Guidelines
Litikum Journal Author Guidelines
The Litikum – Journal of the Lithic Research Roundtable (henforth: Litikum or the Journal) is managed by active researchers like You. We are familiar with the immense task of a well-written paper and we intend to honor those efforts with quality editing and dissemination. In the followings, we describe our process in detail, to support our fruitful cooperation.
For further information and communication, please contact our staff: litikum@litikum.hu
Document download
Author guidelines Author guidelines & template Cover letter template Citation style (csl) Policies & statements
The publishing process of your paper follows these benchmarks:
- Finding a journal, and the academic genre which fits Your needs. Is Litikum the appropriate medium for your paper? We offer some tips before You decide to publish with us.
- Preparing your paper. We are guiding You through all of our formatting requirements concerning the texts, tables, figures, and supplementary information.
- Making your submission. Before you submit, it is advised to check whether you followed all the instructions, and you have the proper permissions when needed. Our editors do the same before they passes on your manuscript to peer review.
- Peer review. Experts of the given theme, will comment and advise the acceptance of your manuscript. We also encourage you to be our reviewer.
- Production of the article. Before production, we agree on copy and distribution rights. The Litikum is a Platinum Open Access journal which means that your paper is entirely at your disposal. After copy editing, your article is complete.
- Publication. The final step is the publication of your paper on our website. Litikum is a member of the Crossref system, and we will archiving your published paper in our archiving partner’s repository, therefore your paper will receive a digital object identifier (doi).
1 Call for papers
If You read our Aims and Scope, and now you are considering Litikum, we recommend consulting with the Think. Check. Submit. initiative. This website contains a set of criteria to think about before you decide in favour of any journal.
Our journal accepts manuscripts year-round in the following genres of academic writing:
1) short communication: of important current research findings, with the aim of their quick presentation to the academic community.
2) original research paper: complete descriptions of original research findings, including technical papers, excavation reports, inquiries in linguistics and editions or translations of primary sources
3) review article: survey and syntheses of previously published research to present or enhance the current state of understanding about a topic, or to address a scientific problem.
4) academic position paper: an essay on firm methodological grounds, that presents an arguable opinion about a scientific problem.
2 Preparing your paper
The term manuscript refers to all the elements of your research together, intended to publish; not only the main body of the text but the tables and figures, supplemental information, raw data, videos, etc. The author’s original manuscript or preprint equals this pack of information before we do anything with it. When it is approved by peer review, we accept your work for publication, hence the name accepted manuscript (or postprint). The copy editors give your manuscript its final form, which is the version-of-record, practically, the official version of your paper. After publication, we refer to this version as a paper, article, study, etc.
We define it as an ordinary element of a manuscript: title, authors and their affiliations, abstract, key terms, main text, list of references, acknowledgements, and other statements, tables, artwork (figures and maps), and captions. The Litikum website is also feasible to communicate special contents and formats, such as 3D objects, databases, videos, embedded third-party artwork, and other supporting information.
2.1 Authorship
Please, declare the followings in the manuscript:
- full names of the authors without abbreviations, in the succession you wish to publish them
- author contact details (these will not appear in the paper)
- author affiliations (name and address of institution/organization, the position of the author)
- author ORCiDs where it is applicable
- corresponding author’s name, address to be published, contact information for communication with the editors
First author and co-authors. The main author of the paper usually comes first on the list. Please, consider as co-authors those persons who contributed significantly to the article. They also share responsibility for the results.
The corresponding author represents all authors towards us on their behalf. This person communicates with the editors and reviewers and signs the publishing agreement. Also, this person’s address will appear in the article as contact information.
We encourage our authors to use ORCiD, a persistent digital identifier that can connect all of your professional information on the internet to you, including articles, and article metrics. The ORCiD is also a great vehicle during grant applications and other fields of the digital scholarly infrastructure.
Ethical considerations and best practices about authorship are provided by the Committee on Publication Ethics webpage and the main points are to be found on our Publication Ethics page.
