Submissions
OSLP welcomes proposals for new books as well as submissions to Doxology, the Order's quarterly, peer-reviewed journal.
If you are interested in submitting a book proposal, we encourage you to fill out this book proposal form as an early step in making a mutual discernment about the suitability for OSLP publishing your manuscript. As you shape your proposal, we request that you be aware of the mission and scope of Order of Saint Luke Publications. You are also encouraged to contact OSLP's Director of Marketing and Acquisitions, Br. Daniel Benedict, OSL, at stlukebysea@yahoo.com, with any questions or ideas about your proposal.
If you have questions about submitting articles, hymns and songs, sacred poetry, visual art, liturgical material, and other miscellany to Doxology, please contact the editor, Br. Jonathan Hehn, OSL, at jhehn@nd.edu.
A style sheet for both book manuscripts and periodical submissions is below, as well as general writing guidelines for periodical submissions.
General Writing Guidlines for Periodical Submissions
Doxology is a quarterly, peer-reviewed journal of worship and the sacramental life. In addition to peer-reviewed content, Doxology also publishes more newly written liturgical material, hymn texts, sacred art, poetry, and other miscellany, submissions of which are welcome. All submissions should be historically and theologically sound, and should deal with some aspect of Christian worship, sacramental living, or religious life. Submissions to Doxology are to be written according to the following general guidelines, and should adhere as closely as possible to the OSL Publications Style Sheet:
- Articles intended for peer-review should be approximately 6000-7000 words in length.
- Submissions should include a two-sentence biography of the author(s) and an abstract not exceeding 200 words.
- Sermons are not acceptable (unless specifically requested). Material first presented as a sermon should be rewritten.
- Citations should be given as footnotes.
- All submissions may be sent to the Editor, Br. Jonathan Hehn, OSL, at jhehn@nd.edu.
Book/Screen Review Guidelines
Reviews should be approximately 500-700 words in length. Please contact the editor if a review needs to be longer. We solicit reviews of recent books and screen works (released within the last 18 months) pertaining to liturgy, sacramental living, spirituality, and homiletics.
- The heading of the review shall be formatted thus: [Title], [Author/Director], [Publisher, City: Year of Publication]. ISBN [#], [Number of pages (e.g., xiv + 215 pages)], [Listed price, if available]
- The body of the review shall include a brief summary of the major points of the book/screen work; statements of intended audience, strengths and weaknesses, and the personal reactions of the reviewer.
- A two- or three-sentence biography of the reviewer should be appended to the end of the article.
- The editors of Doxology reserve the right to edit all submitted manuscripts.
- Review submissions should be sent to the appropriate editors. Send book reviews to Sr. Sarah Mount Elewononi, OSL, at smount@bu.edu. Send screen reviews to Sr. Heather Josselyn-Cranson, OSL, at hjosselyn@hotmail.com.
OSL Publications Style Sheet
In general, OSL Publications follows the current Chicago Manual of Style (“Turabian”).
File Formats
Please submit all text documents either as a Google Doc, in the latest Microsoft Word (.docx) file format, or in the latest OpenOffice/LibreOffice Writer (.odt) format.
Musical scores should either be submitted as a pdf file or as a MusicXML (.mxl) file. Files with both musical notation and text should be submitted with a separate file containing text only.
Submitted images should be in .jpg, .tiff, or .png format, and should have a resolution of at least 300 dpi. Images embedded in a document should also be submitted separately as individual files.
Paragraph Style
Submitted manuscripts should be double spaced. Wherever possible, the font used (in order of preference) should be Times New Roman 12pt or another 12pt serif style font.
Paragraphs should be separated by a single blank line, and should be indented using tabs, not spaces. Headings should be left justified and have the same formatting as the body of the text.
Use only a single space after punctuation marks.
Non-English words not in common usage in English should be italicized. British or American spelling and grammar standards are both acceptable, but each piece must be consistent with itself. When a language using a non-Roman alphabet is used, (for example, Greek or Hebrew) please also provide a transliteration.
Do not use bold text for emphasis. If emphasis is necessary, use italics.
Hymn tune names should normally be in the same font as the body of the text but indicated by all capitals. (e.g. OLD HUNDRETH)
Poetry
Poetry may be submitted as a pdf file, if the paragraph style is complex, in order to show the editors the author’s desired layout of the text. However, the text should also be submitted in one of the file formats described above.
Citations
Citations should ordinarily be included as footnotes. Please use Chicago/Turabian “Notes and Bibliography” style citations, samples of which can be found here.
When using biblical quotations, please indicate the version using its abbreviation. For example, New Revised Standard Version quotations should be followed by “(NRSV),” while a New International Version quotation would be followed by “(NIV).”
Please do not:
- use parenthetical citations.
- use “ibidem” or “ibid” to refer to a previous citation.