Author Guidelines

1. International Comparative Literature (ICL) （CN31—2148/I, ISSN2096—4897） is a quarterly(March, June, September and December 30th), bilingual (Chinese and English) publication edited by the Research Center for Comparative Literature and World Literature at Shanghai Normal University, a Chinese National Key Discipline. The journal publishes original research papers, general reviews, and book reviews of comparative literature, comparative poetics, and comparative culture. It is distributed throughout China and abroad.

2. The journal accepts articles and book reviews written in Chinese or English. The target length for articles should be about 20,000 words in Chinese or 10,000 words in English; the target length for book reviews should be about 2,500 words in Chinese or 1,000 words in English.

3. Submissions should include:

(a) A title page, containing:

-a concise title

-names of authors, their affiliations, and email addresses

(b) A 500-word abstract in Chinese and/or a 300-word abstract in English and up to six key words.

(c) A bibliography (alphabetized list of sources cited by author’s last name), attached to the end of the document.

(d) Citations, formatted according to ICL’s Citation Guidelines.

4. Authors should submit their papers to ICL in both hardcopy and electronic form (the latter is mandatory). Once the manuscripts are received, the date of receipt will be registered and ICL will send an email confirmation to the author. If no email of acceptance has been received within 3 months of the date of receipt, the manuscript is officially released by ICL.

5. ICL has a double-blind review process that proceeds along the following sequence of events: First, all submitted papers are assessed by the editors to make sure they meet the standards of the journal. Papers deemed unsuitable will be returned without a peer-review. Papers that pass the initial assessment are assigned to two experts in the field (before being sent for review, all personal information that might identify the author is removed from the manuscript). Based on the reviews, the editorial board will make a final assessment to either publish or reject a manuscript.

The editors will inform the authors as soon as possible as to the recommendations of the anonymous reviewers. If a revision is requested, the author should submit the revised manuscript for another round of anonymous reviews. Authors wishing to appeal a revision should submit a response that will be delivered to the reviewers. Once papers are accepted for publication, authors must check and verify their work, making sure their citations are in accordance with the Citation Guidelines of ICL. Once ICL has received the final draft of the manuscript, the editors will notify the author of the issue number and date of publication.

6. Once manuscripts are accepted for publication, authors will be asked to sign the licensing agreement, granting ICL sole ownership of the copyrights. ICL will then be in charge of authorizing other journals or databases to reprint, duplicate, or offer download options for printing purposes. “The Author’s Copyright Agreement” and other related forms can be requested from the editors.

7. Once an article has been accepted, it will be copyedited for clarity. Authors wishing to bypass the editing process should submit a statement in advance to the editors indicating their choice.

8. If authors plan to include manuscripts originally published in ICL in a different publication, they must inform ICL in advance and cite the original publication information in the new work.

9. The papers published in ICL represent the viewpoints of the authors; they do not necessarily reflect the viewpoints of the journal.

10. Upon publication, ICL will send compensation to the authors. In addition, authors will be given two hard copies of the issue of the journal in which their articles appear.