Publish in LAP – Overview

Latin American Perspectives is accepting manuscripts for the thematic issues listed in Calls for Manuscripts (see link below) as well as manuscripts on other topics which will be considered for open issues.

Manuscripts should be no longer than 8,000 words of paginated, double-spaced 12 point text with 1 inch margins, including notes and references, using the LAP Style Guidelines (see link below.)  They may be submitted in English, Spanish, or Portuguese. If you do not write in English with near native fluency, please submit in your first language.  LAP will translate manuscripts accepted in languages other than English. If you are not submitting in English, please indicate if you will have difficulty reading reviews and/or correspondence from the LAP office in English.

All manuscripts should be submitted directly to the LAP office, not to issue editors. A manuscript is not considered submitted until it has been received by the LAP office.  You should receive acknowledgment of receipt of your manuscript within a few days.  f you do not receive an acknowledgment from LAP after one week, please send a follow-up inquiry to be sure your submission arrived.

• E-mail Submissions: send to lap@ucr.edu
• Subject Line: Author name – Manuscript for [Issue Title] issue
• Please attach your manuscript as a Word Document (.doc or .docx)
• Make sure to include: Abstract (100 words), 5 Keywords, and a separate cover page with short author affiliations (less than 130 words) and complete contact information (e-mail, postal address, telephone).

For an article with more than one author, provide contact information for all authors but designate one person as the Corresponding Author who will receive correspondence from the LAP office.  If any contact information changes while your manuscript is under consideration, please send the updated information to LAP promptly.

Submission of a manuscript implies commitment to publish in the journal. Authors should not submit a manuscript that has been previously published in English in identical or substantially similar form nor should they simultaneously submit it or a substantially similar manuscript to another journal in English.  LAP policy discourages manuscripts from authors who have a manuscript accepted by the journal on a similar topic within the past three years. LAP will consider manuscripts that have been published in another language, usually with updating.  Prior publication should be noted, along with the publication information.

Calls for Manuscripts include the theme of an issue in development, the theoretical and empirical issues it seeks to address, and a list of possible topics.  Submissions remain open as long as the Call is posted on the web site.

Click here for current Calls for Manuscripts

Unless indicated otherwise in the guidelines, LAP follows the Chicago Manual of Style Author-Date system (not its Notes and Bibliography system) as found in the fifteenth or sixteenth edition.

Click here for LAP Style Guidelines
Click here for Guía de Estilo

Manuscripts are reviewed by reviewers who are selected from the LAP Collective of Coordinating Editors, Participating Editors, Honorary Editors, Associate Editors and thematic issue editors.  Manuscripts that are referred for full review after initial screening are normally evaluated by at least one member of the Editorial Collective, two additional LAP Editors (at least one Latin American) and the issue editor. Based on the reviews, the Collective decides if the manuscript is to be accepted in its present form, returned to the author for revision, deferred for resubmission, or rejected. In all decisions, the reviewers’ comments will be sent to the author. Authors of rejected manuscripts may appeal the decision and the appeal will be considered by the Editorial Collective.

Most manuscripts go through one or more revisions before publication. At each stage, LAP does everything it can to expedite the review and decision process.  A manuscript decision will typically be made within 3-4 months of the submission date and sooner if possible. However, due to the professional obligations of our editors, as well as submission volume, delays may occur in the review process.

All accepted material will be subject to copy editing.  Authors should respond to correspondence from the copy editor within the specified time period.  If due to lack of time or inability to contact the author, we are unable to review changes with the author, the journal reserves the right to make final textual changes.  The intent of editing is to clarify meaning and improve style.  If we distort the author’s meaning in any way, we accept responsibility.

LAP Policy on Translations

Translation to English

Consistent with our mission to bring the work of Latin American scholars to the English-speaking world , LAP cover cost of translations and will:

1. Translate manuscripts accepted in another language. If the author does not have near-native fluency in English, we prefer manuscript submission in the author’s first language. For review, we may request resubmission in foreign language of manuscripts submitted in English if the material is poorly translated.

2. Consider for publication significant material already published in a foreign language to ensure that it is widely available to English language readership, usually with some revision and updating.

