IRCL Publications
International Research in Children’s Literature (IRCL) is the journal of the International Research Society for Children's Literature. Since 2008, the journal has been published by Edinburgh University Press, which publishes a wide range of high-ranking journals in the humanities and social sciences. Reflecting the aims of IRSCL, the journal is international in scope, and is indispensable reading for scholars working in this rapidly-expanding subject area.
The journal publishes four issues in a biennium: articles cover topics and approaches of international interest to scholars in the field of Children's Literature Studies. In keeping with the IRSCL ethos, IRCL aims to represent the best of current scholarship in countries across the globe. In April of 2020, IRCL will begin the transition to three issues per year. Please stay tuned for more details about this change.
ISSN 1755-6198
Two issues per year (July, December)
Editorial Committee
Senior Editor
Roxanne Harde, University of Alberta, Canada
Executive Editor
Josh Simpson, Univeresity of Strathclyde, UK
Reviews Editor
Justyna Deszcz-Tryhubczak, Wroclaw University, Poland
Production Assistant
Aline Frederico, Catholic University of São Paulo and Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
For further information, see the journal's Edinburgh University Press webpage.
FAQ
Some of these questions are also covered in the IRCL style guide. Please check this guide again before you submit your article.
1. Do I have to be a member of IRSCL to submit an article to IRCL?
No, membership of IRSCL is not necessary. IRCL welcomes submissions by any researcher in children’s literature. All submissions are anonymised, and considered on an equal basis. Read more about how to submit an article on IRCL's website.
2. For the issues based on the theme of an IRSCL Congress, do articles have to be based on a paper or poster presented at the Congress?
No, you do not need to have attended the Congress. Again, IRCL will welcome all submissions based on the theme, and give them equal consideration.
3. May I submit my paper immediately after a Congress?
Even if you have in your possession a paper already of the required length, with full references in place, you will probably find it necessary to review it before submission. An effective presentation at a conference is often very different from an effective essay. You might wish to expand your material, tighten your argument, and present evidence in the kind of detail not always possible, or useful, in a short presentation. You might also find that you need to revise the style, in order to transform an oral, conference version, into written form: very informal and spontaneous ‘fillers’, repetitions, and loosely written sentences can be very helpful to listeners, but redundant or even irritating in a written article.
4. Does IRCL prefer any particular critical/theoretical approach?
IRCL publishes articles that focus on children’s literature texts, in the broadest sense. It encompasses, for example, a spectrum from research with a historical focus, to analyses of contemporary media; case-studies of aspects of individual texts to wide-ranging theoretical discussions. Argument and analysis are all-important, however, rather than entirely descriptive summaries, or accounts based purely on extra-textual areas, such as classroom practice or bibliotherapy.
All approaches are welcome and will receive equal consideration
5. Do I have to submit my article in English?
IRCL is an English-language publication. Editors and readers are willing to consider articles submitted at less than native-speaker level, as long as the content is not impaired. If your article is accepted, you will be given advice about polishing idiom.
However, you might wish to smooth matters by asking a native speaker to look at your article before you submit it. IRSCL has a tradition of ‘language-buddies’ for mentoring, and may be able to help you find somebody who will support you on this aspect.
For quoting from texts in the original language, please provide the original language and a translation, unless you are quoting from a published English translation. (See previous issues of IRCL for examples.)
6. Do you allow any flexibility in length of articles?
IRCL publishes articles of between 5,000 to 7,000 words, thus already offering considerable flexibility (2,000 words). This includes all notes and bibliographical matter, but not the abstract (200 words maximum) or the keywords (5 or 6).
We cannot print articles over 7,000 words. We check the word-count on all submissions before sending essays out to readers. If you are over the word limit, your article will first be returned to you for cutting to the specified length.
7. How many illustrations am I allowed, and do I need permission?
If you wish to use illustrations, we can normally print up to five in any individual article in the print journal. But we can include any extra images on the EUP website. All illustrations in the journal will be printed in black and white, but the online edition of IRCL permits publication in the original colours.
Permissions are essential.
