Information
for the authors

Rules of reviewing papers for the New Literary Observer

1. The NLO reviews all the incoming papers commissioned by its editors. All the papers are to be reviewed and assessed by experts. All the reviewers are distinguished scholars in the fields corresponding with the subjects of the papers in question, and have published works in the respective fields within the last three years.

2. Papers that weren’t commissioned are reviewed only if found publishable by the editor of an appropriate section. Papers that don’t meet the journal’s requirements regarding relevance or soundness of scholarship are not reviewed. In that case brief letters of rejection are sent to their authors. The editors are entitled to restrain from elaborating.

3. Reviewing is confidential. Reviewers are notified that the papers they receive are intellectual property of their authors and contain confidential information. A breach of confidentiality may occur only if a reviewer claims that a paper contains inaccurate or falsified information.

4. A reviewer is to assess a paper objectively and to provide an educated and comprehensive analysis of its virtues and shortcomings. A review is to contain the reviewer's reflections along with a conclusion expounding on the possibility of publishing the paper (either in its present form or after revisions) or the impossibility of publishing it.

5. If a paper has been reviewed positively, a copy of the review is sent to the author and he or she is notified as to when the paper is supposed to be published. Original reviews remain in the possession of the editorial board for five years after the paper's publication; their copies can be submitted to the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation upon a request.

6. If an author has a reasonable disagreement with a reviewer, the matter of the publication is settled by the NLO editors. An author whose paper has not been accepted is sent an informative rejection letter.

Rules of submitting and formatting papers

1. Papers are to be submitted via e-mail indicated at the NLO website, or to be delivered directly to the NLO office. Manuscripts sent by mail will not be returned to their authors.

2. A copy of a paper is to be typed on white A4 pages (Word, Times New Roman, size 14, 1.5 line spacing); an additional electronic copy is required.

3. Papers are to contain their titles, the initials and family names of their authors, the authors’ academic degrees and titles, their affiliations and positions, and their e-mails for feedback. All the information is to be provided both in Russian and English.

4. Papers are to be accompanied by a summary both in Russian and English.

5. Papers are to contain keywords both in Russian and English that reflect their contents.

6. Papers are to signed by all their authors.

7. Papers are to be no less than 2000 symbols long.

8. A bibliography is to conclude a paper; it has to be double-spaced. Every source is to begin a new paragraph. A bibliography has to list all the authors referenced in the text in the alphabetical order (Russian first, foreign second).

9. Informatory footnotes (or endnotes, if there is a lot of information to be conveyed this way) are allowed. Endnotes are either to precede or follow the bibliography which in this case is to be formatted according to the paragraphs 8 and 11 of this list.

10. Reviews of academic publications and fiction, as well as chronicles of scholarly life may have a bibliography formatted as footnotes in compliance with the paragraph 11 of this list.

11. Each bibliographic entry (including those formatted as footnotes) is to contain: for books, their authors’ family names and initials, their full titles, publisher cities, and years of publication; for journals/collections, the articles’ full titles, their authors’ family names and initials, the journals/collections’ titles, the issues’ numbers and years of publication, and the relevant pages’ numbers. Papers’ authors are responsible for listing all the sources correctly.

12. In a bibliography, family names of foreign authors are to be given in their original transcription. Titles of Russian-language sources and titles that include non-latin symbols other than Russian are to be transliterated in brackets.

13. Papers are to be proof-read and edited by their authors. Quotes are to be checked. Each quote is to be followed by a reference in square brackets thusly: [The author’s family name Year of publication: The page number]; reviews of academic publications and fiction, as well as chronicles of scholarly life may reference sources in footnotes that have to be formatted in compliance with the paragraph 11 of this list.