The Journal of Transport History
Notes for contributors
Guidance on editorial policy and advice for submissions to The Journal of Transport History (JTH)
Contributions to JTH should help advance the scholarly field of the history of mobility in general and the history of transport in particular. We are looking for new angles of approach and perspectives of analysis that support and help to bring forward the current scholarly debate. Also, please keep in mind that JTH is the only refereed journal in the field and as such has an international readership, some of them specialists in one mode or one country, others with a more general interest in the methodology of historical analysis. Articles in JTH should address all of these readers, convincing them that it is important to read your article even if it does not cover their specialisation.
Before sending in your article for submission to our double-blind review process, ask yourself: why should a JTH reader want to read my article and how can I keep them interested enough to keep reading? Possible answers to the first question are because:
- the results of my empirical analysis puts the results of other research into question; and/or
- I provide a new methodology or propose a new approach to interpret common knowledge in a different way.
These are important criteria for acceptance. In short, how far does your article advance the existing scholarship of our field? New results of empirical analysis include: a new light on the role of users (for instance, in terms of gender, race, non-users, immobility) or a history clearly deviating from accepted wisdom (such as the bias still haunting mobility history towards Western societies). Also, relatively under-researched topics such as pedestrians, bicyclists and users of other types of (motorised) two-wheelers are called for. If your contribution covers a city, province or country in the sense mentioned in the first paragraph, please make explicit why this should be of interest to JTH readers; for instance, because it sheds new light on this city, province or country (explain why and in what respect) and try to present your argument not as an isolated case but in comparison with other cities, provinces or countries. New approaches include diffusion studies and cultural analysis (including semiotics and cultural analysis of mobile technologies), history of tourism and travel (but don’t forget in these cases the means of travel). In particular, articles that compare (local, regional, national) cases with other cases, or that follow a transmodal or transnational approach are welcome. New approaches also include the expansion of our tool box in terms of a historical approach by planners, policy makers and, in general, social sciences that go beyond the mere treatment of history as an instrumental ‘case study’ to prove a model or a theory.
Because JTH only can provide space for 12 articles annually, submissions that do not at least attempt to go beyond the description or analysis of one mode in one city, province or country, either by offering a new approach or by transgressing geographical or modal borders, will not be accepted for the referee process.
Your scholarship is also asked for regarding the structure of your article. Be explicit about the aims of your analysis, for instance by formulating a transparent and exciting research question or thesis. Explain to the reader how you intend to answer this question and why it is important for the reader to know this. In other words: what’s new about your narrative, approach or question? During the remainder of your article, keep coming back to your main question and at the end give clear conclusions regarding the way you have answered your question. Please be explicit about this.
Style sheet for contributors to The Journal of Transport History
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