About the Journal

New Voices in Translation Studies

The following section gives you information about:

  • The Origins and Commitments of the New Voices in Translation Studies
  • The Review Process
  • Contributors
  • Languages other than English
  • Guidelines for Reviewing Article Submissions
  • Guidelines for Book Review Submissions
  • Guidelines for Copyediting and Proofreading
  • Outline of the Copyediting and Proofreading Processes
  • Editor and Assistant Editor Profiles

Origins and Commitments

The editors of the first issue of New Voices in Translation Studies, which was published in 2005, set out the mission for the journal in their first editorial as follows:

“The idea of creating New Voices in Translation Studies came from the realisation that there are many enthusiastic new researchers, exploring interesting ideas and posing challenging questions, whose voices are not being heard. After attending a Postgraduate Symposium in Translation Studies held in May 2003 at Aston University and having organised the First DCU Postgraduate Conference in Translation Studies in March 2004, we (the first editorial team) also realised that these voices express themselves more confidently and fluently in a supportive environment.

However, we believe the voices of new researchers should be heard beyond the circle of their peers and reach more established circles which, we feel, are sometimes too engrossed in old battles, rehearsing well-known arguments that threaten to slow down the growth of what, a few years ago, was still called an emerging discipline.

The organizational structure of New Voices in Translation Studies has been designed in such a way as to ensure continuity but remain dynamic. The advisory panel is composed of equal numbers of new researchers and established academics and will be renewed regularly to ensure that an optimal balance is maintained. The editors will remain in position for a limited number of years, following which they will be replaced by new editors, and join the Editorial Board. The reviewing and editing process follows the model of international refereed journals, the only difference being that it involves new researchers, along with more experienced scholars, as editors and reviewers.

We understand the concepts of 'new' and 'established' in relation to 'researcher' not as two distinct and opposed categories but as degrees on a continuum reflecting the amount of experience gained by the researcher in the course of their career. Trying to establish concrete limits around each concept would not only be extremely difficult but also counter-productive, given that the aim of the journal is to bring the two extremes of the continuum closer rather than reinforce their differences.”

Looking through the 27 back issues published since 2005, we (the present editorial team) are proud that we have kept New Voices in Translation Studies alive and upheld these founding principles to the best of our ability, with a track record of one or two issues every year without significant interruptions. We are delighted to be taking the journal forward with the launch of this new OJS website hosted by Chulalongkorn University.

Although the journal’s nature and aims call for inclusiveness, it is our belief that this need not be at the expense of quality and rigour. In terms of writing style, our emphasis shall be on readability, and in terms of content, it shall be on well thought-out and novel contributions to the field. The journal’s scope will be broad in the sense that it will cover all areas within translation studies, understanding translation in its broadest sense – including, but not restricted to, human and computer-aided translation, machine translation, oral and sign language interpreting, dubbing and subtitling. The journal will not be restricted to any particular school of thought or methodology.

For all article submissions, please follow the link to our 2024 revised style guide: New Voices Style Guide 

 

Review Process

New Voices in Translation Studies publishes high quality, fully refereed articles which have gone through the processes of peer review and, where appropriate, such revision as is recommended by the reviewers. Articles submitted to New Voices will be reviewed by one new researcher and one established scholar, both of whom shall be members of the Advisory Panel. Alternatively other qualified researchers will be selected by the panel. Only whole articles will be reviewed - not abstracts or summaries. Theses, or parts of theses will also not be considered. Articles for review will be anonymised wherever possible. The comments provided to authors by the reviewers will be constructive and helpful and designed to aid authors in producing articles of a publishable standard.

Policy on Plagiarism and the Use of AI

New Voices in Translation Studies is committed to the principles of ethical publishing. We have a duty of care to our international and intercultural readership within the TIS community, to our parent organisations, IATIS and the Chulalongkorn University, but also to our own editorial team, to our reviewers and authors. Our internal and external peer-review processes are dedicated to ensuring a high standard of academic integrity in the content we publish.

In practical terms, this means that we seek to promote widely accepted standards of academic integrity regarding plagiarism and the misuse of Artificial Intelligence. Any content submitted to New Voices must be the author’s or authors’ own work, reflecting their own research activities. As is conventional in all scholarly contexts, any reliance on other human or artificial resources must be properly referenced. While AI may be used sparingly to achieve a polished academic style in English, authors must be accountable for detailed content, argument, structure and referencing. When submitting a manuscript to New Voices in Translation Studies, authors must disclose the use of generative AI in the writing process by adding a statement at the end of their article before the References list.

 

Contributors

In accordance with our aims, preference will be given to articles submitted by new researchers, although we may occasionally publish articles by more established scholars. We understand the concepts of 'new' and 'established' in relation to 'researcher' not as two distinct and opposed categories but as degrees in a continuum reflecting the amount of experience gained by the researcher in the course of their career. Any attempt to establish concrete limits around each concept would not only be extremely difficult but also counter-productive, given that the aim of the journal is to bring the two extremes of the continuum closer and not to reinforce their differences. However, for reasons of transparency and clarity, we have established a set of criteria to help us make decisions regarding the issue of who qualifies as a 'new researcher':

  • Students who have finished a Masters degree and are planning to do a PhD
  • Scholars who are currently doing their PhD
  • PhD graduates who have submitted their thesis less than a year ago
  • Practising translators who have only recently started doing research in Translation Studies
  • Researchers who have no more than three publications in the field of Translation Studies and not more than one in a peer-reviewed journal

The above shall serve only as guidelines and not as strict rules. The editors shall reserve their right to make decisions according to the particularities of each case under consideration.

