Information For Authors

 

Scope of the Journal

The scientific journal Miscellanea Historico-Iuridica publishes papers of a historical-legal nature, as well as studies concerning contemporary law with a distinct historical context.

The thematic and chronological scope of the periodical covers a wide range of issues related to the history of legal systems and regulations – from antiquity (with particular emphasis on Roman law), through the Middle Ages and modern times, up to contemporary history and the post-Cold War period. A significant number of contributions focus on the history of law in the interwar period, the legal systems of communist states, and the history of law in Central and Eastern Europe, broadly understood.

The Editorial Board may reject a paper without submitting it for review if it considers its content incompatible with the thematic scope of the journal.

 

General Information and Editorial Guidelines

Preparing a Manuscript for Submission

The journal publishes articles written in Polish, English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, and Russian. The Editorial Board may also allow for publication of a text in another language. The first pages of a scholarly manuscript submitted for publication should include:

  • the first name(s) and surname of each author;
  • the current affiliation of each author (university, research institution, scholarly association, or another type of organization – original name and English translation);
  • contact details for each author, in particular an e-mail address;
  • the ORCID identifier of each author (Open Researcher and Contributor ID – an alphanumeric code created for the unique identification of authors and co-authors of academic publications; registration available at https://orcid.org/register);
  • the full title of the article in the language of submission;
  • an abstract (a preview of the article, at least 200 words) in the language of submission;
  • key words or key phrases in the language of submission (three to seven);
  • the full title of the article in English;
  • an abstract in English;
  • key words or key phrases in English (three to seven).

Each text should be divided into at least three sections (introduction, at least one main body section, and conclusion), numbered with Arabic numerals.

At the end of the manuscript, the following should be included:

  • a bibliography (list of sources) used in the preparation of the text, as well as references cited in it, divided into: legal acts, case law, archival materials, scholarly literature (in alphabetical order, with full first names and surnames of authors), netography, etc.;
  • a summary of the article in the language of submission;
  • a summary of the article in English.

Abstract vs. summary:

  • the abstract should serve as a preview of the article, between 200 and 400 words in length, placed at the beginning of the article. It should provide a concise description of the research aim and an introduction to the subject matter, an outline of the sources used and the methods applied. It should encourage the reader to read the article;
  • the summary should be a synthesis (recap, abridgement) of the entire text, placed at the end. It should contain elements absent or only briefly mentioned in the abstract, in particular the research results obtained and the final conclusion. It should be between 200 and 400 words in length and summarize and systematize the knowledge acquired from reading the article.

 

Submitting a Manuscript for Publication

The proposed manuscript should be submitted to the Editorial Board via the Open Journal Systems (OJS) platform available on the journal’s website, after registration (at http://miscellanea.uwb.edu.pl/user/register) and logging into the user’s account. Any questions or difficulties in submitting the manuscript may be reported to the Editorial Board by e-mail at: miscellanea@uwb.edu.pl.

Each manuscript must be accompanied by a written declaration from each author that no identical publication authored by them has been or will be published elsewhere. The declaration should also include consent for the publication of the submitted text in Miscellanea Historico-Iuridica.

If the manuscript is accepted for publication, each author is required to sign a license agreement granting a free license to the work, with an obligation to grant a CC sublicense.

 

Review Process

All submitted scholarly works are subject to a review process. Each type of such text (article, review article, archival document) undergoes two reviews, prepared by two independent experts affiliated with external research institutions. Taking into account the subject matter of a given manuscript and the specialization of individual researchers, one of the reviewers may, by way of exception, be selected from among the academic staff of the University of Białystok. For manuscripts written in a language other than Polish, at least one reviewer should be affiliated with a foreign institution of a nationality other than that of the author. A list of reviewers is published in each issue.

As a rule, the author and the reviewers remain anonymous to each other (double-blind review process). In justified cases, this model may not be applied; in such situations, the reviewer is asked to sign a statement confirming the absence of a conflict of interest between them and the author of the manuscript. Each review is provided in written form and ends with a clear recommendation concerning: 1) acceptance of the text for publication in its submitted form; 2) directions for revision of the text as a condition of publication; 3) rejection of the text. Authors receive the anonymized content of both reviews along with the Editorial Board’s decision regarding the further fate of the manuscript.

The Editorial Board takes measures to prevent cases of ghostwriting and guest authorship. All such instances are made public by informing the relevant academic institutions.

Manuscripts of a technical nature (review notes, report articles, memoirs, chronicles) are not subject to review.

 

Review Criteria

The criteria for evaluating a submitted manuscript include:

  • preliminary characterization of the article – whether it has a theoretical-legal, comparative-legal, or historical-legal dimension;
  • assessment of whether the title corresponds to the content of the article;
  • assessment of whether the aims and assumptions of the article have been clearly and correctly defined;
  • determination of whether the aims of the article have been achieved;
  • assessment of the scholarly value of the article;
  • assessment of the research method used;
  • assessment of the appropriateness of applying a statistical method;
  • assessment of the use of scholarly literature;
  • assessment of the correctness of the final conclusions;
  • assessment of language and style.

