Start with a contribution, not a topic
The journal accepts original scholarship in English or French across law and society. Write two sentences before polishing the manuscript: the question your paper answers, and what readers can understand differently after reading it. A broad subject such as access to justice is not yet a research question.
This preflight is an preparation method. The publisher’s current instructions govern submission. Do not import word limits, citation conventions or file requirements from an old bulletin or a different journal.
A usable file-by-file preflight
- Create a file list: manuscript, title information where requested, figures, tables, supplementary material and any declarations. Compare it with the live submission instructions.
- Check that the research question, material, method and contribution can be found in the abstract and opening pages. Define the population or documents actually studied.
- Verify every reference against the publication itself. Open each DOI or publisher record, check the author, year and page, and ensure each in-text reference appears in the list.
- Review author-identifying passages and file metadata against the journal’s review requirements. Do not remove material blindly: follow the current anonymisation instructions.
- Confirm permissions, accessible figure descriptions and disclosure of relevant funding, interests and research ethics. Ask the editorial office about a requirement that is unclear.
- Inspect every supplementary file as a reader would. Cambridge says these files will not be copyedited or typeset; send the finished version rather than notes awaiting later cleanup.
- Follow the submission-system link on the publisher’s journal page. Its account is separate from Cambridge Core. Save the receipt and final files after submitting; this site does not receive manuscripts.
Worked preflight: a hypothetical study
Example only: a researcher compares publicly available tribunal decisions to examine how reasons describe barriers to participation. This is not a completed research project or a claimed journal submission.
| Question | How do the selected decisions describe a participation barrier, and how does that description shape the reasons? |
|---|---|
| Scope | Specify the tribunal, period, inclusion criteria and missing decisions; do not call the corpus all Canadian decisions. |
| Method | Describe the coding categories, how disagreements were resolved and how passages can be located. |
| Contribution | Explain what the comparison reveals beyond listing individual outcomes. |
| Release check | Confirm references, permissions, relevant declarations and the latest submission requirements before uploading. |
If AI tools were used
Cambridge distinguishes minimal spelling or formatting help from generating text or images, translating, or analysing data. For substantive uses it asks authors to describe the tool, dates and purpose in the appropriate part of the manuscript. Authors remain responsible for accuracy and references; an AI tool cannot be listed as an author.
Keep a simple record during preparation: tool and version; dates; task; material supplied; changes accepted; checks performed. Place the disclosure where the publisher requests it. Do not claim that a generated citation was verified until you have opened the source.
A special issue needs a shared problem
Stacy Douglas and Suzanne Lenon’s proposal, dated 15 December 2012, organises Law and Decolonization around a tension: can legal institutions shaped by colonial power provide the means of decolonisation? The focus section is on physical pages 3–4. The useful lesson is structural: a collection needs an argument connecting its articles, not merely a recurring keyword. This proposal is an example, not the journal’s current call.
Physical pages 4–6 contain an author-and-article matrix followed by abstract placeholders. The names and article fields are blank in this anonymised example. They are not evidence of ten identified contributors or ten published papers. Pages 8–9 add editors’ relevant experience, potential support and references.
| Shared question | What specific tension requires the articles to be read together? |
|---|---|
| Contribution matrix | For each proposed article: question, material, method, distinct contribution and connection to the shared problem. Mark invitations and confirmations separately. |
| Editorial responsibility | Assign one person to check conceptual coherence, one to track versions, and a named responsibility for each review and permissions check. |
The cover identifies the project Law and Decolonization, its two editors and its original date.
A worked three-article proposal
Teaching example only: a proposed issue on participation in public decision-making. No authors, findings, funding or accepted manuscripts are claimed. The following matrix is a template you can replace with your own confirmed contributions.
| Shared problem | When a procedure promises participation, how do its rules shape who can meaningfully take part? |
|---|---|
| Article A · legal text | Compare the participation rules in two defined procedures. Material: published rules and reasons; method: structured textual comparison; contribution: locate formal entry barriers. |
| Article B · implementation | Ask how published guidance translates those rules into practice. Material: public guidance from the same procedures; method: compare steps, exceptions and accessible formats; contribution: examine implementation rather than infer users’ experiences. |
| Article C · accountability | Analyse how official review reports describe participation failures. Material: a bounded set of public reports; method: code reported problems and remedies; contribution: connect access rules to institutional learning. |
| Coherence check | The materials address the same procedures at different levels. If Article B cannot access implementation evidence, narrow its claim instead of inventing interviews. Invite feedback on the common question before fixing the table of contents. |
The same participation problem is examined through rules, implementation guidance and review reports. Each article needs a distinct contribution and evidence.
Build a calendar that can actually run
The proposal’s physical page 7 moves from a selection decision to drafts, review, revisions, copyediting and publication. Its printed calendar also places December 2012/January 2013 and February 2013 after November 2013. Preserve these as source inconsistencies; do not silently correct them or reuse those dates as a current timetable.
- Agree the target issue and production windows with the journal before promising a publication date.
- Work backwards: production-ready files, permissions, accepted revisions, peer review and first drafts. Attach an owner and a dependency to every stage.
- Reserve revision and replacement time. A contribution that cannot answer the shared question may need reworking or removal; acceptance is the journal’s decision.
- Check chronological order and compare the latest agreed schedule with every email and file version. Unconfirmed milestones remain provisional.
Read a journal report without inventing an acceptance rate
The journal’s report to the Association is dated 3 July 2013, UBC, Vancouver. Physical page 1 reports the completed move to Cambridge University Press and describes approximately 70 manuscripts received and 24 articles published per year. These are period-level figures, not a matched cohort: 24 divided by 70 is not an established acceptance rate. They do not describe the journal in 2026.
Page 2 explains the then-current book-review workflow: select a relevant book and reviewer, revise for clarity and style, then transfer the accepted text into editorial tracking. Use this as a workflow example. Current length and submission requirements must come from the publisher, not the report’s 2013 word target.
| 2013/14 projected revenue | $58,950 |
|---|---|
| 2013/14 projected expenses | $34,700 |
| Projected difference | $24,250 = $58,950 − $34,700 |
| Interpretation | Budget figures on physical page 3, not audited realised accounts. The listed three-year SSHRC amounts total $77,100; that total is not the single-year budget. |
The page identifies the reporting date, publishing transition, period-level manuscript counts and the proposed 2014 special issue.
58,950 − 34,700 = 24,250. Compare amounts from the same budget year before calculating a difference.
Move from a precise contribution to verified references, complete files and the publisher’s current submission instructions.