| name | jaar-submission |
| description | Use when running the final pre-submission preflight for the Journal of the American Academy of Religion (JAAR) via ScholarOne / Manuscript Central — anonymized main document plus separate title page, the broad-significance framing, length and abstract limits, in-text citation style, and house conventions. Final checks; it does not draft content. |
Submission Preflight (jaar-submission)
The last check before submitting through ScholarOne / Manuscript Central
(mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jaarel). The two most common avoidable failures at JAAR are a subfield-only
framing (returned before review) and an under-anonymized document (it is double-blind). Verify
volatile specifics on the official page first.
When to trigger
- "Submitting tomorrow" — last pass before upload
- Unsure which files Manuscript Central expects (anonymized main document + title page)
- Confirming framing, length, abstract, citation style, and anonymity are in order
Process facts (verify volatile items on the official page)
- Owner / publisher: American Academy of Religion (AAR) / Oxford University Press.
- Portal: ScholarOne / Manuscript Central,
mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jaarel. Upload uses a
Main Document (anonymous) designation plus a separate Title Page (and Figure/Table/
Supplementary as needed).
- Review: double-blind (double-anonymous). Average time to a first decision ≈ 106 days
(as of 2022); a final decision can take up to ~6 months. Rejection rate ≈ 90% (~8 articles
per issue, ~32/year) — the broad-significance gate is the first hurdle.
- Length: roughly 8,000–12,000 words including references and footnotes (待核实 exact range).
- Abstract: ≤ 150 words.
- Framing: the article must address a question of broad and fundamental interest to the study of
religion and reach beyond its subfield, or it is returned for reframing before review.
- Citations: in-text author-date, NOT footnote citations; footnotes for substance only;
alphabetized year-keyed reference list. For issues the JAAR style sheet does not cover, consult the
Chicago Manual of Style (the sheet has cited the 15th ed.; confirm the current edition —
待核实) (see
jaar-citation-and-style).
- House conventions: gender-neutral language, serial comma, italicized foreign terms, consistent
transliteration.
- Fees / open access: no submission fee (verified 2026-06-22); an optional open-access
license carries an OA charge alongside the standard license, and OUP Read & Publish agreements
may cover it. OUP sets the exact APC on its live charges page — confirm there.
Preflight checklist
Framing & fit
Length & abstract
Anonymity (double-blind)
Style & files
Ethics
Anti-patterns
- A subfield-only introduction (triggers the pre-review reframing return)
- Author identifiers left in the main document or its metadata (breaks double-blind)
- Footnote citations instead of in-text author-date
- Abstract over 150 words; manuscript over the length range with bloated notes
- Planning a book-review submission — JAAR does not accept unsolicited reviews and does not
publish reviews from graduate students; reviews are commissioned via the Book Review Editor
Output format
【Framing】broad field-level significance + a "point"? [Y/N]
【Length/abstract】within ~8,000-12,000 incl. notes/refs; abstract ≤150? [Y/N]
【Anonymized】main doc + self-cites + metadata clean; separate title page? [Y/N]
【Citations】in-text author-date; footnotes substantive only? [Y/N]
【House conventions】gender-neutral + serial comma + foreign-term italics? [Y/N]
【Next】await decision → jaar-revision-and-response
Desk-return ledger: why JAAR submissions bounce before review
The editorial office of the AAR/Oxford University Press flagship returns manuscripts at upload or
pre-review for a recurring set of reasons. Clear all of these before you press submit.
| Bounce trigger | Pre-empt by |
|---|
| Subfield-only framing | Open with field-level stakes (jaar-topic-selection) |
| Author identity in the main file | Anonymize body + strip document properties |
| Footnote citations | Convert to author-date (jaar-citation-and-style) |
| Over length / bloated notes | Prune notes; cite in-text |
| Abstract over the limit | Trim to the limit (≤150 words, 待核实) |
| Unsolicited book review | Don't — reviews are commissioned via the Book Review Editor; not accepted unsolicited, and not from graduate students |
| Wrong fit (advocacy or pure area study) | Re-pitch as analytic study of religion, or choose another venue |
Worked vignette: a clean preflight on a comparative essay
The comparative-offerings article is ready. The author runs the two-file check that ScholarOne /
Manuscript Central expects for double-anonymous review:
- Main Document (anonymous). "In my 2019 study" becomes "in a prior study"; the acknowledgments
and a grant line are removed to the title page; document properties are cleared so no author name
rides along in the metadata.
- Separate Title Page. Author name, affiliation, contact, acknowledgments, and funding live here,
as their own file.
- Framing line. The first paragraph names what the comparison teaches the study of religion (the
transactional-devotion analytic), so the office does not bounce it to reframe.
- Style sweep. In-text author-date throughout; serial commas; dargah and ex voto italicized
and glossed; one transliteration system; abstract trimmed to the cap.
Hedged calibration: the portal (ScholarOne / Manuscript Central at mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jaarel),
the AAR/Oxford University Press ownership, and the double-anonymous model are stable anchors; the exact
word range, the abstract cap, file-designation labels, and ethics/data statements are volatile — verify
each on the journal's current submission guidelines before this final pass, as the prompt requires.
Supplementary resources
