Submission Guidelines

Please ensure that you consider the following guidelines when preparing your piece. Failure to do so may delay the processing of your submission.

General Submission Instructions

Guest submissions are accepted on a rolling basis. The Digital Orientalist publishes online twice a week, continuously throughout the year. Submissions will be published based on available spots in the schedule; we expect this to be within six weeks of submission.

Guest pieces can be submitted through our online form. Please verify with our current topics of interest before making the submission.

The posts are expected to be 500 – 1500 words. If you exceed this limit, consider splitting the contribution into several parts and mark these within the submission.

Provide your name, affiliation, a short bio, and any social media profiles that we can use to promote the article i.e. your Twitter handle at the end of your submission. This does not count towards your word count.

Please follow the Formatting Guidelines in your submission. 

To better understand the formal process, refer to the Formal Process.

The Digital Orientalist posts roughly follow The Chicago Manual of Style. However, given the informal nature of the posts, the formatting requirements are more relaxed.

Title and Headings

  • Please ensure that your submission has a title that adequately describes its content
  • Post title and headings should be capitalized
  • Use up to three levels of headings, if necessary
  • Format headings consistently 

Paragraphs

  • Use block paragraphs
  • First line should not be indented
  • Short quotations (less than 40 words) should be incorporated into the text using quotation marks
  • Longer quotations, should be structured as block quotes: indent the entire quote and omit quotation marks

Use of Non-Latin Scripts

  • When using non-Latin scripts, provide an English translation and the term in the original language/script on the first mention
  • Romanization of terms is welcome, but not necessary
  • Please attribute media properly and ensure that you either own the copyright to media or that the license allows it to be featured in a publication in the Digital Orientalist
  • If existing media has been adapted, be sure to provide proper attribution to the original creator and clearly indicate that the media has been modified
  • Captions should be added beneath media if an explanation is needed
  • Leave one line of blank space before and after media (or after caption if present)

Referencing

  • Use in-text citations following Chicago Manual of Style’s Author-Date system
  • Include a “References” list at the end of the post, if applicable

Links, Titles, and File Extensions

  • Include hyperlinks to resources, databases, and websites when first mentioned
  • Italicize titles of books, databases, websites, and other resources
  • Do not italicize abbreviations
  • Capitalize software names (e.g., Google Maps, Excel)
  • For file extensions, follow Chicago style conventions, treating them as acronyms (e.g., PDF, CSV)

Formal Process

Review Process

Submissions to The Digital Orientalist do not go through a formal blind peer-review process. Acceptance is decided by the editors of the corresponding subject fields and the editor-in-chief. 

If the decision is to accept the submission with revisions, the editors will reach out with the information about the necessary changes. Generally, the initial review takes 1-2 weeks.

Next Steps

After the draft is accepted, the responsible editor will contact you with the corrections and an estimated date of publication. You will be asked to provide:

  • A signed copy of the author agreement
  • A featured image for the post. This is a picture that is displayed at the top of the post on the website. Ideally the size should be 1200×628 px, but the website will automatically adjust the picture if needed. Please make sure it follows the copyright guidelines for media
  • If you are active on social media – your handles and any hashtags that you would like us to use when advertising

Our team will take care of everything else.

Copyright and Licensing

Authors who publish with The Digital Orientalist agree to the following terms:

  1. Authors retain copyright and grant The Digital Orientalist the right to keep contributions and other materials printed in and accessible through The Digital Orientalist indefinitely. Readers may download, share, and adapt contributions and materials featured in The Digital Orientalist freely so long as attribution is given to the author(s) or creator(s) of the piece 
  2. Contributions and materials may not be reused for commercial purposes without the permission of the copyright holder (the author or creator)

Ethics and Consent (if applicable)

All research should comply with relevant disciplinary, institutional, and legal guidelines. Where applicable, authors must include a statement in their submission confirming ethical approval (with committee name and reference number) and consent to publish from participants.

Contact Information

For questions, email us at digitalorientalist@gmail.com