ISSN 2310-7103 online version

AUTHOR GUIDELINES

 

Journal Scope

Critical Studies in Teaching and Learning (CriSTaL) is a peer–reviewed journal that publishes critical scholarly articles and essays that make interesting and distinctive contributions to the scholarship of teaching and learning in higher / university education.

The journal aims to provide a stimulating and challenging forum for contributors to theorise, trouble, reconfigure and re–imagine higher education teaching and learning practice. We promote an understanding of knowledge creation that is situated, which challenges hegemonic thought, and is sensitive to intersecting positionalities, histories, and inequalities. We encourage work that moves beyond boundaries, such as methodology, discipline, or location. We invite authors to be creative, take risks (and), think "otherwise". Contributions should be framed by a sensibility towards social justice.

Contributions that address challenging problems and issues from theoretical, ethical, practice–based, empirical, strategic, or analytical angles are welcomed, as well as contributions that focus on innovative and creative approaches to teaching and learning.

Areas in which critical contributions are invited include:

  • academic literacy development in university–level courses or modules (including writing across the curriculum and writing in the disciplines, as well as writing centres)
  • innovative and critical methodologies and methods in researching teaching and learning at university, such as multimodal and post qualitative inquiry
  • theory–development in higher education studies. This can include creative uses of theory or theory at the intersection of different disciplines
  • affect in teaching and learning
  • views from the global South, Afro/Indigenous and other marginalities
  • post–anthropocentric, posthuman, and feminist new materialist approaches
  • creative approaches to teaching and learning with technology
  • trans–disciplinary teaching and learning
  • socially just, socially inclusive educational praxis
  • innovative assessment and evaluation practice in higher education
  • multilingual teaching and learning resources and development
  • innovative materials development for teaching, learning, curriculum, assessment, and evaluation
  • reconfiguring academic staff development and professional education in higher education as a subset of post–school education. Please note that this excludes studies in the context of K12, adult, technical and vocational education and training, and in–service teacher education, which should be redirected to more suitable journals. You may consult databases such as the African Journals Online for alternatives.
  • disruptive and reparative work in the context of teaching and learning
  • moving beyond introspection and reflection in interpersonal spaces, including structural issues and historicities of ourselves, our institutions, and the broader context.

 

Preparation and Style of Manuscripts

The CriSTaL style guide is based on the Harvard Style, with some deviations for house preferences. The journal uses U.K. punctuation and spelling, following The Oxford English Dictionary (OED).
Foreign words (except proper names) should be italicised.

Article submissions must be Original research, and must be between 6000 and 8000 words excluding references and endnotes. (Follow Link for more on these guidelines).

Book reviews must be between 800 and 1000 words, and can include references to additional texts, although these should be kept to a minimum. (Follow Link for more on these guidelines)

Review essays should be 2000 – 3000 words in length, and should make use of at least three connected books to make an original argument that extends on our book review criteria. (Follow Link for more on these guidelines)

ARTICLE TITLE AND HEADINGS

  • Use capitalisation in the article title only for the first word, any proper nouns, and for the first word after a colon. (E.g. Making time for writing: Rethinking assessment in a Philosophy course)
  • Headings and subheadings should not be numbered.
  • Indicate main headings by bold lettering and subheadings by bold italic. Third level headings should be in plain text and underlined.

ABBREVIATIONS

  • Avoid unnecessary abbreviations or acronyms (e.g. higher education, not HE; South Africa, not SA)
  • Acronyms must be spelt out on first appearance. Provide parenthetical explanations: CHE (Council on Higher Education).
  • Do not use a full stop (period) after abbreviations including the first and last letter of the word (contractions): Mr Mrs Dr St Ltd
  • A full stop for: vol. seq. no. ibid. et al.
  • For degree names, use no full stops (BA, BEd, BSc, PhD, etc)
  • Use full stops in the abbreviation of names of countries (except the USSR) but omit them with acronyms: U.S.; U.K. || CHE; DHET; UWC

PUNCTUATION

  • All punctuation should be followed by a single space.
  • There should be no full stop at the end of headings or subheadings.

[BRACKETS] AND (PARENTHESES)

  • Use square brackets for editorial comments within quotations or for uncertain data in references (e.g., if the publication year or city is ascertainable but does not appear in the book).
  • Brackets are also used within parentheses: (he used to go there [to Tehran] every spring).
  • Include translations of foreign–language quotations in brackets immediately following the quotation (without italics and without quotation marks): ‘˜Todas somos amigas de desde chiquitas, casi puras vecinas’ [We are all friends since we were small, and almost all are neighbours].

QUOTATION MARKS

  • Always use single quotation marks. Double quotation marks are only used within a quotation. He remarked: 'This charge of "fraudulent conversion" will never stick'.
  • Please place all punctuation outside of the quotation marks, as above.
  • Quotations of eight to ten lines or longer (or over 60 words) should be indented as extracts and separated from the main text. Such text extracts should not be set within quotation marks.
  • Extracts longer than 400 words require copyright permission.

DASHES

  • The UK style for dashes requires blanks before and after the en dash.

ELLIPSES POINTS (…) (. …) (, …) (…!)

  • Three points should be used for omitted text. There should be one space before and after the ellipsis.
  • If the omitted text follows a completed sentence, there should be four dots, the first indicating a full stop (or period). In contradiction to the three–dot ellipses, there is no space between the last word in the sentence and the first full stop ending the sentence.