Consent for Publication

Materials copied from other sources must be accompanied by a statement from both the author and the publisher granting permission for their publication by the University of Białystok Publishing House (Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu w Białymstoku). Obtaining such permission is the responsibility of the author(s).

 

Repository Policy – Self-Archiving

Authors may deposit their works published in our journal in other databases and repositories. Articles may be self-archived in the VoR (Version of Record), i.e., the final version published in the journal.

 

Technical Instructions for Authors

Rules for Preparing and Formatting the Main Text

  1. The main text should be written using the font Source Sans Pro (https://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/source-sans-pro; size 12 pt; if unavailable, Arial may be used), left-aligned (not justified), with 1.5 line spacing, without indentation at the beginning of the first line of a paragraph (no “First line” special indentation), and with one blank line between paragraphs.
  2. The length of the text should not exceed 30 pages.
  3. Emphasis in the text is permitted, e.g., bold (in headings) and italics (quotations, terms, phrases, and Latin maxims). Quotations should be placed in quotation marks “...”. The Editorial Board does not verify quotations used in manuscripts or their translations.
  4. If necessary, consistent numbering should be used for lists: 1), 2), 3), etc., or a), b), c), etc. Other list markers (e.g., • or <) should not be used.
  5. All pages should be continuously numbered.
  6. In the text and in footnotes, the following Latin abbreviations should be used (without italics):
    • eadem – the same (feminine)
    • ibidem – in the same place
    • idem – the same (masculine)
    • op. cit. – the cited work
    • passim – here and there, everywhere
  7. The Editorial Board reserves the right to correct stylistic flaws and unify the text according to the adopted rules without consulting the author.

 

Rules for Preparing Footnotes

  1. Footnotes should be written in Source Sans Pro (or Arial; size 11 pt), left-aligned (not justified), with 1.15 line spacing.
  2. Continuous numbering of footnotes should be used.
  3. Footnote references in the main text should appear as superscripts.
  4. In the main text, the footnote number should be placed immediately after the word, before a comma or period ending the sentence, e.g.:
  • “Later in his lecture, he referred to the tradition of teaching Roman law in Vilnius¹, recalling the Spanish humanist and Romanist Petrus Roysius² (Pedro Ruiz de Moroz 1505–1571), known in our country as Roizjusz³.”
  1. A footnote should be treated as a sentence; therefore, it should begin with a capital letter and end with a period.
  2. A work cited for the first time should be indicated as follows: author’s initial with a period, surname, followed by the title of the work in italics, place and year of publication (optionally, after the place of publication, a colon and the name of the publisher may be added), page numbers, e.g.:
  • J. Sondel, Słownik łacińsko-polski dla prawników i historyków, Kraków 1997, pp. 174–178.

A subsequent edition should be indicated as follows:

  • J. Sondel, Słownik łacińsko-polski dla prawników i historyków, 2nd ed., Kraków 2001, p. 266.
  1. A journal article cited for the first time should be indicated as follows: author’s initial with a period, surname, title of the article in italics, journal title in quotation marks (if cited again later, an abbreviation of the journal title may be used, after being indicated in square brackets), publication year in Arabic numerals, issue (volume, number), page numbers, e.g.:
  • I. Koschembahr-Łyskowski, O pojęciu własności, zarazem jako przyczynek do nauki o źródłach prawa, “Przegląd Prawa i Administracji” [hereinafter: PPiA] 1902, no. 6, pp. 385–410.

A subsequent article from the same journal should be cited in abbreviated form, e.g.:

  • I. Koschembahr-Łyskowski, Dwa nowe opracowania rzymskiego prawa prywatnego, PPiA 1908, no. 5, pp. 329–353.
  1. Only one work (e.g., monograph, article) by the same author cited again should be indicated as follows: author’s initial with a period, surname, the abbreviation “op. cit.” (not italicized), page number and, if necessary, footnote, e.g.:
  • J. Sondel, op. cit., p. 185.
  1. If several works by the same author are cited, in subsequent references (except the first footnote to a given work) a clear short title should be introduced, followed by an ellipsis with a comma – “..., ” and then the page number, e.g.:
  • F. Bossowski, Ze studiów nad rzeczami wyjętymi z obiegu wedle prawa rzymskiego, “Gazeta Sądowa Warszawska” 1923, no. 30, pp. 257–260; F. Bossowski, Znalezienie skarbu wedle prawa rzymskiego, Kraków 1925, p. 38.

— in later references:

  • F. Bossowski, Ze studiów nad rzeczami..., p. 258; idem, Znalezienie skarbu..., p. 45.
  1. If two consecutive footnotes refer to the same work by the same author, the abbreviation “ibidem” should be used, e.g.:
  • R. Taubenschlag, Die materna potestas im gräko-ägyptischen Recht, “Zeitschrift der Savigny Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte. Romanistische Abteilung” 1929, no. 49, pp. 115–128.

