Journal of Land and Rural Studies

Journal of Land and Rural Studies

This Journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics

Journal of Land and Rural Studies is hosted on Sage Peer Review; a web based online submission and peer review system. Please read the Manuscript Submission guidelines below, and then visit https://peerreview.sagepub.com/lrs to login and submit your article online.

Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of Journal of Land and Rural Studies will be reviewed.

There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this Journal. Open Access options are available - see section 3.3 below.

As part of the submission process you will be required to warrant that you are submitting your original work, that you have the rights in the work, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you, that you are submitting the work for first publication in the Journal and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere. Please see our guidelines on prior publication. 

If you have any questions about publishing with Sage, please visit the Sage Journal Solutions Portal

1. What do we publish?
1.1 Aims & Scope
1.2 Article types
1.3 Writing your paper

2. Editorial policies
2.1 Peer review policy
2.2 Authorship
2.3 Acknowledgements
2.4 Funding
2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
2.6 Research data

3. Publishing policies
3.1 Publication ethics
3.2 Contributor’s publishing agreement
3.3 Open access and author archiving

4. Preparing your manuscript
4.1 Formatting 
4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
4.3 Supplemental material
4.4 Reference style

5. Submitting your manuscript
5.1 ORCID
5.2 Information required for completing your submission
5.3 Permissions

6. On acceptance and publication
6.1 Sage Production
6.2 Online First publication
6.3 Access to your published article
6.4 Promoting your article

7. Further information

1. What do we publish?

1.1 Aims & Scope

Before submitting your manuscript to Journal of Land and Rural Studies, please ensure you have read the Aims & Scope.

1.2 Article types

Journal of Land and Rural Studies covers thematic areas which the Journal deems fundamental are:

• Land related issues like land management and administration, and other land policy aspects.
• Rural studies encompassing rural development, management, democratization, governance, rural industrialization, rural physical and social infrastructure, etc.
• Agriculture.

Special Article shall ordinarily be essays, think pieces on an issue or a subject of interest to researchers and scholars. Such idea-based articles by their very nature cut across different areas and disciplines. These pieces will be featured as and when the Editors receive suitable ones. The word limit for the Special Article is set to 7000–8000 words.

Articles relevant to the thematic areas of the Journal should be around 4000–5000 words. These are based on empirical evidence which help define an area of study relevant and related to land and rural studies, critically evaluate previous theory and research, and advance cumulative knowledge in the field.

Policy Briefs and Updates cover significant policy debates, changes and updates on policies in areas of rural development and should range from 2000–3000 words.

Working Papers cover current research on land and rural aspects. These should be around 2000 words.

Book Reviews cover reviews of current and relevant books on land and rural studies. Book reviews should be around 800–1500 words.

Notes and Comments. This section shall report on retrospections, reflections, subjects relevant to the understanding of the rural phenomena. Notes and Comments are expected to be short and not exceed 500 words.

Guidelines for Authors:

1. Copyright of articles will be assigned to Journal of Land and Rural Studies. Contributors will receive a Copyright Assignment Form prior to publication, and are responsible for appropriate acknowledgement of sources used in the text, as well as for obtaining permission to reproduce material to which they do not own copyright.
2. All manuscripts should be accompanied by an abstract of not more than 150 words, as well as five keywords for thematic indexing. On a separate page, authors must include their full name, current affiliation, contact information and postal details. The abstract should represent the entirety of the manuscript – introduction, methodology, results, and conclusions. Also, abstract should be concise, complete, factual, and expressive while accurately representing the manuscript as a whole. Abstract must inspire the readers to read further, the entire manuscript.
3. All manuscripts, in order to be anonymously reviewed, should include a separate title page with author’s names and affiliations, and these should not appear elsewhere in the manuscript. Footnotes that identify the authors should be typed on a separate page. Authors should make every effort to ensure that the manuscript contains no clues to their identities.
4. In case there are two or more authors, the corresponding author’s name and contact details should be clearly indicated on the first page.
5. Endnotes should be short and kept to a minimum, using the endnote function of your word processor.
6. British spellings throughout; universal ‘s’ in ‘-ise’, ‘-isation’ words.
7. Use single quotes throughout. Double quotes only to be used within single quotes. Spellings of words in quotations should not be changed. Quotations of 45 words or more should be separated from the text and indented with one space with a line space above and below.
8. Use ‘19th century’, ‘1980s’. Spell out numbers from one to nine, 10 and above to remain in figures. However, for exact measurements, use only figures (3 km, 9 per cent, not %). Use thousands and millions, not lakhs and crores. Avoid saying ‘recently’ but rather give the year.
9. Use of italics and diacriticals should be minimised, but used consistently. Use italics only for the first time the word or phrase is used. Do not italicize abbreviations like etc., et al., and ibid. An exception is sic, which should be italicized and placed in square brackets.
10. Tables and figures to be indicated by number separately (see Table 1), not by placement (see Table below). Present each table and figure on a separate sheet of paper, gathering them together at the end of the article. All figures and tables should be cited in the text. Source for figures and tables should be mentioned irrespective of whether or not they require permissions.
11. All photographs and scanned images should have a resolution of minimum 300 dpi/1500 pixels and their format should be TIFF or JPEG. Due permissions should be taken for copyright protected photographs/images. Even for photographs/images available in the public domain, it should be clearly ascertained whether or not their reproduction requires permission for purposes of publishing (which is a profit-making endeavor). All photographs/scanned images should be provided separately.
12. A consolidated listing of all books, articles, essays, theses and documents referred to (including any referred to in the tables, graphs and maps) should be provided at the end of the article.

