Articlo
Format a manuscript

Alfredo Mac Laughlin

Prepare your manuscript for Journal of Science Fiction and Philosophy.

Review the checklist, choose your article type, and turn your draft into a cleaner submission package.

Checked 2026-07-15
Check readiness freePrepare this manuscript

Article types

Review

Readiness requirements

Review the key details below, or download the complete checklist with every stored source-backed requirement.

Abstract length

  • Include an Abstract, either in the manuscript or as a separate document.

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.
  • As an author, you should still ask yourself what length is needed for your argument to be clear (and how much your devoted readers are willing to put up with!) In particular, if you think of your article as something that could be used in class discussions in conjunction with a story, the recommended length would be somewhere between 15 and 20 printed pages (that is, something in the vicinity of 7,500 words, plus references).
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  • The two most important instructions to keep in mind are these: (1) Citations should be in-text and complete, including author and page number when available (see Style Sheet ).
  • Argumentation must be up to scholarly standards, which means that references and factual statements must be properly documented and referenced, personal opinions must be phrased as such, and the writer must express in their writing an awareness of the “degrees of probability” of their statements.
  • All references should be included parenthetically within the text, in a way that makes the reference clearly identifiable among the works cited without the need to constantly jump back and forth through the document. (References that are obviously redundant can be shortened; again, see Style Sheet.).
  • Submission Preparation Checklist Before submitting your manuscript, please check that it complies with the following items: In-text references should be parenthetical, rather than in footnotes.

Figure and table rules

  • Keep every figure and table numbered, captioned, and cited in the manuscript.
  • Group figures at the end of the manuscript.
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  • Group tables at the end of the manuscript.
  • As mentioned in the Editorial Notes of Vol. 1 (2018), we generally subscribe to the dictum that the wise do not quarrel over names, and hold as acceptable both “science fiction” and the shorthand “SF.” Other forms (e.g. “speculative fiction”) should only be used if the author is willing to explain their choice of usage in the manuscript. “Scyfi” and similar are not our favorites, but we yield here to author’s preference after some nudging.
  • Submission Preparation Checklist Before submitting your manuscript, please check that it complies with the following items: The text should use an 11- or 12-point font; employs italics, rather than underlining (except with URL addresses); and all illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text at the appropriate points, rather than at the end. (Unless, of course, they form part of an appendix).
  • PDF files are not acceptable, because they cannot be easily reformatted or proofed for publication (and their rigid structure makes them less adaptable to the reviewers’ preferred way of reading them).

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

  • (2) No author information should be included in the manuscript itself.
  • To make this is possible, authors should make sure that their name or other identifying information do not appear in the manuscript.
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  • Review: Do not include your name in the title, and if you are referencing your own work, substitute your name with “Author.” See “Ensuring a Blind Review” for more details.
  • Run “Inspect,” and if the inspection finds “Document Properties and Personal Information” (you will see a red exclamation mark next to this field) click on “Remove All.” This will clean file metadata that could include identifying information. (Other word-processing applications will require a slightly different procedure.).

Title page and author information

  • Provide the author, affiliation, and correspondence details for the separate title page; Articlo creates the editable companion file.
  • Do not include the author’s name or affiliation in the manuscript itself.

Preprints and prior publication

  • Include or confirm the preprints and prior publication required by the journal. Articlo checks this item and flags anything that still needs author input.

Artificial intelligence disclosure

  • Include or confirm the artificial intelligence disclosure required by the journal. Articlo checks this item and flags anything that still needs author input.

