Author Guidelines

1. Remit of Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers
2. Paper Types
3. Peer Review
4. Submission Guidance
5. Referencing
6. Supporting information
7. Research and publication ethics
8. Wiley's author name change policy
9. FAQ

1. Remit of Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers

Transactions publishes the very best scholarship from around the world and across the whole spectrum of geographical research. It publishes 'landmark' articles that make a substantial theoretical, conceptual, or empirical contribution to the advancement of geographical understanding. Transactions papers should stimulate and shape research agendas in geography and/or showcase the contribution of geographical research to advancing knowledge within and beyond the discipline.

Transactions also seeks to encourage care-full and collaborative commentary exchanges between scholars. This objective was set out in our 2023 Editorial, available to read here.

2. Paper Types

Articles

Papers must fit with the remit of Transactions, in particular Transactions' commitment to publishing high-quality work that makes a novel contribution to geographical scholarship. Please select 'Article' as the paper type on ScholarOne when submitting your piece.

• Word limit: 10,000 words, including references, endnotes, figures/tables (but not including any translated titles in the reference list).
• Figures: Authors are advised not to include more than 7 figures/tables. Each table/figure is counted as 250 words.

Interventions

An intervention aims to initiate new ways of thinking about an area of contemporary geographical scholarship, or any significant process, movement or event whose geographical components demand interrogation. A good intervention might disrupt habitual ideas, unsettle and rework convention, identify and propose a research agenda for an important but overlooked phenomenon, or incite new possibilities for thought and action. Whilst claims need to be fully justified, an intervention is not a shorter version of the standard research article, and does not need to contain research material or be as fully referenced. Interventions will be reviewed by one or more editors and a member of the editorial board, with the aim of facilitating rapid publication. Before submitting an intervention, it is mandatory to contact the editors to discuss your idea via [email protected]. Please select 'Intervention' as the paper type on ScholarOne when submitting your piece.

• Word limit: 5,000 words, including references, endnotes, tables, figures (but not including any translated titles in the reference list).
• Figures: Authors are advised not to include more than 4 figures/tables. Each table/figure is counted as 250 words.

Commentaries

Transactions welcomes short commentaries that seek to comment on or expand an existing Transactions paper’s contribution. Commentaries will be reviewed by an editor and at least one member of the Editorial Board or an external referee where appropriate. Please select 'Commentary' as the paper type on ScholarOne when submitting your piece.

• Word limit: 1,000-3,000 words, including references, endnotes, tables, figures (but not including any translated titles in the reference list).
• Figures: Authors are advised not to include more than 4 figures/tables. Each table/figure is counted as 250 words.

3. Peer Review

Transactions uses double-blind peer review, which means the identities of authors and reviewers are not known to each other. Most papers will be sent to at least three external reviewers who will be asked to evaluate the extent to which papers make a substantial contribution to advancing geographical understanding. Please note that papers may be desk-rejected before peer review if they do not meet the criteria for publication in Transactions.

Papers take on average up to three months from submission to first decision. Please feel free to contact the Editorial Office [email protected] if your paper has been with us for over three months.

4. Paper submission guidance

ScholarOne submission portal: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/tran.

Please contact [email protected] with any questions.

Papers should be submitted online as a Word document and the file designation 'Main Document' using the ScholarOne submission portal above.

• Please upload a 'Title Page' document with your submission, including:
  • Title
  • Author(s)
  • Author institution(s) & institutional address(es)
  • Abstract
  • Acknowledgements
  • Sources of funding
• Please upload each figure/table as separate high-resolution image files (e.g. JPEG, TIFF, or EPS, at least 300 dpi for images, 600 dpi for graphs/line diagrams). Name each image file 'Figure 1', 'Figure 2', 'Table 1' etc.

