Author Guidelines
Update date: 7 March 2025
The Digital Law Journal is interested in submissions of manuscripts on legal subjects.
The submission of a manuscript to the Digital Law Journal means that:
- the manuscript has not been previously published in another journal;
- the manuscript is not under review in another journal;
- all authors agree to publish current version of the manuscript.
The Digital Law Journal accepts to publication essays, articles, review articles, comments, book reviews, notes, interviews.
Essays
Essays typically start new conversations, rather than entering existing ones. When evaluating pieces for publication, we will look for work that methodologically, stylistically, or topically diverges from more familiar modes of scholarship. We are especially interested in pieces that make us think about the law or economics in new and different ways. The requirements for an essay are less formal than for a research article, which allows for a more liberal drafting style (see English Manuscript Template).
Research Articles
Research articles attempt to present new approaches, methods, based on a comprehensive analysis of existing scientific achievements. As a rule, research articles may include the following structural elements: an introduction, methodology, results, discussion, and conclusion.
Reviews
Reviews is a type of scientific publication containing a critical analysis of the literature, summarizing trends and gaps in the subject area. Reviews attempt to situate novel directions of research and ideas within existing scientific conversations through analysis of the latter ones. Reviews follow a traditional roadmap of an introduction, methodology, background information, arguments, and conclusion.
Book Reviews
Book reviews are critical analysis and appraisal of a work written in a scientific style to form an opinion about it among the target audience. Book reviews provide scholars with an opportunity to advance the conversation in their discipline by anchoring their commentary in a substantial work by a different author.
Notes. Notes intend to provide a practical perspective on the problems of digital law or economics, to announce innovations in practice that may become the subject of subsequent academic research. It is a concise and knowledge-intensive genre of publication from experts in a specific industry.
Interviews. The interview is a vivid discussion on the problems of digital law and economics with leading experts and scholars, on whom the further development of legislation, industry and scientific agenda in Russia and abroad depends.
Submission Requirements
Before submitting a manuscript, authors must confirm its compliance with the following conditions. In case of non-conformity, the manuscript can be returned to the authors.
- The Digital Law Journalaccepts manuscripts from scholars, specialists and experts in the subject area of the journal, master’s degree students, graduate students, applicants and doctoral students.
- The Digital Law Journalconsiders manuscripts that are substantially legal / economic in nature, and will accept manuscripts that would traditionally be considered research articles, reviews, essays, book reviews or notes.
- Articles, reviews should be at least 4,500 words / essays, book reviews, notes – at least 2,500 words.
- Text should be typed with an interval of one and a half line spacing, font Times New Roman, 14 pt.; to highlight the accents it is recommended to use italics rather than underlining (except Internet links). All images, graphics and tables are placed within the text according to the meaning of the particular part of text (and not at the end of the document).
- The manuscript is sent to the editor via the online form. The file of the manuscript should be submitted as doc, .docx or .rtf files. Only electronic submissions are accepted.
- Text should follow the stylistic and bibliography requirements as stated in English Manuscript Template, g. the file (files) contains all the necessary information in English and Russian, the sources of information placed in the figures and tables are indicated, all quotes are drawn up correctly.
- The manuscript has not previously been published, nor has it submitted for review or publication in another journal (or explained in the Editor's Notes).
- Please, remove the authors' names from the title of the manuscript and other parts of the document to ensure the anonymity of reviewing.
- In addition to the manuscript, author should submit a cover sheet via the online form that includes the following:
- The author’s or authors’ first and last names;
- Email Address;
- Author’s or authors’ CV that includes place of employment or study, position, academic degree, city and country;
- A manuscript title that should be concise and descriptive;
- An abstract of 200-400 words (see the detailed requirements in English Manuscript Template);
- Keywords – from five to ten words (see the detailed requirements in English Manuscript Template);
English Manuscript Template
Editing sections of a manuscript
Interaction between journal and author
The editorial department is in correspondence with the author responsible for the correspondence. However, if the team of authors so wishes, emails can be sent to all authors whose an e-mail addresses are specified.
All manuscripts submitted to the Digital Law Journal are preliminary checked by the executive editor of the journal for compliance with formal requirements. At this stage, the manuscript can be returned to the author(s) for revision to correct errors or add missing data. At this stage, the manuscript may be rejected due to inconsistency with the goals of the journal, lack of originality, and low scientific value.
After a preliminary check, the editor-in-chief submits the manuscript to the reviewers with the indication of the terms of the review. An appropriate notification is sent to the author.
In controversial cases, the editor can involve several specialists to the review process.
With a positive opinion of the reviewer, the manuscript is handed over to the editor for preparation for printing.
When a decision is made to revise the manuscript, the comments of the reviewer are sent to the author. The author has 2 months to eliminate comments. If during this period the author has not notified the editorial office of their plans to amend the manuscript, it is removed from the queue for publication.
When a decision is made to refuse publication, the corresponding editorial decision is sent to the author.
The final version of the layout is sent to the author of the manuscript accepted for publication, which he is obliged to check. A response is expected from the authors within 2 days. If there is no reaction from the author, the layout of the manuscript is considered approved.
Procedure for revising decisions of the editor / reviewer
If the author does not agree with the conclusion of the reviewer and / or editor or individual comments, he can challenge the decision. To do this, the author needs:
- to correct the manuscript according to reasonable comments from reviewers and editors;
- clearly state their position on the issue under consideration.
Editors facilitate the resubmission of manuscripts that could potentially be accepted, but were rejected due to the need for significant changes or additional data collection, and are ready to explain in detail what needs to be corrected in the manuscript in order for it to be accepted for publication.
Editorial practices in case of detection of plagiarism, fabrication or falsification of data
In case of detection of unfair behavior on the part of the author, detection of plagiarism, fabrication or falsification of data, the editors are guided by the COPE rules.
By "unfair behavior", the Digital Law Journal understands any actions of a scholar, including improper handling of objects of study or deliberate manipulation of scientific information, in which it ceases to reflect observed research, as well as the behavior of a scientist that does not correspond to accepted ethical and scientific standards.
The Digital Law Journal does not classify as “bad behavior” honest mistakes or honest discrepancies in the design, conduct, interpretation or evaluation of research methods or results, or unfair behavior not related to the scientific process.
Correction of errors and revocation of the manuscript
If errors are found in the text of the publication that affect its perception, but do not distort the stated research results, they can be corrected by replacing the pdf-file of the publication and indicating the error in the file itself and on the page on the website of the Digital Law Journal.
In case of detection in the text of the publication of errors that distort the results of the study, or in the case of plagiarism, detection of unfair behavior of the author (authors) associated with falsification and / or fabrication of data, the publication may be withdrawn. The revocation of a publication can be initiated by the editorial department, author, organization, or individual.
The withdrawn article is marked with the sign "The article is withdrawn". Information about the reason for the withdrawal of the article is posted on the article page. Information about the revocation of the article is sent to the databases in which the Digital Law Journal is indexed.
