English Language Notes (ELN) is dedicated to interdisciplinary and collaborative work among literary scholarship and fields as disparate as theology, fine arts, history, geography, philosophy, and science. The journal provides a unique forum for cutting-edge debate and exchange among university-affiliated and independent scholars, artists of all kinds, and academic as well as cultural institutions.

ELN is delighted to announce that, as of the publication of our April 2018 issue, we are published by Duke University Press Journals. Our digital content is hosted by Duke UP digital journal platform and Project Muse. While our special issue format will continue, we are adding a new section, consistent in all of our issues called “Of Note,” that will highlight trends in criticism, scholarship, and provide reviews of notable new books. We appreciate your support of the journal as it continues to become a leader in critical exchange and debate.

Editor in Chief 

  • Nan Goodman

Managing Editor

  • Katie Henze

Editorial Board

  • Tiffany Beechy
  • Jane Garrity
  • Jason Gladstone
  • David Glimp
  • Leila Gomez
  • Kelly Hurley
  • Karim Mattar
  • Maria Windell

  • Elizabeth Abel, University of California, Berkeley
  • Matthew Anderson, University of New England
  • Jan Baetens, University of Leuven (Belgium)
  • Rob Breton, Nipissing University (Canada)
  • Anna Brickhouse, University of Virginia
  • Lennard Davis, University of Illinois, Chicago
  • Madelyn Detloff, Miami University, Ohio
  • Wai Chee Dimock, Yale University
  • Dino Felluga, Purdue University
  • Cathrine Frank, University of New England
  • Esther Gabara, Duke University
  • Jennifer Green-Lewis, George Washington University
  • Steffen Hantke, Sogang University (South Korea)
  • Richard Hornsey, University of Nottingham (UK)
  • Karen Jacobs,University of Colorado, Boulder
  • David Kurnick, Rutgers University
  • Doran Larson, Hamilton College
  • Tirza Latimer, California College of the Arts
  • Caroline Levine, Cornell University
  • David McWhirter, Texas A&M University, College Station
  • Richard Menke, University of Georgia
  • Martha Rust, New York University
  • Shawn Michelle Smith, School of the Art Institute, Chicago
  • Brian Stefans, UCLA
  • Rebecca Totaro, Florida Gulf Coast University
  • Rebecca Walkowitz, Rutgers University
  • William West, Northwestern University
  • Mark Wollaeger, Vanderbilt University

A respected forum of criticism and scholarship in literary and cultural studies since 1962, the newly revamped English Language Notes – ELN – is dedicated to pushing the edge of scholarship in literature and related fields in new directions. Broadening its reach geographically and transhistorically, ELN fosters new lines of inquiry and generates new fields of concern. Each ELN issue advances topics of current scholarly interest, offering theoretical speculation and interdisciplinary recalibrations in the application of critical analysis. Offering semi-annual topically themed issues, ELN has recently added a new section called “Of Note.” This section features thought experiments on recently published articles in other scholarly journals, focusing on emergent concerns.  Combining theoretical rigor with innovative close readings ELN provides a wide-ranging print and digital forum for topical clusters, roundtable debates, shorter interventions, and traditional scholarly essays.

See a preview of forthcoming issues here.

ENGLISH LANGUAGE NOTES

Author Guidelines

Who We Are: 

English Language Notes (ELN) is dedicated to interdisciplinary and collaborative work among literary scholarship and fields as disparate as theology, fine arts, history, geography, philosophy, and science. The journal is published twice a year, in April and October. Since its founding in 1963 under the sponsorship of the University of Colorado at Boulder, ELN has provided a respected forum for cutting-edge debate and exchange among university-affiliated and independent scholars, artists of all kinds, and academic as well as cultural institutions. It is unique in its breadth of audience and subject matter and in its emphasis on shorter articles of wider interest than those found in the majority of academic journals in the field. The journal is particularly determined to revive and reenergize its traditional commitment to shorter notes, roundtable discussions, collaborative and interdisciplinary work, and all forms of scholarly innovation.

 

Article Style: 

Your article should adhere to Chicago Manual of Style and to the style guidelines found on the Duke University Press Journals website.

 

Short Biography:

Authors should include a short biographical paragraph about themselves (and for co-authors where applicable). The Biography should be submitted as a separate document and contain a few sentences about each of the following: educational history, recent professional/teaching history, research interests and some information about recent or forthcoming publications. It should be no longer than 150 words.

 

Optimizing Your Title and Abstract:

By optimizing your title and abstract, you will increase the chance of someone finding it. This in turn will make it more likely to be viewed and/or cited in another work. To optimize your abstract, we recommend you:

  • Try to ensure the key phrases for your article’s topic appear in the title and abstract.
  • Note of caution: unnecessary repetition will result in the page being rejected by search engines so don't overdo it.
  • People tend to search for specifics, not just one word - e.g. “women's fiction” not "fiction,” so use key phrases rather than individual words.
  • It is best to focus on a maximum of three or four different keyword phrases. 

 

Submitting Your Article:

  • Go to https://mc04.manuscriptcentral.com/dup-eln. ScholarOne is our online submission and editorial interface.
  • Log in if you have already been sent your User ID and password (in a reminder or confirmation email). If you don’t know your password, use the Password Reset.
  • If the system has no account registered for you, click on “Create Account.”
  • Once logged in, the Main Menu will be displayed. Click on “Author.” 
  • Under “Author Dashboard” click on “Start New Submission.” 

 

Permissions: 

Authors are responsible for obtaining copyright and image permissions. If the budget allows, ELN may be able to help with some of these costs. 

 

Submission Checklist:

Please submit, in Microsoft Word (.doc) format:

  1. An anonymous version of your article with all references to yourself as author of the paper removed, incorporating the title, abstract, full text.
  2. Works Cited list, any figures, tables or captions.
  3. A separate title page (including your article title, name, affiliation and correspondence address/email address).
  4. A one-paragraph short biography of no longer than 150 words.
  5. Any separate figure files in EPS, TIF or JPG format at 300 dpi
  6. If your article contains any special characters, please submit a supplementary PDF version of your paper, for cross-checking.

 

Peer Review:

Once submitted, your article will first be evaluated by the Special Issue Editor(s) to ensure it fulfills the special issue’s principles and aims and meets the standards of publication within the journal. If so, the article will then be reviewed by two referees, chosen by the Special Issue Editor(s). Authors of submitted articles are asked to consider the criticisms, suggestions and corrections of the referees and Special Issue Editor(s) and, where possible, to address them. The Special Issue Editor(s) will mediate any conflicting reviews. If the author disagrees with the reviews, he or she is entitled to set forth their views and justifications. However, the Special Issue Editor is entitled to decline publication if they feel the review criticisms have not been sufficiently addressed. The decision of the Special Issue Editor is final.

 

Post-Acceptance:

Once accepted, your article will be sent to the copyeditor. You will then receive your PDF proofs via email. At this stage you should be correcting minor errors only. Corrections will usually be communicated by email to the Managing Editor.

Please note that extensive corrections to the proof must be approved by the Editor in Chief in consultation with the publisher. Extensive changes can be costly to make at this stage and our policy is to charge the author for these additional expenses.

Offprints: Once you receive your article via email, which you are free to distribute to your colleagues and students as you wish, as long as it is for standard, recognized academic purposes. Selling copies of the article is not permitted.

(Revised February 2024)