Preparing your manuscript for submission:

• Use 1.5 line spacing, point 12 text and 'normal' margins.
• Papers must be fully anonymised before submission.
• Do not use page numbers or line numbers.
• Use British English spellings and 'single quotation marks' for quotations & 'emphasis'.
• A maximum of two levels of headings may be used (e.g. 1 and 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 etc.).

Abstract, title, and keywords

Editors will send your title and abstract to potential reviewers for your paper. It is therefore important that these are clear and engaging, to encourage reviewers and future readers to read your paper. Keep titles short, interesting, and to the point.

Abstracts must be under 300 words and should include:

• Key context for your paper - what thematic areas is it addressing, who is it speaking to, and why is it important?
• Key problem or gap you are addressing - what is your paper contributing?
• Brief outline of your research questions/aims.
• Key findings - what are you arguing, or suggesting in your paper?

Authors must also submit six keywords. Authors are encouraged to include the paper's keywords in the first two sentences of the abstract and to repeat the keywords 3-6 times throughout to enhance the paper's search engine discoverability.

Further guidance about optimising titles, abstracts and keywords for search engines is available here https://authorservices.wiley.com/author-resources/Journal-Authors/Prepare/writing-for-seo.html.

Permissions

Authors must ensure that they have sought permissions for any image or figure they use that they did not produce themselves. You should also always credit your source in your figure caption. Please see this document for further guidance: https://authorservices.wiley.com/asset/photos/licensing-and-open-access-photos/Journal-Permissions-8-April-2016.pdf

5. Referencing

Please see this page for details on referencing.

6. Supporting information

If you have additional material that cannot be included in the main body of the paper, you can add it using 'Supporting Information' files. This might be data in spreadsheets, additional figures, full details of research methods, movie files, audio clips etc. The Supporting Information must be referenced from within the paper, so that readers can easily locate it.

If Supporting Information is primarily static material (text, tables, diagrams, photographs), the best way to present it is to prepare a separate file containing this material and to head the first page with a title 'Supporting Information: Title of article', and then provide a sub-heading for each item, with titles such as 'SI1. Additional details on questionnaire design and implementation' or 'SI2. Additional Figures illustrating land use patterns in the study area' (Figures and Table should have explanatory captions). These separate items should be referenced in the text; e.g., '(see Supporting Information, Section SI1)'. The complete document containing this material can be saved as a PDF file and should be uploaded to ScholarOne during paper submission, clearly labelled as 'Supporting Information' (e.g. in the filename - SuppInfo.pdf). It is important that Supporting Information is carefully checked before being uploaded, as it is not copy-edited and type-set, but simply made available from the journal's web-site when the paper is published on-line.

Other types of material that cannot easily be included in such a document (spreadsheets, video, audio) can be uploaded separately, but again should be referenced from within the text, and should be given a file-name that indicates that it is Supporting Information, and a title. If you intend to include a large raw media file within your supporting information, you might like to consider uploading the file to a third-party hosting site (e.g. Youtube, Vimeo, or Soundcloud) and embedding a link to the file within a word document. It may be helpful for some textual explanation of the intention behind making this material available, and the use to which the reader might put it, to be written in a short document that can be uploaded either as a separate item of Supporting Information, or within a composite document of SI sections as outlined above.

Please see Wiley's Author Services for more information, including guidance on file formats: https://authorservices.wiley.com/author-resources/Journal-Authors/Prepare/supporting-information.html

This journal requires authors] to provide their ORCID iD, a unique, persistent identifier available at no charge to researchers. The submitting author can provide this information in the submission system.  

You can refer to Wiley’s resources on ORCID iDs or visit the ORCID site to create or check your identifier number. 

7. Research and publication ethics

Transactions expects all submitting authors to ensure that the highest ethical standards in the conduct of research are upheld. Authors should make sure that their research complies with ethical guidance issued by their institution, or funder, as well as best practice guidelines appropriate to their sub-discipline. Example guidance can be found here from the UKRI Economic and Social Research Council and the Australian Research Council.

