Author Guidelines

AUTHOR GUIDELINES

Contributors should follow the under-listed guidelines.

   1. MANUSCRIPT FORMAT

All submitted manuscripts must be typed double-spaced, fully justified, and in Times New Roman Font Size 12 as a Word document. This applies to the main paper, quotations, and reference list. Endnotes should, however, be in Times New Roman Font Size 10.

   2. ABSTRACT AND KEYWORDS

Each manuscript of an article should have an abstract (maximum length of 150 words) and five key words, placed immediately after the abstract. Authors are also required to provide the English and French versions of the abstract and the keywords. 

   3. DOUBLE-BLIND PEER REVIEW

On account of the double-blind peer review mechanism, the first page of each submission should be anonymized. In the body of the paper, care should be taken to avoid any detail   that can reveal the author’s identity and institutional affiliation. Accordingly, authors should desist from citing papers forthcoming/in-press/under review/submitted or making copious (more than two) references to their own publications. Further, authors can only indicate the names of their sponsors and funding agencies after the paper has been accepted for publication.

   4. SUBMISSION

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JOFFS acknowledges receipt of submissions within one week. Typically, JOFFS does not publish papers from the same author in back-to-back issues of the journal. Nor does JOFFS publish multiple articles by the same author (s) in one issue.

   5. CONSISTENCY IN USE OF LANGUAGE

If the submission is in English, contributors are required to adhere to either British spelling (“honour”, “programme”, behaviour”, etc.) or American spelling (“honor”, “program”, “behavior”, etc.) and not mix up the two forms.

If the contribution is in French, use French guillemets for your main quotations and either British or American quotation marks for quotes within quotes.

   6. BIAS-FREE LANGUAGE

As much as possible, contributors should opt for bias-free and inclusive terms, as against exclusive, racist and sexist terms:

• “a weakened economy” instead of “a crippled/paralyzed economy”
•  “person with HIV/AIDS” instead of  “AIDS sufferer”
• “staff hours” instead of “man-hours”
• “the director’s first/inaugural speech” instead of “the director’s maiden speech”
• “husband and wife” instead of “man and wife”
• “strong enough” instead of “man enough”
• “non-identical twins” instead of “fraternal twins”
• “flight attendant” instead of “stewardess”
• “the French” instead of “Frenchmen”
• “blocked/block list” instead of “blacklist”
• “unblocked/allowed/safe list” instead of “whitelist”
• “to ostracize” instead of “to blacklist”
• “illegal commerce” instead of “black market”
• “renegade” instead of “black sheep”
• “extortion” instead of “blackmail”
• “to threaten/coerce” instead of “to blackmail”

For more information on inclusive language, please consult:

• http://www.escwa.un.org/information/conference/1400199.pdf
• https://www.sit.ac.nz/Portals/0/upload/APA%207th%20Edition%20Referencing%20Guide.pdf
• https://inclusivenaming.org/language/word-list/

   7. REFERENCE STYLE

 The documentation style adapted by JOFFS is that of the American Psychological Association (APA), 7^th edition. For illustrations, kindly consult:

• https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples
• https://www.scribbr.com/apa-style/apa-seventh-edition-changes/

Citations are made parenthetically in the text:

• The complex relationship between mothers and daughters has been explored by authors of diverse origins (Eliacheff & Heinich 2002; Devi, 2006; Miano, 2006; Ernaux, 2011; Condé, 2012). *Synthesis
• Ernaux (2011, p. 37) describes her mother as a carrier and personification of death. *Paraphrase
• “Identity can’t be compartmentalised. You can't divide it up into halves…thirds or any other separate segments. I haven't got several identities: I’ve got just one, made up of many components in a mixture that is unique to me”, Maalouf (2000, p. 2) challengingly affirms. *Direct block quotation of less than 40 words
• Chomsky (1957/2002, p. 13) offers this provocative perspective on language:

I will consider a language to be a set (finite or infinite) of sentences, each finite in length and constructed out of a finite set of elements. All natural languages in their spoken or written form are languages in this sense…Similarly, the set of ‘sentences’ of some formalized system of mathematics can be considered a language.

       *Direct block quotation of more than 40 words

• And yet another scholar conceptualizes the difficulty in communicating and translating the subtitles of films in this manner:

The exchange depicted in the subtitles may fall short of expectations from the perspective of English and English native speakers, as out of line with communicative preferences in this kind of exchange. Because the characters on screen de facto validate the exchange as pragmatically appropriate, it is enough to suggest, on the other hand, that politeness for this kind of encounter may be constructed differently in Spanish, i.e. with fewer overt markers like please and thank you. (Guillot, 2016, p. 623)

         *Direct block quotation of more than 40 words

It bears stressing that with APA, endnotes should only be used for explicatory purposes and therefore cannot replace in-text citations. On the other hand, footnotes do not have any place whatsoever in the APA documentation style.

   8. REFERENCE LIST

 At the end of each paper, all cited works should be compiled under the heading “References” which should be boldfaced and centered. If a work has not been cited in the body of the paper, it cannot form part of References.