— the next footnote:

  • Ibidem, p. 120.
  1. An article in a collective volume should be cited as follows: author’s initial with a period, surname, title of the article in italics, comma, expression “in:” (in square brackets – [in:]), title of the collective volume in italics, initial(s) and surname(s) of the editor(s), volume, place and year of publication (optionally, after the place of publication, a colon and the name of the publisher may be added), page numbers, e.g.:
  • F. Bossowski, Nowela Justyniana 115-Statut Litewski I R. IV. Art. 13 (14), Statut Litewski II i III R. VIII. Art. 7.-T. X. cz. 1 Art. 167, [in:] Księga pamiątkowa ku uczczeniu czterechsetnej rocznicy wydania Pierwszego Statutu Litewskiego, ed. S. Ehrenkreutz, Wilno 1935, pp. 107–121.
  1. An encyclopedia entry should be cited as follows: author’s initial with a period, surname, title of the entry in italics, comma, expression “in:” in square brackets – [in:], title of the collective publication in italics, initial(s) and surname(s) of the editor(s), volume, place and year of publication, columns/pages, e.g.:
  • R. Taubenschlag, Münzverbrechen, [in:] Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, eds. A. Pauly, G. Wissowa, vol. XVI (1), Stuttgart 1933, cols. 455–457.
  1. A newspaper article should be cited as follows: author’s initial with a period, surname, title of the article in italics, newspaper title in quotation marks, date of issue, e.g.:
  • Ł. Zalewski, Brak zgody to równy podział na dziecko, “Dziennik Gazeta Prawna”, 4 November 2013, p. B3.
  1. A review should be cited as follows: abbreviation “”, reviewer’s initial with a period, surname, journal title in quotation marks, year of issue, number (volume, issue), page numbers, comma, expression “from:” in square brackets – [from:], author’s initial with a period, surname of the reviewed work, title of the work in italics, place and year of publication, e.g.:
  • See: rev. A. Berger, “Kritische Vierteljahresschrift für Gesetzgebung und Rechtswissenschaft” 1925, no. 21, pp. 191–195, [from:] U. Willamowitz-Moellendorff, Staat und Gesellschaft der Griechen und Römer bis zum Ausgang des Mittelalters, Leipzig–Berlin 1923.
  1. Court or tribunal judgments should be cited as follows: name of the judgment, name of the body issuing it, date of issuance, case file number, and –if published –the place of publication and page numbers, e.g.:
  • Supreme Court Judgment of 13 January 1965, I CR 464/64, OSNCP 1965, no. 10, item 171.
  1. Legal acts should be cited with their full title, followed by the publication reference – publisher (abbreviated, e.g., Dz.U., M.P. – without spaces), year of publication, number of the official journal (No.), comma, item. For consolidated texts, the abbreviation “cons. text” should precede the publication reference. Subsequent amendments should be indicated with the expression “as amended” at the end. Examples:
  • act of 23 April 1964 – Civil Code (Dz.U. No. 16 item 93, as amended).
  • act of 7 July 1994 – Construction Law (cons. text: Dz.U. 2010 No. 243 item 1623, as amended).
  1. Archival sources should be cited with the name of the archive, number and name of the archival collection, and page/folio range.
  2. Online sources should be cited with the author’s full name (if available), title of the article or work (or name of the website), URL, and access date in square brackets, e.g.:

In addition, check that the link works correctly by clicking on it.

Rules for Preparing the Bibliography (List of Sources)

  1. The bibliography should be divided into categories of cited sources, e.g., legal acts, case law, archival materials, scholarly literature, online sources, etc.
  2. Sources in the bibliography should be cited analogously to footnotes, with exceptions specified below.
  3. Within each category of sources (except normative legal acts), items should be listed in alphabetical order.
  4. Normative legal acts should first be arranged according to the hierarchy of legal acts (constitutional acts, ratified international agreements, statutes, regulations, local law acts, internal acts), and then according to the date of promulgation (publication in the relevant official journal).

 

KEY REQUIREMENTS FOR DIGITAL ACCESSIBILITY OF TEXTS FOR PERSONS WITH SPECIAL NEEDS

  1. The text narrative should be arranged so that on one A4 editorial page it is divided into at least four paragraphs.
  2. In the main text, initials of first names should be avoided; full first names must be provided.
  3. In the reference list (and in other categories of sources with identified authors), the author’s surname should be given first, followed by the full first name(s). Full first names should also be provided for other persons mentioned in a given item, such as editors or translators.
  4. Less common abbreviations and acronyms should be written out in full the first time they appear in the text. In subsequent uses, the shortened form may be used.
  5. If graphic objects (illustrations, charts, diagrams) are included in the text, an alternative text should be provided for each, consisting of no more than 3–4 sentences and not duplicating the content of the object’s caption or title.
  6. Underlining should be avoided. If emphasis is necessary, italics should be used, and bold type only as a last resort — both applied with moderation.
  7. Tables:
    a) should be used primarily for presenting numerical data,
    b) purely textual data should be presented in the main text as numbered or bulleted lists,
    c) table cells should have a regular layout — they should not be split or merged.