Articles and Briefs are welcome on a wide range of legal and social issues, for example, social justice, access to justice, the administration of justice, the environment, critical legal education, law reform, community lawyering, human rights, crime, family law, welfare law, refugee and immigration law, equal opportunity and anti-discrimination law, Indigenous rights, women's rights, disability rights, sexual identity and the law, the Asia/Pacific region, race and the law, children's rights, consumer rights, workers' rights, rural and regional issues, and issues relating to marginalised or disadvantaged people or groups. The journal is national and while articles and briefs may cover an issue in one state, it is desirable that comparisons are drawn with other jurisdictions, particularly in articles.
It is preferred that articles/briefs take a critical perspective and are written in plain English. Heavy, scholarly or overly legalistic articles are not encouraged. Casenotes, if they are simply reportage are not encouraged, but articles/briefs which take a critical or analytical perspective on interesting cases are welcome. Our readership is not only lawyers but a broad range of professional, government, academic and student readers. We see our niche as being somewhere between law journals and the mainstream media. We particularly discourage excessive footnotes.
Abstracts: Please supply an abstract with your article/brief. This
will not be printed in the journal but will be used on our home page. The
abstract should be concise (three or four sentences) and should summarise
the main arguments in the item.For example:
| Australian Workplace Agreements by James Judge This article describes the features of the new Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs). The author discusses the role of the Employment Advocate and how it is applying the 'no disadvantage' test. In particular he examines the AIRC's interpretation of the test in a number of cases, and finds that the protection offered by the no-disadvantage rule is limited by the need to show that approval of the AWAs is 'contrary to the public interest'. |
Refereeing: Articles but not briefs are refereed by one independent reviewer as well as the Editor.
Columns: Semi-regular columns are run on Legal Studies, Legal Education (tertiary), Law Reform, Legal Centres, Youth Affairs, feminist issues in 'Sit Down Girlie', Sport and the Law, and Travelling Brief for items of news/analysis from overseas. Each column has a co-ordinator. Anyone interested in writing for a column can make contact with the relevant co-ordinator by phoning the Editorial Co-ordinator (03) 9905 3362 or (03) 9544 0974.
Book reviews: If you are interested in reviewing books please contact our Book Review Editor, Amy Roberts, tel 08 8110 2822; email: AmyR@nativetitlesa.org. Reviews should list the following information: title, author, publisher, date, hard or soft cover, number of pages and price, set out as shown below.
The Mentions section provides the opportunity for community organisations to publicise their activities, publications, staffing needs, and other events free of charge.
In general, the Alternative Law Journal follows the conventions specified in the Commonwealth Style Manual for Authors, Editors and Printers (6th edn) John Wiley & Sons, 2002.
Subheadings and structure: We use two levels of subheadings: (1) bold caps and lower case, and (2) bold italic caps and lower case. No numbering of sections, parts or headings is used. The structure should be kept simple. Lists of points are most often introduced by bullets (use asterisks on the manuscript) but can be in the form (a), (b), (c) if they need to be referred back to.
Quotations: Material quoted from other sources which is more than four lines in length should be indented throughout and not enclosed in quotation marks. Printed, these quotes will appear in a smaller type size.
Quotes of less than four lines should be run on in the text but enclosed in single quotation marks.
Emphasis or italics: Words which require emphasis or to be printed in italics should be printed in italics or underlined.
Abbreviations and contractions: Do not use full stops in abbreviations (LSB, ABC, NSW) or in contractions (edn, dept, paras, s ss pp Vic).
Numbers: Numbers from one to ten are written out in words. Numbers above ten are written as figures. Exceptions are in expressing times, weights, measures, money and percentages when figures should always be used.
In numbers with four digits, eg 3050 all digits are run together. With larger numbers use a comma to indicate thousands, eg 32,567.
Capitals: In general do not capitalise unless the word is a specific proper name.
Footnotes: In the interests of maintaining a flowing and easily readable text and with a view to avoiding overly 'academic' style, footnotes should be kept to a minimum. The Alternative Law Journal has adopted the Australian Guide to Legal Citation (2nd edn) as its footnote style guide <http://mulr.law.unimelb.edu.au/PDFs/aglc_dl.pdf>.
Where footnoting is essential, these should be numbered endnotes (ie not indicated by asterisks or other symbols), and listed under the heading 'References'.
Sample footnotes:
Journal article: Stan Ross, 'Battered Wife Syndrome and the role
of Lawyers' (1988) 72(11) Law Institute Journal 39.
Book: K D Suter, World Law and the Wilderness (2nd ed, 1980)
3.
Chapter in edited book: Stanley Kober, 'Setting Dangerous International
Precedents' in Ted Carpenter (ed), NATO's Empty Victory: A Postmortem on
the Balkan War (2000) 11.
Newspaper article: Ellen Connoly, 'Strapped for Cash: Man Gets $2.5m
for a 1984 Caning', Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney), 15 February 2001,
1.
3. MANUSCRIPTS BY E-MAIL OR ON DISK
Please supply an electronic copy of the file: e-mail to Liz.Boulton@law.monash.edu.au. Alternatively post a disk and printout to: Ms Liz Boulton, Law Faculty, Monash University, VICTORIA 3800
4. DECISIONS
The journal has a rotating editor system with each issue being edited by
a different person in a different State. A refereeing system is employed
for articles. Sometimes items will be returned to authors for revision before
being accepted. The time taken to give a decision about acceptance is variable
but we endeavour to keep it under four months.
5. EDITING, PROOFS and COPYRIGHT LICENCE
If an editor makes substantial changes to a manuscript they will consult
with the author. It is Alternative Law Journal policy to send out proofs
to authors of articles, briefs and columns but not book reviews unless specifically
requested. The Editorial Co-ordinator will email proofs to authors of articles,
briefs and columns and enclose our Notes for Authors and a Copyright Licence
Form.
Beginning of month before publication (see also Upcoming themes).
Months of publication are: February, April, June, August, October and December.
All material, except book reviews, to be forwarded to:
The Editorial Co-ordinator, Alternative Law Journal, c/- Faculty of Law, Monash University, VICTORIA 3800.
Book reviews to:
Ms Amy Roberts, c/- Native Title Unit,Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement, Level 4, 345 King William St, Adelaide SA 5001
tel 08 8110 2822 (wk): email AmyRa@nativetitlesa.org
URL: http://www.altlj.org Comments or suggestions on the pages to Liz.Boulton@law.monash.edu.au |
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