Author Submission Guidelines

Please note that JAMS is now accepting article submissions through Scholastica at https://jams.scholasticahq.com/. Authors will need to log in using an existing Scholastica account or create a new one in order to submit. For an overview of working with Scholastica as an author, please feel free to consult the Author Guide provided by Scholastica (https://help.scholasticahq.com/article/72-author-guide). Any technical or software questions should be directed to Scholastica customer support (https://scholasticahq.com/contact).Articles submitted to the Journal should represent new work that has not previously been published in any form and is not under consideration elsewhere. Submissions must fall within the range of 8,000–15,000 words (main text and footnotes). Submissions at the lower end of the word count range are strongly encouraged and receive the same measure of peer review and editorial consideration. Articles accepted for publication must not exceed 16,000 words total, including bibliography.Please submit the following materials for full consideration:To allow for the anonymous double-blind review of submissions, the author’s name should appear only in the cover letter. Authors should avoid identifying themselves in any way in the document itself (file name, header/footer, works cited, or footnotes). All submissions are reviewed by the Editorial Assistant upon submission to ensure anonymity.The Journal periodically publishes a collection of brief essays by multiple authors who offer diverse perspectives on a specific topic, research question, or emergent methodological approach to the consideration of sound and music. Unlike articles, colloquy proposals should be sent directly to the Editor-in-Chief via email: jamseditor@amsmusicology.org.Colloquies are introduced by a convenor (sometimes two coconvenors) and have historically consisted of six to eight individual essays that contribute multiple viewpoints, disciplinary angles, or methodologies to the colloquy. The full colloquy should not exceed 15,000 words (including main text and footnotes) in length.Proposals for colloquies should include the following materials:Initial proposals are read and evaluated by the Editorial Board and the Editorial Team. After this initial reading, the Editor-in-Chief will provide the convenor(s) with a summary of that evaluation. At this stage, the Journal will either extend an invitation to submit a completed colloquy or revised proposal that responds to the feedback provided or will decline publication.Convenors of accepted proposals will be responsible for submitting the completed colloquy in accordance with the standard bibliographic practices of the Journal. At this stage, the Editorial Board and Editor-in-Chief will read the full colloquy (sometimes in consultation with an external reader) and make a recommendation as to its publication.The Journal reviews selected scholarly books on music as well as music editions of scholarly significance in each issue. Textbooks, periodicals, and editions of new music are not usually reviewed. Send copies of publications for review to: Jillian C. Rogers, Review Editor, JAMS, 130 Music Building, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32603. Inquiries may be made to jams.reviews@amsmusicology.org.The Journal also periodically reviews works of digital and multimedia scholarship, including documentary films, recordings, analytical software, interactive websites, and databases that are direct products of musicological research. For guidelines and information on sending digital and multimedia works for review, contact: Esther Morgan-Ellis, Digital and Multimedia Editor, JAMS, email: jams.media@amsmusicology.org.If an article or colloquy is accepted for publication, there is no additional round of external peer review. Authors will have a negotiated period of time in which to make any changes to their final submissions on the basis of their reader reports. Thereafter, the finalized submission will undergo a careful and intentional editorial process that consists of the following sequence: (a) queries and recommendations from the Editor-in-Chief regarding length, substance, and style; (b) fact- and reference-checking completed by the Editorial Assistant; (c) detailed copyediting by the Managing Editor; and (d) coordination of any supplementary media (images and sound files) by the Digital and Multimedia Editor.Bibliographic and Citation Practices: From 2025, the Journal follows the bibliographic conventions given in chapter 14 of The Chicago Manual of Style, 18th ed. (2024). All articles and colloquies should be accompanied by a complete list of works cited, and bibliographic citations in footnotes should all be given in shortened form. For book and digital/multimedia reviews, authors should provide a full footnote citation the first time a work is cited, with shortened citations thereafter.Supplementary Materials: Authors of accepted articles must provide music examples as either Sibelius or Finale files (or in comparable music notation software that has the ability to export to MusicXML) and figures as high-resolution digital files (TIFF, minimum 300 dpi for continuous tone images, 1,200 dpi for line drawings, including score facsimiles). Authors will also receive additional guidelines for the submission of any multimedia examples and related content for the online publication of the Journal. Upon acceptance, authors will be required to submit alt-text for all supplementary materials in addition to captions for them according to the University of California Press’s Accessibility Requirements.Permissions: It is the author’s responsibility to secure all necessary permissions for such material before an article can go into production. Failure to secure necessary permissions could result in the deferral of publication to a later issue, in order not to hold up the production schedule. Authors are encouraged to review the University of California Press’s Author Permission Resources prior to submission. They must also complete and sign the Press’s Publication Agreement Form at this preliminary stage.The double-blind peer review process is of paramount importance to the Journal. We hold that it functions well only when all parties act in a collaborative spirit of good faith and mutual respect.After the Editorial Team has consulted the peer reviews, the Editor-in-Chief will provide the submitting author with a decision and blinded copies of the peer reviews. An initial submission can receive one of the following three decisions: Accept with Revisions; Revise and Resubmit; or Reject.If an author receives a “Revise and Resubmit,” the revised manuscript will undergo a second round of peer review. During this process, the Journal attempts to engage at least one original reader and one new reader. In the case that no original readers are available, two new readers will be engaged. A resubmission can receive one of the following decisions: Accept with Revisions or Reject. Authors are allowed only one opportunity for revision of their original manuscript.Peer reviewers must:Authors of article submissions must:The Editor-in-Chief, Associate Editor, and Editorial Board must:The Editor-in-Chief and Associate Editor reserve the right to edit peer reviews for tone, clarity, and concision, and for the protection of the reviewer’s anonymity.In your reviewer report, we would appreciate your insights on the following questions:The JAMS Editorial Board expects all parties to follow the guidelines above regarding confidentiality and ethical behavior, which are in keeping with recommendations for best practices from the Association of University Presses and shared by our sister societies.All authors and peer reviewers are required to follow the University of California Press’s Guidelines on the Use of AI Tools.