Authors are expected to ensure that their submitted article is original, fully attributed, and does not contain material that is untrue, inaccurate or plagiarised. Authors are responsible for ensuring that all appropriate permissions and approvals for copyrighted material have been obtained. Transactions uses iThenticate to support the identification of plagiarism and self-plagiarism. Manuscripts may be returned if high levels of textual overlap are identified.

Failure to comply with the above standards will be treated very seriously. The Editorial team reserve the right to contact an author's institution in the event of serious concerns about ethics.

Transactions is a member of, and subscribes to the principles of, the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) www.publicationethics.org. COPE provides freely available advice on a wide range of ethical issues pertaining to the peer review process and academic publishing.



Please note that on acceptance, authors will be obliged to sign a legally binding form confirming that the above standards have been met, which will make them personally liable for any breaches for which civil or criminal charges can be brought. Neither the Publisher, the Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), nor the Editors, can be held responsible for errors or any consequences arising from the use of information contained within papers published by Transactions.

8. Wiley's author name change policy

In cases where authors wish to change their name following publication, Wiley will update and republish the paper and redeliver the updated metadata to indexing services. Our editorial and production teams will use discretion in recognizing that name changes may be of a sensitive and private nature for various reasons including (but not limited to) alignment with gender identity, or as a result of marriage, divorce, or religious conversion. Accordingly, to protect the author's privacy, we will not publish a correction notice to the paper, and we will not notify co-authors of the change. Authors should contact the journal's Editorial Office ([email protected]) with their name change request.

9. FAQ

Do I have to include a cover letter?

Authors have the option to submit a cover letter with their paper. This is not compulsory, but can be useful for the editors. In your cover letter you should briefly introduce your paper, outline why it is important, and explain why it is a good fit for Transactions. You can also use the cover letter to supply any confidential information you feel the editors should know when assessing your paper and selecting reviewers.

The system asks me to provide recommended reviewers - who should I pick?

Authors will also be asked to supply at least three recommended reviewers for your paper on ScholarOne. Avoid conflicts of interest (e.g. PhD supervisor, close colleague, student, friend, recent collaborator). You might choose scholars you cite in your paper, or who work in your field or on similar topics. You do not need to approach people before listing them as a suggested reviewer.

I have uploaded my paper on a preprint server, can I still submit it?

Transactions will consider articles previously available as unpublished preprints on non-commercial servers. Authors are requested to update any pre-publication versions with a link to the final published article. For more information about preprints and journal publishing, see Wiley's Author Services: https://authorservices.wiley.com/author-resources/Journal-Authors/licensing-open-access/open-access/preprints-policy.html. Is there any support available for scholars who are not native English speakers?

Wiley Editing Services is a paid-for service which offers expert help with English Language Editing, as well as translation, manuscript formatting, figure illustration, figure formatting, and graphical abstract design - so you can submit your manuscript with confidence.

You can also find free resources on Preparing Your Article, for general guidance about writing and preparing your manuscript.

Is there a cost associated with publishing in Transactions?

There is no cost associated with publishing in Transactions, unless you would like your paper to be made Open Access. Please see this page for more details on OA: https://rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/hub/journal/14755661/homepage/fundedaccess.html.

When can I expect to hear back from the Editors?

If your paper is desk rejected, we aim to notify you within two weeks. If it is sent out to review, we try to return a first decision to authors within three months, however this is not always possible depending on reviewer availability. Please feel free to contact the Editorial Office [email protected] if your paper has been with us for over three months.

When will my paper be published online?

Once your paper has been accepted, it will be copyedited and typeset by the Wiley Production team. You will then receive proofs to check, and your paper should be published online within two weeks of submitting your corrected proofs.

How can I make my paper Open Access?

Please see the Open Access page on our website for more information.

My paper is not Open Access - can I upload it onto an open repository for people to access?

Please refer to Wiley's Self-Archiving Policy as your paper may be subject to an embargo period.