Disability Studies Quarterly (DSQ) is the journal of the Society for Disability Studies (SDS). It is a multidisciplinary and international journal of interest to social scientists, scholars in the humanities and arts, disability rights advocates, and others concerned with the issues of people with disabilities. It represents the full range of methods, epistemologies, perspectives, and content that the field of disability studies embraces. DSQ is committed to developing theoretical and practical knowledge about disability and to promoting the full and equal participation of persons with disabilities in society. (ISSN: 1041-5718; eISSN: 2159-8371)
Submissions
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.- Authors need to be members of the Society for Disability Studies in order to submit a manuscript. SDS memberships are on a sliding scale, starting at $5/month, and cancellable at any time. If you are not currently a member, please sign up here before submitting your manuscript: https://www.patreon.com/SocietyforDisabilityStudies.
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To ensure the integrity of the peer-reviewed, you must anonymize your document properties (file info) as well as the text of your document. Avoid or minimize self citations (you can reintroduce them after the peer review). When you cannot avoid a self citation, refer to your work in the third person. Also remove any acknowledgments or references to funding sources until after the peer review.
**In addition, you must remove author info from the file properties of your Word document.**
Instructions:
- Microsoft Office: In File Properties, remove author identification.
- Word for Windows/ Word 365: Go to File > Info > Check for Issue (menu to the left of "Inspect Document").
Click "Inspect Document," make sure to check the box next to "Document properties and Personal Information," and then click "Inspect" at th bottom of the dialogue box. If there is a red exclamation mark next to "Document Properties and Personal Information" it will give you the option to "Remove All," which you should click.
- Word for MacOS: go to Tools > Protect Document > Remove personal information for this file on save > click OK,
and then save the file. Before submitting your file, please re-open the document and check to make sure all personal information has been removed. - To ensure the accessibility of the journal's content, all images or figures must be accompanied by a text description.
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Article must correctly conform to a standard citation and reference format: APA, ASA, Chicago, or MLA.
For formatting and style issues not related to citations (indentation, formatting of quotations, punctuation, etc.), consult the Chicago Manual of Style. We may reject submissions with too many errors or that do not adhere to a standard citation style, so proofreading and consultation of the appropriate citations style guide is strongly recommended.
In keeping with the Chicago Manual of Style, authors should always use double quotation marks (“), not single quotation marks (‘). The only time authors should use single quotation marks is when there is a quote within a quote. This is true for both the text and citations. In addition, commas and periods come before quotation marks whenever there is not a parenthetical citation (APA or MLA) that requires a different order. - To comply with the terms of the publisher's Crossref membership, Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) must be included with references when they are available. To check for DOIs, you can use the Free DOI Lookup form on the Crossref website. By checking the box, you assert that you have included DOIs where applicable.
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Make your document accessible. All submissions should:
- be double-spaced, including abstract, quotations, and citations (single spacing is not accessible)
- be left-aligned, with indented paragraphs
- not have extra spaces between paragraphs
- use 12-point font size or larger
- use fonts such as Calibri and Times New Roman that are easy to read. Avoid fonts like Garamond that are difficult to read.
- place quotations in-text unless they are more than one hundred words, in which case they are set off as block
quotes (specific exceptions can be made for dialogue and other special circumstances --see Chicago Manual of Style for guidance on this and other formatting and style issues). - Article submissions must include a one-paragraph abstract and a list of keywords. This may not be necessary for some submissions, such as creative works.
- Write for a general disability studies audience, not just for people from your own discipline. Most readers outside your field will want to get right to the material that is most interesting and original; they will not want to wade through a lengthy literature review section at the start of your paper. It is better to weave discussions of relevant literature into your paper as you make your arguments. It is also better to minimize jargon and make your writing accessible to a wide disability studies audience.
- All figures, charts, graphs, and images must include alt text.
Articles
Full-length manuscripts on research, theory, or reviews of the literature. Keep tables, figures and other images to a minimum; all such material must be accompanied by a brief narrative description. These articles will be sent to appropriate experts for review according to suggested criteria, without identifying the author(s). Suggested length: 8,000-12,000 words, excluding references (with our online format we do have flexibility). Please contact the editors if you have format questions.
Creative Works
The work submitted should be conscious of disability themes and issues and should adhere to the philosophy of DSQ as expressed in paragraph three of the Statement of Principles. Although DSQ has no restrictions as to school or form, work submitted in this area should exhibit an understanding of conventions of fiction and poetics. Work in this area will be peer reviewed by scholars and writers working with disability in the fields of cultural studies, humanities, and/or creative writing. For a poetry example, see "The Things I Forget". For a short story example, see "Window Offices." Regarding poetry and fiction accepted for publication: By agreeing to publish in DSQ, authors grant DSQ first rights to publication of the work(s) and subsequent archival on the DSQ web site. Rights revert to author upon publication. Length: VariesCopyright Notice
This agreement takes effect upon acceptance of the Submission for publication.
By submitting this agreement, the author hereby grants to The Ohio State University, on behalf of its University Libraries’ Knowledge Bank, 175 W. 18th Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210 (hereinafter "Publisher") the non-exclusive right to reproduce, translate, display, and/or distribute the Submission (including the abstract) as part of the Society for Disability Studies’s Disability Studies Quarterly (“Journal”), in print and electronic format and in any medium. You also agree that the Publisher may make and retain more than one copy for the purpose of preservation, security, and backup. You represent that you, as sole author and/or on behalf of your co-authors, have the authority to grant the rights contained in this agreement. You also represent that your Submission does not, to the best of your knowledge, infringe upon anyone’s copyright. If the Submission contains material for which you do not hold copyright, you represent that you have obtained the unrestricted permission of the copyright owner to grant the Publisher the rights in this agreement, and that such third party owned material is clearly identified and acknowledged within the text or content of the Submission. Alternatively, you represent that your use of third party material is allowed because the material is in the public domain or you have performed a fair use analysis and reasonably believe your use is permitted.
The author understands that the Publisher may grant these same rights to Journal. Additionally, the author also grants the right to both Journal and Publisher to enter into agreements with third party entities that grant such third party entities any or all of the rights that author has granted to Publisher herein. The aforementioned rights may include the rights necessary to index and abstract the Submission.
The author agrees that any subsequent publication of the Submission will credit the Journal as the site of first publication and provide a link to the Journal website.
Disability Studies Quarterly is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license, to allow for certain types of reuse without permission. By submitting this agreement, the author agrees to apply a CC BY-NC-ND license to the Submission upon publication.