Submissions
The Journal of Chinese Buddhist Studies is always seeking new original research articles in English pertaining to the historical study of Chinese Buddhism. If you are interested in contributing, please submit it as a Word document file formatted according to the “Manuscript Formatting” requirements. If you wish to organize a special topics issue, please send a one hundred fifty-word description proposal, together with a list of potential participants and their individual paper topics. The JCBS produces one issue a year. The deadline for article submissions is December 15. The deadline for special topics proposals is November 1. Publication time for the each volume is in July.
When submitting your manuscript for publication review, please fill out the “Form for Contributors” document. Email all submissions to jcbs@chibs.edu.tw. Articles should be no longer than 20,000 words, and should be submitted electronically. Acceptable file formats are DOC and DOCX. Submissions should include an abstract, a list of five keywords, and a reference list. Text citations and reference lists should be in the “notes and bibliography” citation style in accordance with the 16th edition of The Chicago Manual of Style. Chinese characters are acceptable, but Sanskrit, Pāli, and Tibetan words must be Romanized. The JCBS reserves the right to edit manuscripts for content and style.
Submissions are examined by two peer-reviewers. In cases of disagreement, a third reviewer is consulted. JCBS judges submissions on the basis of scholarly excellence while maintaining an attitude of broad-mindedness. Perspectives representing varying points of view are embraced. The editors urge scholars to adhere to normal stylistic conventions such as those set forth in the 16th edition of The Chicago Manual of Style.
The JCBS does not accept manuscripts which have been published previously. It retains the right to publish articles from the Journal on Internet databases as well as on CD-ROM. We request notification before publication by the author in other periodicals or books. The Journal does not pay royalties. Upon publication, each author will receive two complimentary hardcopies of the Journal.
License, Permissions, and Copyright
The JCBS is an Open Access journal. The authors grant a non-exclusive license of the article ownership to JCBS. This ensures that requests from third parties to reproduce articles, images, or large portions of texts are handled efficiently and consistently, and will also allow the article to be as widely disseminated as possible. However, in assigning copyright, authors may use their own material in other publications, provided that the JCBS is acknowledged as the original place of publication, and JCBS is notified in writing and in advance.
The “Form for Contributors” includes a copyright license clause. If the form has not been received by the time we receive author corrections, publication of your manuscript may be delayed.
Work submitted for publication must not be under consideration for publication elsewhere. If previously published figures, tables, or parts of text are to be included, it is the obligation of the authors to obtain the copyright-holder’s permission prior to submission.
The JCBS does not have article processing charges (APCs), nor does it have submission charges. All articles are archived on the JCBS website.
Manuscript Formatting
Manuscripts should be prepared according to the “notes and bibliography” citation style in accordance with the 16th edition of The Chicago Manual of Style. The JCBS uses footnotes instead of endnotes. The JCBS reserves the right to return for revision any manuscript not in compliance with this system.
Footnotes may be concise since full details are included in the bibliography. Note that there is only one space following any mark of punctuation that ends a sentence or after a colon; both footnote and bibliography use the hanging indent style. The JCBS also uses “title” capitalization for all English titles. Below are a few examples. Please consult Chapter 14 in The Chicago Manual of Style for more details on the “notes and bibliography” citation style.
Shortened citation in a note:
8. Minow and LaMay, Presidential Debates, 138.
Entry in a bibliography:
Minow, Newton N., and Craig L. LaMay. Inside the Presidential Debates: Their Improbable Past and Promising Future. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008.
Citations of Taishō shinshū daizōkyō 大正新修大藏經 should have the following format: T (followed by a space) text number (followed by comma and space), volume number (followed by colon), page number (followed directly by register [a, b, c] and line number).
T 2035, 49: 485a16
Citations of Shinsan Dainihon zokuzōkyō 新纂大日本續藏經 (東京：國書刊行會, 1975-1989), the default CBETA digital pagination, should have the following format: X (followed by a space) text number (followed by comma and space) page number (followed by register [a,b,c, d] and line number). As in:
X 1540, 21b13-14.
Citations of Wanzi xuzang jing 卍續藏經 (臺北：新文豐, 1975), the 1975 reprint edition of Dainohon zokuzōkyō, should have the following format: R (followed by a space) volume number (followed by comma and space) and page number (with register and line number):
R 134, 815a1 (please use the Roman pagination rather than the ZZ Japanese pagination).
Please note that Romanized Pāli, Sanskrit and Standard Mandarin Pinyin should be italicized (except for names of persons, places, and schools). Please do not indicate tone inflections for Chinese characters.
ren 仁
Banzhou sanmei jing 般舟三昧經
Yijing 義淨
The following Sanskrit words are among those that do not require italicization: abhidharma, arhat, bodhisattva, buddha, dharma, karma, nirvāṇa, sūtra, tathāgata, vinaya. However, Āgama, bhikṣunī, and Nikāya, and almost all other Sanskrit words should be set in italics. Similarly, almost all non-English words should be italicized and do not need to be surrounded by quotes. When in doubt about italicization of Sanskrit words, consult the Oxford English Dictionary; if the word in question does not appear in the OED, it should probably be italicized.
Generally, Romanized foriegn words should not be capitalized, unless it is a proper name such as the Three Jewels: Buddha, Dharma, and Saṅgha, or Hīnayāna, Mahāyāna, Theravāda. Buddha and bodhisattva should be in lower case, unless used in proper names. Vinaya should also be in lower case unless used specifically for the Vinaya School (in China), as in use of the word Chan School. For foreign titles of works, whether these appear in text, notes, or bibliographies, capitalize only the words that would be capitalized in normal prose—first word of title and subtitle and all proper nouns. Foreign characters should follow the transliteration of the title, with a translation in parentheses. For example: Weimo jiejing 維摩詰經 (Vimalakīrti sūtra), translated by Zhiqian 支謙. T 474, 14.
Full diacritics should be used with all Romanized Sanskrit and Pāli terms, even when they are omitted by the OED: saṅgha, nirvāṇa, Mañjuśrī. When the title of a foreign work is mentioned in text, an English gloss often follows in parentheses. If the translation has not been published, the English should be capitalized sentence-style (as in the first example below) and should appear neither in italics nor within quotation marks. A published translation, however, is capitalized headline-style (as in the second example) and appears in italics or quotation marks depending on the type of work (see The Chicago Manual of Style, 8.154–95):
1. Leonardo Fioravanti’s Compendio de i secreti rationali (Compendium of rational secrets) became a best seller.
2. Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu (Remembrance of Things Past) was the subject of her dissertation.
Please use Times Extended Roman font for all words not in Chinese, and PMingLiU Chinese font for Chinese characters if possible. When quoting in Chinese please supply standard Chinese punctuation. The JCBS includes Chinese translations of article abstracts. Authors are asked to provide their own Chinese-language abstract, if possible. Please consult articles in this journal for examples of the “notes and bibliography” style system specific to our editorial policy.