Making LAP content available in Portuguese and Spanish

As scholars outside Latin America who research within the region, we must strive to make our work known in the language and the place where its research data and interviews were initiated or based. Therefore, LAP will:

1. Post on the LAP-SAGE website and, if appropriate, on its social media, the final edited foreign language version of any manuscript translated to English and published in the journal..

2. Encourage, indeed seek, translation and publication in Portuguese or Spanish language books or journals of material originally published in LAP

LAP prioritizes review essays of multiple books that are related to thematic issues although we will consider other review essays dealing with topics related to the LAP Mission. (See current Calls for Manuscripts here and LAP Mission here.) LAP can suggest clusters of books for review. We usually do not publish reviews of individual books unless we consider them particularly significant. Reviews may describe and analyze the importance of the subject matter, but also critically assess its significance and if evident identify theoretical contributions as well as identify innovative and cutting edge advances. Book reviews are coordinated by LAP Coordinating Editor, George Leddy, and we strongly recommend that prospective contributors contact him with a proposal before submitting a review. Send proposals to George at gleddy@mac.com and to the LAP office at lap@ucr.edu. 

Except in special cases, all reviews should take the form of review essays that critically discuss the major themes dealt with in two or more books that focus on the same or related subject(s).

In general, reviews should focus on significant works that make an important contribution to the existing literature. It is vital to emphasize theoretical content of the books under review and to draw out their theoretical significance and contribution. Cite the most relevant works in the literature to which the books under review belong. This helps to put the books under review in context and provides the reader with some bibliographic points of reference. Between 5 and 15 references should be cited in each review essay.

Please write concisely. Do not waste valuable text space describing each of the various essays in a collection of essays. The review should focus on the more important themes raised in the collection and discuss both the main contributions and the main shortcomings of the collection.

Manuscripts should be between 5 and 15 pages of double-spaced text in English, Spanish, or Portuguese.   The length depends on the number of books reviewed in the essay.  An approximate guideline is 800 words per book.  The format should follow the LAP Style Guidelines available here in English and here in Spanish.

E-mail Book Review Submissions:

• E-mail to  the LAP office (lap@ucr.edu) and CC: George Leddy (gleddy@mac.com)
• Subject Line: “Your Name – Book Review Submission for LAP
• Submit your book review manuscript as a Word Document (.doc or docx.)

LAP publishes reviews of documentary and feature films from or about Latin America

Film Selection

Films and videos suitable for review in LAP are those that contribute to ongoing discussions and debates about transformations of Latin American socio-economic, political and cultural realities. Films may be any genre – documentary, drama or comedy feature, experimental, etc. – and a review may discuss a single or several related films, for example on a common theme such as immigration or the environment or sharing an approach such as biography or use of archival material.

The objective of the journal is to encourage class analysis of socio-cultural realities and political strategies to transform Latin American sociopolitical structures (See LAP Mission Statement here.) We believe film and video contribute to ongoing discussions and debates about such transformations. Top priority will be given to films that address significant issues that have received inadequate discussion or visual representation in the media or that are in sharp dispute. We encourage reviews of the work of established as well as upcoming Latin American filmmakers and/or independent filmmakers whose work is focused on Latin America. We prioritize films with social and artistic merit that have not received U.S. commercial theatrical distribution and are less likely to be known to U.S. audiences. Whenever possible we will attempt to match film reviews to LAP thematic issue topics.

All film reviews should be original work, which has not been published in English and is not under consideration for publication in the same or similar form in another publication. As a rule, we limit reviews to work released in the last three years. However, we might also publish dossiers on particular filmmakers, film movements, and film collectives, from time to time, in which case earlier films may be reviewed.

Review Content and Format

Reviews should address both film form and content but should be written to be comprehensible to a wide audience. Reviews should run approximately 1,000 words for a single film or 2000 words for reviews of two or three films using paginated double-spaced 12-point text with 1 inch margins, including notes and references. Please follow the LAP style guidelines available here in English and here in Spanish.