Other submission requirements

  • Review: If the article is accepted for review you will need to provide a Word-compatible file.
  • By submitting to this journal, you acknowledge that the work you submit has not been published before.
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  • Authors are also encouraged to submit articles that do not specifically conform to the yearly theme, if they think it fits the Scope and Aim of this journal.
  • The idea should be developed in an original direction.
  • Proper form when using foil allows for a very strong guard to be maintained with very subtle motions, but the point must always be centered on the opponent.
  • The same degree of control should be kept over your argument, with side comments and detours, like feints, used only to draw the opponent out.
  • Ambiguous pronouns should be replaced with the exact expression they are referring to, even if this makes the writing somewhat inelegant.
  • Suggested Length There is no required length for articles; papers can be as short or as long as they need to be.
  • Formatting Your Manuscript Your work must be submitted as a file that is readable in MS Word, such as “.doc,” “.docx” or “rtf” (rich-text format).
  • If you use a different program, make sure that you “save as” or “export” your file into one of these formats.
  • If you use a particular philosopher as framework for your analysis, you should try to mention this in the title too.
  • Should we think of artificially intelligent beings as objects, tools, servants, saviors, competitors, partners.?
  • But, warns Kaas, we must keep in mind Goodhart’s Law, and in devising such tests we must avoid confusing the test with the goal itself.
  • As a general rule, the writing should follow academic conventions for clarity and formality of speech (e.g. avoid contracting forms of verbs, and overly familiar expressions).
  • Less is more, though: the Journal is aiming at an audience that does not need to be entertained in order to be interested in your argument, so if you are going to use humor, keep it subtle.
  • Papers from the analytic tradition tend to be shorter than those from the continental tradition; papers dealing with a more obscure SF title may require a more detailed explanation of the details of that work, and we don’t want the quality of the papers to be hampered by this.
  • While we do not necessarily encourage to this (somewhat hackneyed) practice, we do insist that the title should contain: (a) a straightforward statement of what your article is about, and (b) the mention of the main SF work and/or author your article will focus on.
  • As to hyphenation, it is not required, but if you are going to use it just be consistent. (The name of the journal has been chosen for the practical reason that “science fiction” is an immediately recognizable expression for everyone, whereas “SF” still requires some immersion in the genre to recognize it as an alternative.).
  • Criticism of other views should be framed within these scholarly standards of respect for the adversary’s opinions, and an assumption of good will on their part (i.e., no sarcasm, and avoid the implication that the person you are criticizing is incompetent or worse).
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  • Submission Preparation Checklist Before submitting your manuscript, please check that it complies with the following items: The submission file must be in a format directly readable in Microsoft Word (either.doc,.docx, or RTF).
  • Submission Preparation Checklist Before submitting your manuscript, please check that it complies with the following items: The text must adhere sufficiently to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Style Sheet. (Note: don’t lose sleep over this).
  • That “we do not have current access” distinguishes these stories from those that take place in a “present day” reality, even a high-tech one.
  • We like answering to queries! (Just know that our focus is specifically on academic articles; that is, we do not publish fiction, even if it is very rich in philosophical content.) Our aim is to respond to queries within the week, and to determine whether a manuscript would be a good fit for the Journal within two weeks.
  • Keep your argument focused!
  • Authors do not need to go out of their way to be “entertaining.” When writing, consider an audience that is genuinely interested in what you have to say, and will follow and cross-examine carefully your technically intricate arguments; not one that needs to be kept awake with sly comments and bad puns.
  • There are a number of conventions regarding style and format, that scholars trained in the humanities in the U.S. are very familiar with, but non-U.S. researchers may not.
  • For example, the title above could be turned into “Automation anxiety in Isaac Asimov’s The Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun.” This narrows even further both the aspect of automation being considered, and the specific SF stories used primarily in the article. “Robots at the Gates” does not need to be included, and omitting it here makes it possible to specify the source works without making the title too bulky.
  • That they “keep in continuity” with our current understanding of science means that they do not completely depart from it (or at least there is some narrative effort to establish this continuity).
  • Science fiction stories stay always grounded on our current scientific understanding of the world (and, if not on the science itself, at least on our understanding of what science is.) The more grounded on current science, the closer it is to what is known as “hard” SF.
  • Thus, do not write, “In the following paper we will examine so-and-so,” but “In the following paper I will examine so-and-so.”.
  • For a definition of the science fiction genre, we propose the following: At its broadest, “science fiction” is a literary genre characterized by the presence of scientific and technological developments to which we do not have current access, but that keep in continuity with our current understanding of the laws of nature.

Manuscript structure

  • The SF story should not simply illustrate or exemplify, but be somewhat instrumental in the development of the argument. (Discussions of craft, composition, or the context in which the story was written may be included, but should not constitute the core of the discussion.) Manuscripts that focus on an aspect of literary analysis (e.g.
  • the cultural views prevalent at the time a text was composed), and manuscripts that demonstrates an encyclopedic knowledge of the world, species and characters of an SF series or franchise, but that do not investigate in more than passing detail the philosophical issue proposed, will not fit the Scope and Aim of the Journal.
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What your package checks

Title page: separate file
Format: 12 pt

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