Submission Guidelines
The Journal of Haitian Studies accepts original articles in English, Kreyòl, French, and Spanish. JOHS is the only refereed journal dedicated to scholarship on Haiti. Interdisciplinary in its essence, it combines the arts, the sciences and the humanities. Contributors should prepare manuscripts in accordance with the Chicago Manual of Style (16th-18th editions accepted). APA style will be accepted for specialized articles.
Submissions: Submissions may be sent electronically to JOHS@haitianstudies.ucsb.edu (**please note new email address**). Please include charts, graphs, photos, etc. as separate files (if they are too large to email, please send them via a file-sharing service such as Dropbox or Google Drive, or else email for assistance).
Abstract: An abstract of approximately 150 words is required. In an effort to ensure that new ideas circulate productively between Haiti, the United States, and the other countries represented by our readership, we are now requiring that all published articles include abstracts in at least two of the journal’s primary languages (English, French, and Kreyòl). An article submitted with only a single abstract will still go through the review process, but if it is accepted, the author must provide an abstract in the second language before the article is printed.
Length: The normal length for articles should be 5,000–10,000 words, double-spaced, including endnotes and bibliography.
References: Titles of journals should not be abbreviated. In addition to endnotes, references and full publication information should be furnished in a bibliography at the end of the article, using the appropriate style.
Spelling: The standard for English spelling should be used. For articles, quotations or references in Kreyòl, use standardized Kreyòl orthography, as in the dictionaries published by EDUCA VISION, 7550 NW 47th Avenue, Coconut Creek, FL 33673: Fekyè Vilsen ak Mod Etelou, Diksyonè Kreyòl Vilsen (1994); Diksyonè Kreyòl Anglè (1991); Diksyonè Anglè Kreyòl/English Kreyòl Dictionary (1991).
Copyrighted materials: While most published works can be quoted within an academic article according to "fair use," as long as they are properly cited, the following types of material occupy a complex area of copyright law and will require special permission if they were not created by the author(s) of the submission:
- song lyrics (any amount)
- poetry (any amount)
- visual materials (photos, charts, graphs, maps, etc.)
- unpublished writings
- lengthy excerpts (in excess of ~100 consecutive words and/or representing a large proportion of the original work)
If the submission is accepted, the journal will ask the author to obtain formal permission at that stage, but we recommend that authors make preliminary inquiries with any copyright holder(s) earlier in the process in order to ensure that such permission would be forthcoming.
Tables: Tables should be typed on a separate sheet at the end of the manuscript with their position clearly marked in the text. If more than one table is submitted, they should be marked with Roman numerals and include a descriptive title.
Illustrations: Images must be clearly legible in both color (if applicable) and greyscale. Authors should provide descriptive captions for all images within the article and indicate within the text where they should be placed. All images must be submitted at a minimum resolution of 300 dpi.
Review Process: Each article will be reviewed as an anonymous submission by at least two peer evaluators. The author’s name and any references that would permit identification must be redacted from the submission.
Book Reviews: Book reviews should be sent electronically as an attachment by e-mail to the Book Review Editors, Alessandra Benedicty-Kokken (a.benedicty@uva.nl) and Marie-José Nzengou-Tayo (HSA.BRE.MJNzengou@gmail.com). Please read the complete Book Review Guidelines, which contain the list of books currently available for review.
AI Use: JOHS cannot publish any material that has been generated by AI. If AI tools are used to refine material created by humans, the author must disclose this use according to the AI policy below.
Policy on AI
The Journal of Haitian Studies does not accept AI-generated material of any kind, and emphatically not generative AI based on large-language models (LLMs). In addition to ethical and environmental concerns about the impact of these technologies, LLMs confuse the question of authorship, since they draw on material created by others and cannot, as such, hold copyright as authors. Furthermore, they are known to introduce errors, fabricate information, and reinforce preexisting biases. For all these reasons, JOHS requires that all material in a submission be produced exclusively by human authors.
JOHS allows (but does not encourage) the use of non-generative AI assistance to refine human-created material, as long as authors disclose this use and take steps to ensure that it does not introduce errors or bias. For example, an author may NOT use AI tools to create their bibliography, but they may use AI tools to format a bibliography that was created by the human author, if they disclose this use and manually review the bibliography for errors before submitting it. Authors are responsible for ensuring the accuracy of all information in the submission.
Disclosure
If AI tools were used in the development of the paper, authors MUST disclose this use in a separate document that includes:
- The name of the tool and a description of how it was used
- The steps that were taken to ensure that these tools did not introduce errors, fabrications, or bias to the submission.