 

Languages other than English

The language of the journal will be English. However, in line with the IATIS's multilingual policy, we would like to encourage authors to submit the abstracts of their articles as well as PhD abstracts in another language in addition to English. If provided, the abstracts will not only be published in the journal but also will be contributed to the expanding TraduXio-IATIS Space, an online collaborative and multilingual translation tool set up by IATIS to create, store and share abstracts on academic conference papers and articles.

 

Guidelines for Reviewing Article Submissions

The nature and aims of New Voices call for inclusiveness; however, it is our belief that this need not be at the expense of quality and rigour. Therefore, we ask our reviewers to be thorough and strict in accordance with the journal’s standard.

Your review should help the authors to improve their papers, or, where publication is not recommended, show ways of improvement for future efforts. Please word your comments in an encouraging and supportive way and be as constructive and as detailed as possible. Be concrete and specify enough so that both the author and the editors have a clear sense of how you would like the paper changed.

The editors will not divulge referees’ identities to contributors. If you wish to make  yourself known to those whose work you have reviewed, please include your name and contact details on the report so that the author can contact you if they wish to do so.

Please feel free to indicate changes or add comments in the paper itself. You can anonymize the comments by changing the user name (select the Review tab, then Track Changes then Change User Name).

In order to ensure that proposed contributions to IATIS publications are refereed systematically, you are kindly requested to consider the following issues in your report. These points are suggestions. Reviewers must select only the most relevant aspects. The recommendation is most important at this stage. 

  1. structure of the paper
  2. research question
  3. literature review
  4. theoretical background
  5. research design/methodology
  6. analysis and discussion
  7. findings and conclusions
  8. references
  9. English language usage
  10. originality
  11. recommendation (please indicate from the following):
  • recommended for publication with only minor changes as indicated
  • recommended for publication conditional on major revisions as indicated
  • not recommended for publication

Guidelines for Book Review Submissions

The book review should be written in English and should be of 1500 to 2000 words in length. It should be composed of a summary of the contents of the book and a critical evaluation showing its relevance to specific areas of translation studies. Please follow the guidelines in the revised 2023 style-sheet for New Voices.

The following details of the book reviewed should be provided:

  • Book title in full
  • Name of the author(s) /editor(s)
  • Place and date of publication
  • Name and address of the publisher
  • Total number of pages
  • ISBN number and price

Reviewers may send us proposals to review books on specific themes or topics. Please contact our book-review editors if you have any enquiries, to discuss your proposals or find out whether the title selected is being reviewed.

Regarding academic integrity and the possibility of any conflict of interests in the publication of book reviews, New Voices cannot accept book reviews written by close associates of the author of the book reviewed. For example, it is not acceptable for PhD researchers to publish a review of a book written by their PhD supervisor. Please contact the Book Reviews editors to discuss this if you are in any doubt.

Please note that, as specified in the Editorial Policy, preference will be given to contributions by researchers new to the field. However, contributions from more experienced researchers will also always be welcome.

Guidelines for Copyediting (and Proofreading)

First download the file for copyediting and rename it with your initials and the word “Copyedited” in the filename (e.g. David Charlston recently copyedited a file by author Sam Hickford. The new filename = “DC Copyedited Hickford”). The same applies for proofreading e.g. “DC Proofread Hickford”

Then make your tracked changes and comments etc. When you have finished, upload it into the copyedited section of the website. That way the next editor or proofreader can see that you have checked it, and it is ready for proof reading. Proofreading is basically the same procedure but carried out in the Production stage, ideally also with an eye for stylistic details and readability.

 

Outline of the copy editing / proof reading process.

The copyediting stage is good practice for an editor. Please do not spend too long if this is your first time. The aim is to identify any serious issues which have not been picked up in the review stage (logical/structural/methodological) and make the article look consistent with the stylesheet and the other content in the issue.

Everything you do should help towards this but the editor in charge of this article and the proofreader will also read the content again, so it is not entirely up to you to spot everything. We sometimes use the expression "another pair of eyes". It is important that several editors and reviewers have read each article to maximise the chances of identifying a big or embarrassing mistake!

First, read the article quickly and look out for minor formatting inconsistencies or anything else you think the reviewers may have missed.

The easiest way to do this is to print out the first two pages of the article and the first page of bibliography from a back issue of NV. You can use this as a template for easy comparison of formatting.

The full details of font sizes, referencing, bibliography etc are given in the stylesheet for articles. Use this to check in cases of doubt.

Don't worry about the header, footer and page numbering. I can insert these later in the publication stage. But try to make everything else, especially the first page (title, affiliation, ABSTRACT, KEYWORDS:) correspond with your template, which should also correspond with the style guide.

Look out for font sizes, bold and italics and also the use of initial capital letters for the main nouns in titles (title style).

Switch on tracked changes, read the article again and amend any details which can be improved, bearing in mind that this text has already been read and approved by the reviewers and the editor. You are looking out for minor slips, not radical changes of style or content. The author/s will need to accept the changes and respond to any comments you insert.

The bibliography is also important. Look out for inconsistencies (e.g. using a whole first name or just an initial (Smith, John / Smith, J.?) and the general layout according to the New Voices stylesheet. You can see this most easily by comparing with a template page from a back issue.

Also, look out for any obvious structural or methodological points which the author could improve (sometimes tables contain illegible words or incorrect data (e.g. percentages don’t add up), or non-English words need to be back-translated).

If there are language issues (grammatical, stylistic mistakes) which you are not sure about, please mention these in a comment the author and/or editor. They can follow it up.