DATES, NUMBERS AND RANGES

  • Dates should be set day/month/year, with no comma in between the elements, e.g., 26 January 1988.
  • In general, use words for numbers that are less than 100, and numerals for all other numbers. Number ranges should not be abbreviated.
  • In–text number ranges should employ prepositions not dashes:
    • Use from 1924 to 1928 or between 1924 and 1928
    • Do not use rom 1924–1928 or between 1924–1928.

REFERENCES

AUTHOR–DATE SYSTEM

  • In–text citations should follow the author–date system with full documentation in the Reference section.
  • Every author mentioned in the reference list must be cited in the main text, and every author cited in the main text must be listed in the reference list.
  • Confirm that spelling and dates are consistent between the main text and the reference list.
  • Any parenthetical notes or footnotes should be kept short and to a minimum. Please use Footnotes if needed, and not Endnotes.
  • Acknowledgements should not be included as a numbered note but given its own heading and paragraph following the body of the text, prior to the reference section.

IN–TEXT, AUTHOR–DATE CITATION EXAMPLES

  • (Pickett and White, 1985; Smith, 1987) [Note: alphabetical order]

  • Jones's research (1977, 1979a, 1979b) indicates that...

  • (Kant, n.d.; McGinnis, forthcoming)

  • (James, 2018: 3)

  • Single Author with Multiple Sources: (Smith, 1993: 63; 1998: 124–169)

  • Three or More Authors: (Jones, et al., 2001)

  • Authors with Same Last Name: (D. Smith, 1981; G. Smith, 1999)

REFERENCE LIST

  • The reference list must be in alphabetical order. For multiple listings under an author's name, list the oldest publication first, followed by the other publications, in chronological order.
  • Repeat author's name rather than use underscores or dashes to indicate a subsequent title by the same author.
  • Confirm that web links are accessible as cited.

REFERENCE EXAMPLES

  • BOOK: Knight, P. T. 2002. Being a Teacher in Higher Education. Buckingham: SRHE and Open University Press.

  • TWO AUTHORS, edited volume: Becher, T. & Trowler, P. (eds.) 2001. Academic Tribes and Territories. 2nd Edition. Buckingham: SRHE and Open University Press.

  • CHAPTER IN A BOOK: Hermerschmidt, M. 1999. Foregrounding background in academic learning. In Jones, C., Turner, J. & Street, B.V. Students Writing in the University. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 5–16.

  • Edwards, A. & Thompson, M. 2013. Resourceful leadership: Revealing the creativity of organizational leaders. In Sannino, A. and Ellis, V. (eds.) Learning and Collective Creativity: Activity–Theoretical and Sociocultural Studies. London: Routledge, 99–115.

  • ARTICLE IN A JOURNAL: Jacobs, C. 2007. Towards a critical understanding of the teaching of discipline–specific academic literacies: making the tacit explicit. Journal of Education, 41, 2007: 1–24.

  • Kiley, M & Wisker, G. 2009. Threshold concepts in research education and evidence of threshold crossing. Higher Education, Research & Development, 28(4): 431–444.

  • ARTICLE IN A JOURNAL WITH DOI NUMBER: Clarence, S. 2011. Making inter–disciplinary spaces for talk about and change in student writing and literacy development. Teaching in Higher Education, DOI:10.1080/13562517.2011.611876.

  • TRANSLATIONS: Cortazar, J. 1969. Cronopios and Famas, trans. P. Blackburn. New York: Random House.

  • [Do not translate foreign titles into English unless it is the English version that is referred to.]

  • ARTICLE IN A NEWSPAPER OR MAGAZINE: Phakathi. B. 2011. Teachers vow to fight DA education bill. Business Day, 18 October 2011.

  • SLIDES and FILM: Mihalyi, L. J. 1977. Landscapes of Zambia, Central Africa. Santa Barbara, Calif.: Visual Education. Slides.

  • An Incident in Tiananmen Square. 1990. 16 mm, 25 min. San Francisco: Gate of Heaven Films.

  • Godard, J–L. (dir.) [1966] 2005. Masculin Feminin. Criterion Collection.
  • PAPERS READ AT MEETINGS: Clegg, S. 2008. The struggle for connections. Keynote address at ISSOTL conference, Edmonton, Canada. 17–19 October 2008.

  • DISSERTATION: Peseta, T. L. 2005. Learning and Becoming in Academic Development: An autoethnographic inquiry. Unpublished PhD diss., The University of Sydney, Australia.

  • UNPUBLISHED MATERIAL: Marciniak, E. and Jefferson, N. 1985. CHA Advisory Committee Appointed by Judge Marvin E. Aspin: Final Report (December). Unpublished.

  • ORGANISATION AS AUTHOR: Democratic Alliance (DA). 2008. PREPARING FOR SUCCESS. The DA’s plan for schools that deliver real opportunity. http://www.da.org.za/docs/647/MDU-%20DA%20Preparing%20for%20Success.pdf (accessed 23 July 2012).

  • MATERIALS IN ARCHIVES: Egmont Manuscripts (n.d.). Phillips Collection. Athens: University of Georgia Library.

  • INTERNET / WORLD WIDE WEBSITES: Vale, P. and J. Carter. 2008. But Do They Think? Mail and Guardian, 2 March. Available at: http://mg.co.za/printformat/single/2008-03-02-but-do-they-think/ (accessed 5 May 2011).

 

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