Our Policies

1. Editorial Policy

All articles that are submitted for publication will be edited to some extent by our editorial team in collaboration with the author. By submitting your article, you recognise that it may be partially edited to suit our editorial style guide and standards. 

All abstracts will be blind-selected by the Editorial Leads. They will then nominate a Deputy Editor who will work with the abstract author to develop their manuscript. Once articles are completed, a different Deputy Editor will then copyread the manuscript before it is published. The editing process is intended to be collaborative and supportive. Authors and editors are given codes of conduct to guide the process. 

At any point throughout the process, even after abstracts have initially been accepted, the Board reserves the right to refuse to publish an author’s article. All articles must contain original content; we do not publish material that has been submitted for marking with the University of York or any other higher education institutions. Likewise, we do not republish material that has previously been published elsewhere. Articles are considered for publication on the assumption that they are not being simultaneously considered by another journal.

2. Application Process

The submission process is managed by the Ethics and Compliance Officer. Submissions are submitted through the journal application form. The applications are then anonymised by the Ethics & Compliance officer and sent to the Editorial Leads for review and selection. Once decisions have been made, the Ethics and Compliance Officer will release the names. The decisions will then be sent by the Editorial Leads. 

3. Language Policy

While YMJ only publishes in English, authors are encouraged to submit manuscripts engaging with material that is not in modern English. Multilingual authors are encouraged to submit. Works containing multilingual components must provide translations of any passages in other languages. These translations will not count towards the article’s total word count.

4. Open Access Policy

While authors retain their copyright, YMJ is an open access journal and published work is freely available to be read, downloaded, photographed, and be distributed without prior permission from YMJ or the author. All published materials will be freely available on the YMJ Online Archive. Additionally, YMJ charges no fee for publication.

5. Copyright and Authors’ Rights

Authors published with YMJ retain their copyright privileges. While YMJ authors are not permitted to publish their work in other journals, blogs, or magazines, YMJ authors may share their work as part of a personal archive or portfolio and repurpose their work for other uses.

6. Archiving Policy

The YMJ Archive is housed on the York Medieval Journal website as a downloadable .pdf.

7. Privacy Statement

The personal information provided to YMJ will remain confidential. No personal information will be shared with external parties or used for any purpose unrelated to direct journal communications.

8. Ethics Policy

Articles submitted to YMJ are expected to be original work prepared to the highest ethical standard, including proper citations, proper attribution for any tables or images, and without self-plagiarism. YMJ reserves the right to reject an article, even after it has been accepted, if any ethical violations are found within the submitted material. Articles found to have been plagiarised after publication will be removed from the archive.

9.       Statement on Conflict of Interest

Conflict of interest are circumstances where an author stands to gain financially from their research subjects or is expecting financial compensation for reporting certain research outcomes. YMJ reserves the right to reject an article, even after it has been accepted, if any undeclared conflicts of interest are found. Articles found to have a conflict of interest after publication will be removed from the archive.

10.   Policy on Diversity and Inclusion

YMJ is committed to ensuring diversity amongst its Board membership, deputy editing team, and in the content it publishes. YMJ is committed to increasing accessibility in academic publishing by including no publication fee and a selection process. YMJ also will ensure that its publication meets additional accessibility recommendations, including image and graphic descriptions where appropriate.

11.   AI Policy

Generative AI tools may not be used in the composition of any content for submission to YMJ. This includes translation tools. AI may not be considered an author or co-author of an article. 

AI will also not be used during the peer review or editing process. Articles found to have used AI in their composition will be rejected, even after it has been accepted.

Software that assists with grammar is not considered to be generative AI and is thus permitted.