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Submission Preparation 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.
  • 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).
  • This paper conforms with standard academic honesty practices and has been checked for plagiarism by the authors.
  • All empirical papers which contain work involving human subjects or secondary data about them have been approved by either a university research ethics board (REB) or the institutional equivalent in the case of an NGO or international organization.
  • The submission file is in Microsoft Word or equivalent editable file format (no PDF)
  • All references in the submission are in keeping with the APA Style Guide with bibliography and minimal use of footnotes (or, where applicable, the Canadian Guide to Legal Citation).
  • The text is double-spaced; uses a 12-point font; employs italics, rather than underlining (except with URL addresses); and all illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text at the appropriate points, rather than at the end.
  • You will be able to provide a brief abstract, bibliographic statement (for all authors) and ORCID id, if available, as part of the article submission process.
  • All electronically available references (e.g. digital journal articles or government websites) include valid links (URLs) or permanent digital identifiers (DOIs). Formatting follows APA style.

Author Guidelines

Thank you for your interest in submitting your manuscript to Refuge: Canada's Journal on Refugees. Refuge accepts original articles that are not under consideration by another publication at the time of submission.

Refuge will not publish plagiarized material. We reserve the right to refuse and retract materials that are found to contain plagiarism.

Peer Review Process

Refuge publishes high-quality, original, empirical and theoretical research. Refuge takes care to publish only those manuscripts deemed acceptable through peer review.  Submission of a manuscript to Refuge does not mean that it will be published.

All submissions are first subject to an initial review for quality and thematic fit, undertaken by the journal’s editorial team, in consultation with individual editorial board members, where necessary. If found suitable for further consideration, the editorial team then identifies at least two experts in the field to undertake a double-blind peer review of the manuscript.  Double-blind means that neither the authors nor the peer reviewers know each others’ identities.

The average length of time for the initial review by the editorial team is one to two months from the date of submission. The average length of time for peer review is six weeks per reviewer in addition to the time needed to secure a peer reviewer.  In cases where one peer reviewer rejects a manuscript, Refuge must find a third peer reviewer, extending the process. The average peer review process takes between four to eight months. Delays may occur in the process depending on the volume of new articles that are being received, the order in which they are received, the ease of finding a willing peer reviewer and our publication schedule.  

Manuscript Format

  • Please ensure that all author identifying information is removed from the manuscript (including author names, acknowledgments, authors 'previous publications and author details in the Word' 'properties' menu) before submitting so as to allow anonymous reviews.
  • Articles may be submitted in either English or French and will be published in the language of submission. They must not exceed 7500 words including footnotes and bibliography.
  • Papers must include an abstract of approximately 100 words, highlighting the central arguments and/or findings of the paper. This abstract will be translated into French, so that abstracts appear in both languages of the journal.
  • Book reviews may be submitted in either English or French and will be published in the language of submission.
  • All authors must include a biographical statement following this format: <name> is <position> at <affiliation>. The author may be contacted at <email address>. This should not exceed two sentences and must be submitted separately from the manuscript itself. 

File Format

  • Manuscripts should be in electronic form, either in Microsoft Word or equivalent formats.

Accuracy of Citations

  • Authors are responsible for ensuring the accuracy of all citations.

Reference Style

  • It is the authors' responsibility to carefully check and keep to the reference style of Refuge. For social science papers, Refuge adheres to the American Psychological Association (APA), with minimal use of footnotes and bibliography.
  • Papers in the legal discipline may choose to use either the APA Style Guide or the Canadian Guide to Legal Citation
  • For all questions relating to APA formatting please refer to Purdue Owl guide for instructions and examples.

Guidelines for Special Issues/Focus Proposals

Of the issues Refuge publishes annually, at least one must be a general issue. In addition, Refuge typically publishes one special issue each year or one general issue with a special focus.  Special focus/issues often emerge from panels, workshops or specific research projects/groups. A Special Issue contains at least five peer reviewed academic papers and a Special Focus contains four academic papers.  Both require the guest editors to write an introduction which can be peer reviewed or not. In exceptional circumstances, we may make room for an additional special issue, resulting in three issues in the same year. 

