Submissions

This page is designed to help you ensure your submission is ready for and fits the scope of the journal.

Before submitting, you should read over the guidelines here, then register an account (or login if you have an existing account).

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About

Journal of the Southwest was founded in 1959 as Arizona and the West, the first journal of Western American history in the United States, and began publishing in its current format in 1987 as a multidisciplinary, peer-reviewed quarterly dedicated to an integrated regional study of the American Southwest,  northern Mexico, and the US-Mexico borderlands. For more than half a century it has stood alone in general academic publishing: an award-winning journal representing a transborder region of world-historical significance. As of 2025, Journal of the Southwest publishes two open-access online issues per year, with content ranging broadly across disciplines including intellectual and social history, gender and women’s studies, LGBTQ studies, anthropology, archaeology, architecture, folklore, politics, borderlands studies, literature, photography and cinema, geography, and natural history and ecology.
 

Focus and Scope

As of 2025, Journal of the Southwest publishes two open-access online issues per year, with content ranging broadly across disciplines including intellectual and social history, gender and women’s studies, LGBTQ studies, anthropology, archaeology, architecture, folklore, politics, borderlands studies, literature, photography, cinema, and visual cultures, geography, and natural history and ecology.
 

 

Submission 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. Please ensure that:

  • The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
  • The essay is double-spaced and saved as a Microsoft Word document; no author identifying information appears on the manuscript. Please number pages in the top right corner.
  • The essay is consistent in style, following either The Chicago Manual of Style or another style guide (MLA, etc.). Where available, please provide URLs and DOIs for the references.
  • Images should be removed from text and sent as separate files.
  • Images should be saved at 300 DPI or higher resolution as separate TIF or GIF files

Please include a separate cover sheet with essay title, author name(s), contact information, organizational affiliation (if applicable) and current position

JSW has no page limit or word count (we often publish single-manuscript ‘special’ issues). However, we prefer regular scholarly essays to fall within the range of 17 to 35 double-spaced pages (including images). 

 

JSW Human Subjects Guidelines:

For the publication of research of any kind that includes interviews, extracts of unpublished written materials, photographs, and other images involving human subjects, Journal of the Southwest requires that authors obtain informed consent from all research participants to fulfill the ethical requirement of “respect of persons” set forth in the Belmont Report, written by the United States National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research.

Ensuring a Blind Review

To ensure the integrity of the anonymous peer-review for submission to this journal, every effort should be made to prevent the identities of the authors and reviewers from being known to each other. This involves the authors, editors, and reviewers (who upload documents as part of their review) checking to see if the following steps have been taken with regard to the text and the file properties:

  • The authors of the document have deleted their names from the text, with "Author" and year used in the references and footnotes, instead of the authors' name, article title, etc.
  • With Microsoft Office documents, author identification should also be removed from the properties for the file (see under File in Word), by clicking on the following, beginning with File on the main menu of the Microsoft application: File > Save As > Tools (or Options with a Mac) > Security > Remove personal information from file properties on save > Save.

Copyright Notice

Authors retain the rights to their work published in the Journal of the Southwest and agree to release their work under the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial NoDerivatives 4.0 International license. Authors are free to reuse their work and to enter into other agreements as long as they credit the Journal of the Southwest as the site of first publication and provide a link to the journal website.

The author(s) are responsible for ensuring their article does not infringe upon any copyright; violate any other right of any third parties; contain any scandalous, libelous, or unlawful matter; or make any improper invasion of the privacy of any person. The author(s) agrees to indemnify and hold harmless the University of Arizona against any claim or proceeding undertaken on any of the aforementioned grounds. Permission to use 3rd party materials e.g. figures, tables, photographs, illustrations, trade literature and data must be secured prior to publication and authors must maintain documentation of these permissions.

Peer Review

All submissions are initially assessed by an Editor, who decides whether or not the article fits the scope of the journal and is suitable for peer review. Submissions considered suitable are assigned to two independent experts who assess the article for clarity, validity, and sound methodology.

The journal uses a double-anonymous peer review process: authors and reviewers remain anonymous for the review process. Submissions should not contain any clues to the identity of the author(s). Double-check manuscripts for (a) self-citations; (b) institution name; and (c) references to institution-specific documents. The review period is expected to take around six to eight weeks. Reviewers are asked to provide formative feedback, even if an article is not deemed suitable for publication in the journal.

Based on the reviewer reports, the Editorial Team will make a recommendation for rejection, revisions, or acceptance. Overall editorial responsibility rests with the journal’s Editorial Team, who are supported by the Editorial Advisory Board.

Licences

The following licences are allowed:

  • CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
    Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes. NoDerivatives — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you may not distribute the modified material. No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.

Publication Fees

Journal of the Southwest is published fully open access. There is no charge for readers to access articles (beginning with Volume 66 #3) or for authors submitting content.

Publication Cycle

Journal of the Southwest publishes two online, open-source issues per year, Spring and Autumn.

Sections

Section or article type Public Submissions Peer Reviewed Indexed
Article Yes Yes Yes