 The reference list should:

1. start on a fresh page
2. include names of cited authors, arranged in alphabetical order

• follow the APA format

Aquereburu, A., & Rabatel, J.-L. (Directors). (2016-2017). Zem [TV series]. Yobo Studios; Canal + Afrique.

Chomsky, N. (2002). Syntactic structures. Mouton de Gruyter (2nd ed.).

Condé, M. (2012). La vie sans fards. J.-C. Lattès.

Corinus, V., & Ricci, D. (Eds.). (2021). Regards sur les migrations: Mobilités africaines entre écrit et écran. L’Harmattan.

Devi, A. (2006). Ève et ses décombres. Gallimard.

Dako, K., & Quarcoo, M. A. (2017). Attitudes towards English in Ghana. Legon Journal of the Humanities, 28 (1), 20-30. https://dx.doi.org/10.4314/ljh.v28i1.3

Eliacheff, C., & Heinich N. (2002). Mères-filles: Une relation à trois. Albin Michel.

Ernaux, A. (2011). L’autre fille. Nil.

Goa, K. (2021). Communication de crise en Côte d’Ivoire: Éviter la communication zéro et les    incommunications. L’Harmattan.

Guillot, M.-N. (2016). Communicative rituals and audio-visual translation: Representation of otherness in film subtitles. Meta, 61(3), 606–628. https://doi.org/10.7202/1039221ar

He, P., Meister, C., & Su, Z. (2020). Structure-invariant testing for machine translation.  In G. Rothermell & D.-H. Bae (Eds.). ICSE '20: Proceedings of the ACM/IEEE 42nd international   conference on software engineering (pp. 961-973). Association for Computing Machinery. https://dl.acm.org/doi/proceedings/10.1145/3377811

Kaiza, E. K. (2020). Corpus d’analyse des erreurs prépositionnelles chez les anglophones apprenants du FLE au Ghana. Akofena, 3 (2), 125-136. http://revue-akofena.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/10-T03-25-Elias-Kossi-KAIZA-pp.-125-136.pdf

Maalouf, A. (2000). In the name of identity: Violence and the need to belong (B. Bray, Trans.) Vintage. (Original work published 1998)

Mabanckou, A. (2012). Black bazaar (S. Ardizonne, Trans.). Serpent’s Tail. (Original work published 2009)

Miano, L. (2006). Contours du jour qui vient. Plon.

Napon, A. (Ed.). (2009). Actes du septième colloque inter-universitaire sur la coexistence des langues en Afrique de l’ouest. Presses universitaires de Ouagadougou.

Ouédraogo, T. T. (Director). (2006). Djanta [Film]. Laterit; Canal+Horizons.

Prignot, P. (2019). Classe inversée et élèves de l’enseignement secondaire: D’une perspective  technologique à une approche anthropologique (Publication No: tel- 02281741) [Doctoral thesis, Université de Strasbourg]. HAL. https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel- 02281741/document     

Raková, Z.  (2014). Les théories de la traduction. Masarykova univerzita.             https://digilib.phil.muni.cz/data/handle/11222.digilib/130676/monography.pdf

Rondón, C. M. (2008). The book of salsa: A chronicle of urban music from the Caribbean to New York City (F.R. Aparico & J. White, Trans.). The University of North Carolina Press. (Original work published 1980)

   9. ASSESSMENT CRITERIA

Contributions are reviewed along these lines:

1. formulation of the abstract and keywords: 5
2. problem statement and clarity of set objectives:5

• appropriateness and clarity of methodology: 5

1. application of adopted theory or concept: 20
2. critical engagement with existing literature has clearly brought out the gap in knowledge to be filled:10
3. convincing results and extension of the frontiers of knowledge:20

• quality of argumentation and reasoning: 10
• sophistication in language usage and expression: 20

1. technical aspects: layout of paper, respect of journal’s house style and APA documentation model, etc.: 5

NB: Although most of these guidelines apply to manuscripts of potential articles, it is worth noting that submissions on book reviews, films reviews, and interviews are also subjected to assessment by relevant specialists who advise on their suitability for publication.

10. FEEDBACK FROM JOFFS

Typically, JOFFS provides feedback to contributors between two and six months after submission. The Editor’s decision on the publication of the manuscript is informed by the verdict of the assessors/reviewers who have been previously requested to make one of the following statements on the paper:

• it is publishable in its current form
• it can be published after minor changes have been effected
• it can be published after some substantial changes have been made
• it is publishable subject to meticulous corrections, very major changes, resubmission and re-assessment
• it is not publishable

The decision made on a submission will be conveyed, along with reviewers’ comments, to the author. If the paper has been accepted for publication, the Editor will indicate, in the letter of acceptance, the number and year in which it will be issued. The dates of submission, acceptance, and publication will feature on the published article.

11. DIGITAL PROOFS

Once accepted papers have been revised by authors, JOFFS sends them digital proofs for final review, prior to publication. As a rule, the substantial revision of proofs by contributors at this stage is not encouraged. Rather, all major revisions should meticulously be undertaken by authors before sending the revised manuscripts to JOFFS for conversion into proofs.