Submission Guidelines

Copyright Information

Rights to Authors: Authors are the initial owners of the copyrights to their works, unless the authors, as a condition of employment, have agreed to transfer copyright to their employer. However, authors grant to the journal the right to make available such content, in any format, in perpetuity. Authors may reproduce, in other contexts, content to which they possess the copyright, although in any subsequent publications the Berkeley Planning Journal should be acknowledged as the original publisher.

Rights of the Berkeley Planning Journal: We are an open access journal. We retain the non-exclusive right to make content available in any format in perpetuity. While authors may reproduce their work in other contexts, content published in the journal will not be removed from the website even if later published elsewhere. Authors must agree to the terms of publishing in the journal listed in the author agreement.

Rights to eScholarship and the California Digital Library: Content hosted by e-Scholarship may be browsed and downloaded at no cost and with no access restrictions. Once an article is published in an eScholarship journal or peer-reviewed series, it may not be removed. The California Digital Library has the right to view and display, store and copy (for preservation purposes), and distribute all eScholarship content. Policies for eScholarship are delineated at www.escholarship.org/help_submissions.html.

Peer Review Process

We use a double-blind review process. Students, faculty and experts reviewing articles for the Berkeley Planning Journal are concerned with originality, clarity, and quality of the material. After an initial review by the editors, submissions found appropriate for the journal are reviewed by two reviewers, without knowledge of the author’s identity. Comments and suggestions are conveyed to the author, but the reviewers’ identities remain confidential. To be published, a submission must receive two positive reviews, and the author must revise the work to address the comments and questions raised in the reviews.

Blind-review

Berkeley Planning Journal submissions are blind-reviewed. The authors should identify themselves only on the cover page. In-text references to the author’s previous writings should be made in the third person.

First Publication

The Journal considers submissions only that have not been published elsewhere and are not being considered for publication elsewhere.

Format

The BPJ accepts submissions in a range of formats, including scholarly articles, topical essays, photo essays, opinion commentaries, conversations with key practitioners or researchers. We encourage authors to contribute content specialized for the Internet, including: hyperlinked text, high-resolution images, embedded interactive maps, short video, and supporting documents and files for download. For more information on specific online formatting requirements, send questions to bpj[at]berkeley[dot]edu.

Cover Sheet

Include a cover sheet with the article’s title, author’s name, phone number, email address and a two-sentence biographical statement. Include a work count and an abstract of no more than 150 words. The cover sheet should be uploaded to eScholarship as a supplementary file and not included in the article manuscript file.

Length

Guidelines for word counts do not include cover page, abstract, notes, references and graphics. Scholarly articles: 3,000-6,000 words. Essays and Commentary: 1,000-3,000 words Photo essays: 1,000-1,500 words, 8-10 images Audio/video: 1-10 minutes

Style Guides

Language and style should conform with the Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017).

Source Citations and Notes

Source references should be cited in the Chicago Manual of Style, 16th edition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010) author-date format. Authors may find a link to the style guide and other assistance with citations here.

Figures and Tables

Diagrams, tables, and illustrations should be on separate sheets with their desired position in the text clearly indicated.

Languages

All BPJ submissions must be made in English. For items that are accepted and published, authors may provide a version of the published work in another language for the BPJ website. Authors bear full responsibility for translation.

Electronic Submission

The BPJ employs the peer review management system of eScholarship. To submit an article to the BPJ, authors must create an account with eScholarship. This process takes less than one minute. This submission process allows authors to submit their own biographical and keyword information directly to our electronic publisher. We ask that authors disregard the file content requirements on the eScholarship site and submit only Microsoft Word documents with letter-sized (8×11″) pages. Both DOC and DOCX formats are acceptable. Supplementary documents, such as data or additional images, can be submitted as well. Follow the other directions in the eScholarship submission process.