UK copyright law demands that authors send a letter showing proof of permissions for any images published within 70 years of the death of the artist. This rule also applies to any reproductions of historical illustrations that you have taken from an edition published within the last 70 years. The press will not publish any illustrations without this letter.
When you seek permission, mention that the images will be used to illustrate an academic article. Make sure that you also check with the publishers that permission covers both the print and the online versions of the journal.
Unfortunately, we have no funds to pay for permissions, and the author must bear any costs.
8. What quality of images do I need, and how do I send these?
When you submit your article, please send any images as low-resolution jpegs or gifs in a separate file. Please do not embed WORD images in your article; just put a brief reference (e.g. See figure 1).
If your article is accepted, we shall eventually need very high resolution scanned images: a minimum of 300dpi (bitmap or tiff format); line drawings should be a minimum of 1200dpi. These will be transferred by CD, or uploading electronically to an ftp. But we do not need these at the first stages.
9. When will I hear back with a decision?
We send your essay out to readers for comments, and when we have these back, we review reports on a range of contributions alongside each other.
As we seek to gain a reasonable balance in every issue, sometimes we have to wait to let you hear until we have more information. While we try our best not to keep you waiting beyond 12 weeks, our readers and editors all fit in this work with their full-time jobs, and sometimes there are inevitable delays. We appreciate your patience and forbearance on this matter.
Now that we have launched the journal, however, we are aiming to open up each ‘cycle’ to allow more flexibility between congresses. This will have the advantage of enabling us to accept work for later issues, and thus to be able to give decisions more speedily.
How to Get Involved
There are many ways through which long-term and new members can support and contribute to the health and progress of the journal. Here, in no particular hierarchical order are some of them.
Ask your library to subscribe to the journal – or subscribe yourself
Subscriptions are a journal’s life-blood. Institutional subscriptions reach many scholars and make articles available to students, so please try to persuade your library board to support IRCL, in print, online, or both.
If you wish to take out an individual subscription, please check that you ask for IRSCL members’ discount. A bargain!
Translate an abstract
If you are willing to translate even one of the abstracts into your language, you would be contributing to a gradually growing data-base of international colleagues’ work. To avoid duplication, please contact the editors to let them know which abstract /language you would be willing to undertake. There is no time limit for these; we hope to build up the resource over the years.
Tell us about your book
If you are publishing a book, please make sure that you put us on your publisher’s list of key places for reviews, and let our reviews editor know.
Offer to review
If you are interested in reviewing a new book in your specialist area, please contact the reviews editor.
Submit a ‘note’
We are introducing a new feature in IRCL: ‘notes’, of up to 1,500 words, will include material of scholarly interest, or short, theoretical or academic, pieces which make their points succinctly and cogently without the leisurely, discursive unfolding of a traditional article.
Ask a question or make a suggestion
Please do not hesitate to let the editors know if you have any questions about submissions, or wish to propose ideas about future developments in the journal.
Post a conference announcement
We normally expect to have some space for conference announcements of interest to IRSCL members and other children’s literature researchers, and would be glad to try to fit in your announcement. Please bear in mind that material for the July issue in any year needs to be submitted by the beginning of February, and for the December issue by the beginning of July.
Recommend articles
Use the ‘Email’ facility for individual articles on the IRCL site to recommend articles to students or colleagues.
Download an article
If you are not a subscriber you can buy individual articles online. If you are a subscriber, downloading an article sends a message to your library that readers are using this journal, and that children’s literature has an impact.
and, last but not least:
Submit an article
IRCL publishes regular calls for papers, on this website, on the IRSCL list-serve, and on many other circulating lists. However, there is no need to wait for a call. The editors are always glad to receive articles, and are now beginning to develop a system whereby articles can be considered in a ‘rolling programme’, and, if accepted, published where there is space for more general items. Read more about how to submit an article on IRCL's website.
For more information about submissions, see the IRCL site.
IRSCL Resources
If you know of other resources that should be included, please send details to Lies Wesseling (lies.wesseling@maastrichtuniversity.nl).