Manuscripts may be submitted in English, Spanish, or Portuguese.  If you do not write in English with near native fluency, please submit in your first language.  LAP will translate manuscripts accepted in another language.

We encourage illustrating reviews with a maximum of four stills submitted as separate attachments.  See the Artwork Submission Guidelines (click here) for technical standards.  Reviewers are responsible for securing the rights to film stills from directors or production companies. LAP film review editors will work with authors to select appropriate images for the reviews.

 Submitting Film Review Proposals and Manuscripts

Before submitting a full review, please send a short proposal to the LAP film review editors: Kristi M. Wilson (kwilson@soka.edu) and Tomás Crowder-Taraborrelli (tcrowdertaraborrelli@soka.edu) with a copy to the LAP office: lap@ucr.edu. Please feel free to contact them with questions pertaining to a proposed review.

Submit completed manuscripts directly to the LAP office as a Word document by e-mail to: lap@ucr.edu with the subject line – “Author’s name – film review [film title]”.

Submission of a manuscript implies commitment to publish in the journal, if accepted by LAP.

Film-Related Book Reviews
We will also consider review essays of books on film or video.  Follow the guidelines for book reviews (click here.)

LAP welcomes proposals for thematic issues that address significant questions consistent with the LAP Mission to encourage class analysis of Latin American sociocultural realities and of political strategies to transform Latin American sociopolitical structures.

Submitting a Prospectus

All issues begin with a prospectus submitted to the LAP Collective.  This proposal should outline the theme of the issue, explain its importance, and identify the major theoretical and empirical questions it will address.  These should be consistent with the LAP Mission (See Mission here.) A CV of the proposed issue editor(s) should accompany the prospectus.

If there are already some papers that might become articles in the issue, they should be identified and short abstracts included.  However, if approved, the issue will be open to all contributors and there is no guarantee that any specific submission will be accepted, even if it has been included in the original prospectus.  Looking at current Calls for Manuscripts (click here) offers the best guidance for preparing a prospectus.

After a prospectus is received, it will be considered by the Coordinating Editors.  If the prospectus theme is approved, there is usually some feedback and request for revisions before a final call for submissions is approved.

Feel free to contact Associate Managing Editor Rosalind Bresnahan at rosalind568@gmail.com for additional information on developing a prospectus.

Role of Issue Editors

Once a prospectus has been accepted, issue editors play an important role in helping to publicize the issue, review all submissions, and work with authors as they revise.  However, it is not the issue editors’ role to put together a “ready to go” package.  All submissions should come directly to LAP and will go through the LAP review process.  All decisions on acceptances, revisions and rejections are made by the LAP Collective, with particular attention to the input of the issue editors.  However, in some cases, decisions of the Collective may disagree with the recommendations of the issue editors, who may appeal such decisions.

Developing a Thematic Issue

Two years is usually the minimum length of time from acceptance of a prospectus to publication, given that most manuscripts go through several revisions, each requiring review, and we usually send material to copy editing at least 7 months before publication.  LAP publishes 6 issues a year, usually 5 thematic issues and one open issue.  At any given time, we may have 10 or more issues in progress at the time of acceptance of a new prospectus.  The actual date of publication of any issue is determined by how quickly the material comes together and how many other finalized issues are awaiting publication.  Sage can publish articles on line before print publication and this counts as official publication for authors dealing with tenure and promotion timelines.

We Want To Feature Your Photographs!

Latin American Perspectives is seeking photography for future covers and interior photo essays. We introduced four-color covers in 2007 and the response has been very positive. We need six cover images per year. Photographs for possible covers must be esthetically and technically of the highest quality, in color, and should complement the theme for proposed future issues. (See Calls for Manuscripts here.)   Interior photo essays will be published in black and white (they can be converted from color) and fit the theme of an or a theme related to the LAP Mission. All photographs must have a specific and clear copyright release from the photographer or copyright holder, or be demonstrably in the public domain (by law we cannot use photographs without a formal copyright release). We particularly welcome work by Latin American photographers.

• Artwork Submission Guidelines: click here
• LAP Image Specifications: click here
• E-mail your submission, as an attachment, to: LAP@ucr.edu