1.3 Writing your paper

The Sage Author Gateway has some general advice and on how to get published, plus links to further resources. Sage Author Services also offers authors a variety of ways to improve and enhance their article including English language editing, plagiarism detection, and video abstract and infographic preparation.

1.3.1 Make your article discoverable
For information and guidance on how to make your article more discoverable, visit our Gateway page on How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online

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2. Editorial policies

2.1 Peer review policy

Journal of Land and Rural Studies adheres to a rigorous double-anonymize reviewing policy in which the identity of both the reviewer and author are always concealed from both parties.

2.2 Authorship

All parties who have made a substantive contribution to the article should be listed as authors. Principal authorship, authorship order, and other publication credits should be based on the relative scientific or professional contributions of the individuals involved, regardless of their status. A student is usually listed as principal author on any multiple-authored publication that substantially derives from the student’s dissertation or thesis.

If the named authors for a manuscript change at any point between submission and acceptance, an Authorship Change Form must be completed and digitally signed by all authors (including any added or removed) . An addition of an author is only permitted following feedback raised during peer review. Completed forms can be uploaded at Revision Submission stage or emailed to the Journal Editorial Office contact (listed on the journal’s manuscript submission guidelines). All requests will be moderated by the Editor and/or Sage staff.

Important: Changes to the author by-line by adding or deleting authors are NOT permitted following acceptance of a paper.

Please note that AI chatbots, for example ChatGPT, should not be listed as authors. For more information see the policy on Use of ChatGPT and generative AI tools.

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2.3 Acknowledgements

All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or a department chair who provided only general support. 

Please supply any personal acknowledgements separately to the main text to facilitate anonymous peer review.

2.3.1 Writing assistance
Individuals who provided writing assistance, e.g. from a specialist communications company, do not qualify as authors and so should be included in the Acknowledgements section. Authors must disclose any writing assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input – and identify the entity that paid for this assistance. It is not necessary to disclose use of language polishing services.

2.4 Funding

Journal of Land and Rural Studies requires all authors to acknowledge their funding in a consistent fashion under a separate heading. Please visit the Funding Acknowledgements page on the Sage Journal Author Gateway to confirm the format of the acknowledgment text in the event of funding, or state that: This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. 

2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests

Journal of Land and Rural Studies encourages authors to include a declaration of any conflicting interests and recommends you review the good practice guidelines on the Sage Journal Author Gateway

2.6. Research data

At Sage we are committed to facilitating openness, transparency and reproducibility of research. Where relevant, Journal of Land and Rural Studies encourages authors to share their research data in a suitable public repository subject to ethical considerations and where data is included, to add a data accessibility statement in their manuscript file. Authors should also follow data citation principles. For more information please visit the Sage Author Gateway, which includes information about Sage’s partnership with the data repository Figshare.

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3. Publishing Policies

3.1 Publication ethics

Sage is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors and view the Publication Ethics page on the Sage Author Gateway

3.1.1 Plagiarism
Journal of Land and Rural Studies and Sage take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the Journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software. Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarized other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article; taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author's institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action.

3.1.2 Prior publication
If material has been previously published it is not generally acceptable for publication in a Sage journal. However, there are certain circumstances where previously published material can be considered for publication. Please refer to the guidance on the Sage Author Gateway or if in doubt, contact the Editor at the address given below.

