Manuscripts from the Social Sciences and Humanities that experiment with the digital in content, presentation and/or format are highly encouraged.

The Call for Manuscripts will be announced in August 2022.

The Working Paper Series of the Department of English, University of Colombo welcomes submissions that engage the digital sphere within the broad ambit of Social Sciences and Humanities. Papers that experiment with the digital in content, presentation, and/or format are encouraged. 

The WPS encourages submissions that engage in a creative expression of the following thematic areas: 

English Studies; Language-based approaches to topics in Social Sciences and Humanities; Literatures; Cultural Studies; Translation Studies; Performance and Performance Making; research in Digital Cultures 

Mode: Papers submitted to the Working Paper Series  will be published online.

Review: The WPS will employ a double blind review process for any paper accepted to be published following an initial editorial review.  

Length: 

Short papers of 4,000 – 5,000 words  that engage  with a conceptual issue 

Full research papers of 6,000 – 8,000 words that present empirical findings of a study/project or action research

References:

Citations: Author-date-page style; please refrain from inserting references as footnotes. 

Works cited: Please use APA format for all entries. Full references should follow the body of your text. 

Notes: Please use notes sparingly. For manuscripts submitted for review, please use the endnotes option. 

Figures, audiovisual, and other material*: Wherever possible number and insert figures within text. If material cannot be inserted or embedded into text document, please insert hyperlink into text document and send the source link to corresponding material (accordingly numbered) in same submission. E.g. Audio 1 or video 1 

Resolutions of photographs, videos:

Image files – encouraged to keep below 500KB per image, not more than five images per manuscript

Video and audio files – no limit on resolution, these files will be embedded from an external site.

*the author must ensure that appropriate permissions are obtained for the use of figures, audiovisual and other material.

If source files are not on public domain, the author must upload source files to a cloud storage platform (like Google Drive) and provide us with the correct and working link.

Permissions and ethics: for any material used in the body of the essay (e.g. audiovisual material, personal communication, etc.) should be obtained by the author.

Details of ethics approval should be attached as an appendix to the manuscript where necessary.

Author bio: Please include 3-4 sentences detailing your current designation and place of employment, educational qualifications, research interests, and any social media handles that you may want to include. 

Terms and conditions:

Once the manuscript is approved for publication, the authors must commit to publishing on the working paper series (WPS) at least for a 6-month period.

If authors wish to withdraw their paper, they may do so after the 6-month period. 

The WPS would maintain a record of all papers published. Authors will be informed of this (in other words, if they are publishing elsewhere, they should acknowledge the WPS).

If you have any questions on the Working Paper Series, please contact us on wps@english.cmb.ac.lk .