Taylor & Francis
Prepare your manuscript for Civil Wars.
Review the checklist, choose your article type, and turn your draft into a cleaner submission package.
Checked 2026-08-01
Article types
Review
Editorial
Original Article
Book Review
Letter
Clinical Trial
Protocol
Perspective
Research Article
Lectio
Viewpoint
Readiness requirements
Review the key details below, or download the complete checklist with every stored source-backed requirement.
Abstract length
- Include or confirm the abstract length required by the journal. Articlo checks this item and flags anything that still needs author input.
Reference style
- Articlo formats your supplied references to the journal's stored style and checks that citations match the reference list; source validity is not verified.
- We require authors to provide page numbers in all references as a matter of course.
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- Otherwise if you insert a reference then it must have an accompanying page number.
- Use of first names in the text of the paper (not in bracketed references).
- Reference to the text should be accompanied with page numbers or time stamps (if an audio/film resource).
Figure and table rules
- Keep every figure and table numbered, captioned, and cited in the manuscript.
- Figures: should be high quality (1200 dpi for line art, 600 dpi for grayscale and 300 dpi for colour, at the correct size), and in one of the formats: PS, JPEG, TIFF, or Microsoft Word (DOC or DOCX) files are acceptable for figures that have been drawn in Word.
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- Tables should present new information rather than duplicating what is in the text.
Funding statement
- You should declare only the acquired funds and grants that are directly relevant to the work reported in your article; for example, This work was supported by the [Funding Agency #1] under Grant [number xxxx]; [Funding Agency #2] under Grant [number xxxx]; and [Funding Agency #3] under Grant [number xxxx].
- The names of funding organisations should be written in full with grant numbers.
Competing interests
- Include or confirm the competing interests required by the journal. Articlo checks this item and flags anything that still needs author input.
Data availability statement
- Include or confirm the data availability statement required by the journal. Articlo checks this item and flags anything that still needs author input.
Ethics statement
- Include or confirm the ethics statement required by the journal. Articlo checks this item and flags anything that still needs author input.
Blinded manuscript
- Include or confirm the blinded manuscript required by the journal. Articlo checks this item and flags anything that still needs author input.
Cover letter
- Using Third-Party Material You must obtain the necessary permission to reuse third-party material in your article.
- Review: The use of short extracts of text and some other types of material is usually permitted, on a limited basis, for the purposes of criticism and review without securing formal permission.
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- If you wish to include any material in your paper for which you do not hold copyright, and which is not covered by this informal agreement, you will need to obtain written permission from the copyright owner prior to submission.
Author contributions
- Submitting authors should be prepared to submit CRediT roles for themselves and their co-authors (where applicable) as part of the submission process.
Title page and author information
- Provide the author, affiliation, and correspondence details for the separate title page; Articlo creates the editable companion file.
- (If applicable) Acknowledgments of people, grants, funds, etc. should be placed in a separate section on the title page.
Article structure and word limits
- Text format: Times New Roman font in size 12 with 1.5 line spacing; Margins should be at least 2.5cm (1 inch).
- Author short bio - This could be adapted from your departmental website or academic networking profile and should be limited to 100 words.
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- Review / Editorial: At present these editorial processes prior to peer review processes commencing take significantly less time than our maximum target of 28 days.
- Review: These instructions will ensure we have everything required so your paper can move through peer review, production and publication smoothly.
- Your research funder or your institution may require you to publish your article open access.
- Use our APC finder to view the APC for this journal.
- Deadlines are agreed and can vary but we aim for an absolute maximum of three months.
- They should also propose ways forward which can 'reimagine the field' conceptually or methodologically.
- It is common to require at least one round of revisions.
- These essays should place two or more books or three or more articles into conversation, curating them to illustrate or interrogate new developments in the literature.
- Review: While similar to book reviews, review essays require synthesis of key themes and ideas.
- Manuscripts must be submitted in Microsoft Word format.
- Reviews should begin with title of the reviewed work, the author’s name, publication location, publisher, date, number of pages, and cost of the book.
- Reviews should aim to achieve three main goals: First, offer a succinct synopsis of the work's argument and contribution(s).
- Please use SI units.
- Articles can focus on any level of study from the macro to the micro, they should identify gaps and opportunities and examine the potential ways in which those gaps might be filled and what this offers to the field as a whole.
- Editorial: Portal: Authors need to make their new and revised submissions via their author dashboard on the Submission Portal and NOT via Editorial Manager!
- We also welcome recommendations for "opposed reviewers," or reviewers who the authors do not wish the editors to invite.
- We aim to publish at least one of these articles per year and welcome enquiries from authors to discuss the particular focus to be taken.
- If you cannot commit to our proposed timeline, please inform the Reviews Team and we can discuss alternative options.
- Image descriptions are typically used by systems such as pronouncing screen readers to make images accessible to people that cannot read or see the object due to a visual disability.
- To do so, you might engage the following questions: How would the author complete the sentence, “until now, everyone has thought.
Preprints and prior publication
- If you upload an early version of your article to a non-commercial preprint server, you can subsequently submit to a Taylor & Francis journal.
- If you’ve posted your Author Original Manuscript (AOM) to a preprint server, please cite your preprint in the manuscript you submit to the journal, to ensure there will be a link to the AOM from the final Version of Record (VOR).
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- We do not consider posting on a preprint server to be duplicate publication and this will not jeopardise consideration for publication.
- If you have shared an earlier version of your Author’s Original Manuscript on a preprint server, please be aware that anonymity cannot be guaranteed.
Artificial intelligence disclosure
- Add or confirm the author-written Artificial intelligence statement; Articlo flags it if author input is still needed.
- Please include a statement disclosing whether and how generative AI has been used in the research and manuscript preparation process.
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- Please read our guidance on using AI tools in your research and manuscript preparatio n to understand scenarios where their use may be permissible, and the required information that must be disclosed.
Article type and manuscript length
- Review: Review essays should aim for a word count of 3,500 to 4,000 words.
What your package checks
Title page: separate file
Declarations: Artificial intelligence
Source transparency
This preparation guide uses published journal-specific author requirements. Journal instructions can change, so authors should complete a final review before submission.
Open official guideline source