sections of text that have been published previously, is accompanied by written permission from the original copyright owner(s) to reproduce said items in the particular article in STJ. Such written permission must be submitted with the manuscript. Furthermore, all material used under copyright must be credited appropriately in the submitted manuscript.

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