Submissions: African Disability Rights Yearbook

Contributor's Guide

  Download the style guidelines

The editors will consider only material that complies with the following requirements:

  • The submission must be original.
  • The submission should not already have been published or submitted elsewhere.
  • Articles that do not conform to the African Disability Rights Yearbook style guidelines will be rejected out of hand.
  • The African Disability Rights Yearbook utilises plagiarism detection software. Please ensure that submissions do not infringe other persons’ intellectual property rights.
  • Papers should average between 5 000 and 10 000 words (including footnotes) in length.
  • If the manuscript is not sent by e-mail, it should be submitted as hard copy and in electronic format (MS Word).
  • The manuscript should be typed in Arial, 12 point (footnotes 10 point), 1½ spacing.
  • Authors of contributions are to supply their university degrees, professional qualifications and professional or academic status.
  • Authors should supply a summary of their contributions of not more than 300 words.
  • Footnotes must be numbered consecutively. Footnote numbers should be in superscript without any surrounding brackets. The
    manuscript will be submitted to a referee for evaluation. The editors reserve the right to change manuscripts to make them
    conform with the house style, to improve accuracy, to eliminate mistakes and ambiguity, and to bring the manuscript in line with
    the tenets of plain legal language.

The following general style pointers should be followed:

  • First reference to books: eg UO Umozurike The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (1997) 21.
  • First reference to journal articles: eg C Anyangwe ‘Obligations of states parties to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights’ (1998) 10 African Journal of International and Comparative Law 625.
  • Subsequent references to footnote in which first reference was made: eg Patel & Walters (n 34 above) 243.
  • Use UK English.
  • Proper nouns used in the body of the article are written out in full the first time they are used, but abbreviated the next time, eg the United Nations (UN).
  • Words such as ‘article’ and ‘section’ are written out in full in the text.
  • Where possible, abbreviations should be used in footnotes, eg ch; para; paras; art; arts; sec; sees. No full stops should be used. Words
    in a foreign language should be italicised. Numbering should be done as follows:
    1
    2
    3.1
    3.2.1
  • Smart single quotes should be used; if something is quoted within a quotation, double quotation marks should be used for that section.
  • Quotations longer than 30 words should be indented and in 10 point, in which case no quotation marks are necessary.
  • The names of authors should be written as follows: FH Anant.
  • Where more than one author are involved, use ‘&’: eg FH Anant & SCH Mahlangu.
  • Dates should be written as follows (in text and footnotes): 28 November 2001.
  • Numbers up to ten are written out in full; from 11 use numerals.
  • Capitals are not used for generic terms ‘constitution’, but when a specific country’s constitution is referred to, capitals are used ‘Constitution’ .
  • Official titles are capitalised: eg ‘the President of the Constitutional Court’ .

Use of AI by authors

All authors are fully responsible for the originality, validity, and integrity of the content of their manuscript. Authors submitting manuscripts to the  African Disability Rights Yearbook have to confirm that the manuscript is their original work and that the work of others has been appropriately attributed.

As such, AI-generated substantive content will not be considered for publication. Any submission found to include AI-generated substantive content will be declined, or retracted if already published. Concealing the use of AI tools is unethical and violates the principles of transparency and honesty in research.

AI tools may however be used to guide the author to adopt a particular method, or to assist the author in conducting research, for example to find relevant sources. Such use and the extent thereof must be declared at the time of submission in the cover letter and detailed in the methods, as set out in the manuscript. The declaration of such use should include the name, version, and manufacturer of the tool used, and the date on which it was accessed, for example: Chat GTP 3.5, Version 28 August 2023, Open AI, accessed 1 January 2024. The ‘prompt’ or plain-language instruction entered in the tool should also be provided, where relevant, either in the methods section of the manuscript or as supplementary material to the manuscript.

However, AI and large language models may be used to revise and edit original writing. On the one hand, the use of AI tools to conduct a general edit, to translate and to summarise papers or large sections of writing is permitted, but needs to be disclosed. On the other hand, the use of commonly used AI tools to conduct spelling and grammar checks, is permitted but does not need to be disclosed. However, authors should exercise discretion when using these tools. It is important to carefully scrutinise the suggestions provided by AI tools to avoid the misinterpretation of the context or terminology.

The table summarises these stipulations as they apply to authors:

Example

AI can be used

Use must be disclosed

Use of AI to generate substantive content

Writing/generating any part of a manuscript

e.g. "Write 3000 words on [specific topic], covering key concepts, recent developments, methodologies, and potential future directions."

e.g. “Write an Introduction to the below text and add key references.”

No

n/a

Use of AI to guide author to adopt a particular method or to assist author in conducting research

e.g. “Provide a list of cases dealing with a particular topic” (followed by the finding and reading of the cases by the author)

Yes

Yes

Editing, translating and summarising papers or large sections of writing

e.g. “Edit the text to reduce to 250 words while preserving content, intention and clarity.”

Yes

Yes

Grammar checking and copyediting tools

e.g use of Grammarly

Yes

No

Similarity checking tools

Yes

No

Reference managers

Yes

No

For reviewers

Reviewers are responsible for evaluating manuscripts of articles, fairly and objectively, with a focus on quality and originality.

Reviewers should not rely on AI-based tools to write decision letters on their behalf without proper human oversight. Experience and knowledge are crucial in this process, supported by various tools such as plagiarism detection programmes, statistical analysis software, and academic search engines, many of which are provided by AI applications. Reviewers should carefully check for incorrect terminology that may have been suggested by spelling and editing tools.

Reviewers using AI applications and content must adhere to ethical standards and best practices and document their use of AI tools in the review reports. Hiding the use of AI tools is unethical and undermines transparency in peer review.

Reviewers must consider the impact and implications of AI-generated content in publication. They need to be aware of the tools and resources that facilitate the detection of AI-generated or modified content. Reviewers are called upon to identify misinformation as this can have adverse consequences.

All submitted manuscripts and correspondence by reviewers with the Journals’ editors should be treated as confidential and not shared in any way.