All individuals wishing to publish a special issue with the journal must submit a proposal with the following components here: 

  • A proposed title
  • Names, titles and email addresses of all guest editors
  • A 1-paragraph summary of the topic; its relevance to forced migration studies; and the proposed contribution to knowledge
  • A list of authors, titles and abstracts for papers being proposed for publication OR  A draft call for papers 
    • A minimum of 5 publishable papers is required for a special issue and 4 papers for a special focus of a general issue
    • We recommend that all authors who wish to publish a Special Issue submit at least 8 paper abstracts as some will likely be eliminated in peer review 
    • We recommend that all authors who wish to publish a Special Focus submit at least 6 paper abstracts
  • A proposed list of 2-4 books to be included in a book review essay and a name of a potential book review essay author
  • A proposed list of other recent books related to the topic, as well as potential book review authors, for consideration by the book review editor
    • We please ask authors to consider both French and English books 
  • Any funding that could be used to offset publication costs 

The proposal can be submitted by email to refuge@yorku.ca. The Refuge editorial team will review the proposal and will, within approximately one month, respond to the guest editor(s) with their decision and/or with requests for further information. 

Book Reviewer Guidelines Only

Please note: This is not for submitting a regular manuscript.

  1. Book reviews are a vital component of the journal and provide an important service to the field as a whole. Reviewers are encouraged to take the opportunity to explain how the book advances forced migration studies in the contemporary world. We encourage critical evaluation both of the specific content of the book and of its significance within a broad framework of current thinking in forced migration. Reviewers may be asked to consider the content of the book in relation to a narrower topic for special thematic issues.
     
  2. Unless the book review editor has stated otherwise, the length of a review should be 1000 words.
     
  3. Please cite full publication details as follows:
    - Full title including subtitle.
    - Author.
    - Place of publication: publisher, year of publication, and number of pages.

    Example: Inhabiting Borders, Routes Home: Youth, Gender, Asylum. By Ala Sirriyeh, Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2013, pp. 230.

    For edited works state “Edited by ...” Please indicate all authors’ names in the order: first name, surname
     
  4. Limit citations of books not being reviewed. If it is necessary to cite another work, however, please provide the full reference including name, title, publisher, date of publication and page number as an endnote, following Refuge citation style. 
     
  5. To quote material from the book being reviewed, please give page number in parentheses and use double quotation marks.

    Example: The problem, according to Long, is that “territorial state entities and ‘national’ identities are often mismatched” (20).
     
  6. Give your name and affiliation at the end of the review.
     
  7. Please remember that Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees is a multidisciplinary journal. Accordingly, it is helpful if the wider value and relevance of the book can be considered.
     
  8. Proofs of reviews are sent to reviewers. Your timely attention to proofing the final copy helps us to keep publication deadlines.
     
  9. The Managing Editor strives to send a copy of the published review to the reviewer and to the author/editor of the work being reviewed.
     
  10. Refuge: Canada's Journal on Refugees allows authors to self-archive the final PDFs that have been approved by Refuge, as long as they provide the DOI. (The DOI is more stable than URL, and this provides the direct pathway to the original file).
     
  11. Reviewers should direct any questions regarding their review to the Book Review Editor, with copy to the Refuge editorial office ( refuge@yorku.ca or raluca.bejan@dal.ca).

Copyright Notice

Refuge authors retain the copyright over their work, and license it to the general public under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial License International (CC BY-NC 4.0). This license allows for non-commercial use, reproduction and adaption of the material in any medium or format, with proper attribution (see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/legalcode - human readable summary at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

Privacy Statement

The names and email addresses entered in the Refuge website shall be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.