3.2 Contributor’s publishing agreement

Before publication, Sage requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. Sage’s Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement is an exclusive licence agreement which means that the author retains copyright in the work but grants Sage the sole and exclusive right and licence to publish for the full legal term of copyright. Exceptions may exist where an assignment of copyright is required or preferred by a proprietor other than Sage. In this case copyright in the work will be assigned from the author to the society. For more information please visit the Sage Author Gateway

3.3 Open access and author archiving

Journal of Land and Rural Studies offers optional open access publishing via the Sage Choice programme and Open Access agreements, where authors can publish open access either discounted or free of charge depending on the agreement with Sage. Find out if your institution is participating by visiting Open Access Agreements at Sage. For more information on Open Access publishing options at Sage please visit Sage Open Access. For information on funding body compliance, and depositing your article in repositories, please visit Sage’s Author Archiving and Re-Use Guidelines and Publishing Policies.

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4. Preparing your manuscript for submission

4.1 Formatting

The preferred format for your manuscript is Word. LaTeX files are also accepted. A LaTex template is available on the Manuscript Submission Guidelines page of our Author Gateway.

4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics

For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures and graphs in electronic format, please visit Sage’s Manuscript Submission Guidelines

Figures supplied in colour will appear in colour online regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in colour in the printed version. For specifically requested colour reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from Sage after receipt of your accepted article. 

4.3 Supplemental material

This Journal is able to host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc) alongside the full-text of the article. For more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplemental files

4.4 Reference style

Journal of Land and Rural Studies adheres to the APA 7th edition reference style. View the APA guidelines to ensure your manuscript conforms to this reference style.

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5. Submitting your manuscript

Journal of Land and Rural Studies is hosted on Sage Track Sage, a web-based online submission and peer review system. Visit https://peerreview.sagepub.com/lrs to login and submit your article online. 

5.1 ORCID

As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review process Sage is a supporting member of ORCID, the Open Researcher and Contributor ID. ORCID provides a unique and persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from every other researcher, even those who share the same name, and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between researchers and their professional activities, ensuring that their work is recognized. 

The collection of ORCID IDs from corresponding authors is now part of the submission process of this Journal. If you already have an ORCID ID you will be asked to associate that to your submission during the online submission process. We also strongly encourage all co-authors to link their ORCID ID to their accounts in our online peer review platforms. It takes seconds to do: click the link when prompted, sign into your ORCID account and our systems are automatically updated. Your ORCID ID will become part of your accepted publication’s metadata, making your work attributable to you and only you. Your ORCID ID is published with your article so that fellow researchers reading your work can link to your ORCID profile and from there link to your other publications.

If you do not already have an ORCID ID please follow this link to create one or visit our ORCID homepage to learn more.

5.2 Information required for completing your submission

You will be asked to provide contact details and academic affiliations for all co-authors via the submission system and identify who is to be the corresponding author. These details must match what appears on your manuscript. The affiliation listed in the manuscript should be the institution where the research was conducted. If an author has moved to a new institution since completing the research, the new affiliation can be included in a manuscript note at the end of the paper. At this stage please ensure you have included all the required statements and declarations and uploaded any additional supplementary files (including reporting guidelines where relevant).

5.3 Permissions

Please also ensure that you have obtained any necessary permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please see the Copyright and Permissions page on the Sage Author Gateway

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6. On acceptance and publication

6.1 Sage Production

Your Sage Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will be made available to the corresponding author via email, and corrections should be made directly or notified to us promptly. Authors are reminded to check their proofs carefully to confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence and contact details are correct, and that Funding and Conflict of Interest statements, if any, are accurate.

6.2 Online First publication 

Online First allows final articles (completed and approved articles awaiting assignment to a future issue) to be published online prior to their inclusion in a journal issue, which significantly reduces the lead time between submission and publication. Visit the Sage Journals help page for more details, including how to cite Online First articles.

6.3 Access to your published article

Sage provides authors with online access to their final article.

6.4 Promoting your article

Publication is not the end of the process! You can help disseminate your paper and ensure it is as widely read and cited as possible. The Sage Author Gateway has numerous resources to help you promote your work. Visit the Promote Your Article page on the Gateway for tips and advice.

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7. Further information

Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the manuscript submission process should be sent to the Journal of Land and Rural Studies editorial office as follows:
crs.lbsnaa@nic.in