2.2 Title, abstract and key phrases
Title, abstract, and keywords are your most important tools for helping readers and search engines, like Google Scholar, discover your article in the crowded academic cyberinfrastructure. It is a good practice if you evoke your browsing habits during online research on a topic.
You should choose a concise and informative title regarding your main topic. We expect 3-6 key phrases, that are also relevant for your theme and place the study in time and space. The abstract should not exceed 200 words, in proportion to the length of the main text. If your text is not English, you also have to attach a maximum 1000-word-long extended abstract in English.
For original research papers and short communications, you should describe your problem, methods, and results in the abstract. For position papers and reviews, you should include the aims, approach, and conclusions in your abstract. This small bit of text will be your most read part of the whole article.
2.3 Language and structure
Our publication language is English, which is by far the most practical choice in terms of peer review, copy production, and online management. We consider German and other language manuscripts for acceptance on a case-by-case basis.
Thanks to our digital edition, there is no length limit for your article, but a maximum of 10,000 words (including references, tables, and captions) should be appropriate. For original research papers, we prefer the IMRAD structure, although we consider the organization of a paper as part of the creative process pertaining to the author. In any case, we are hoping to receive a clear and consistent text from you.
2.4 Layout and formatting
We have only minimal formatting requirements, to ensure the effective work of our reviewers and copy editors, hence the quick publication of your work. A Microsoft Word template with predefined styles, sample content, and instructions is available here for download: Litikum manuscript template.
2.4.1 Main text and footnotes
Fonts. We urge you to use Times New Roman or any font family which has all the special characters needed. 11–12 pt font size is optimal, in the case of the footnotes, 8–10 pt. Please, refrain from bold font variants in the text, and use italics to emphasize content.
Headings. There is no need for any particular format but you should write them in separate paragraphs. Indicate the level of the headings with numbering (e.g., 1. Introduction, 2. Methods, 2.1. The first method, 2.2. The second method, etc).
Paragraphs. Use a single-column format. Apply as few paragraph formatting as possible, only to ease the visual inspection and placement of correctors’ signs, e.g., alignment to the left, spacing before 0pt, after 10 pt, line spacing 1.15, without indentation.
Lists. Please, do not use automatic list formats and tabs. Write all list items in new paragraphs, and mark them with a symbol (dash, bullet point, etc.) at the beginning of the paragraph.
Please, refrain from footnotes. If you need to use them, they should be counted with Arabic numbers continuously throughout the whole text. Paragraph and character formats on the footnotes should be applied automatically.
2.4.2 Citations in the text
Textual quotes. Short quotes should remain in line with the surrounding text, typed in italics, between quotation marks. Your notes inside these quotations should be set in square brackets and typed in upright (normal) characters.
Blockquotes consist of at least 40 words or four rows of text. These quotations should be set in a separate paragraph, between quotation marks. Although the English don’t use quotation marks in block quotes, for simplicity’s sake, we ask you to apply them, instead of manipulating the paragraph width or the letter spacing.
In the case of nested quotation, use single and double quotation marks alternatively, e.g. “in a first-order citation, there is ‘another quote’ from another author.”
Citation of other works. Litikum uses inline citation, our citation format is comparable to the Harvard style, notes author and publication year; you should avoid citing a work’s title, unless it is common practice in the topic or necessary, e.g. a well-known manual or an anonymous blog post. Examples are:
Shennan 2002, 75 (Single work of one author, with pages)
O’Brien & Lyman 2000, 50 (Single work of two authors, with pages)
Groucutt et al. 2015, 150, Table 1 (Single work of three or more authors, with pages and Table)
Torrence & Van der Leeuw 1989; Walsh et al. 2019, 54 (Multiple works, more authors, with pages)
Radner 2008; 2009a, 181, 190; 2009b (Multiple works, one author, with pages).
Régészeti Intézet (RI) 2013 (Organization as an author first citation, without abbreviation)
RI 2012 (Organization as an author further citations, abbreviated)
Title of Publication (ToP) 2015 (Title citation if necessary, first citation, without abbreviation)
ToP 2015 (Title citation if necessary, further citations, abbreviated)
Inline citation: „Levallois debitage was recognized as the predetermined pieces defined by Boëda (1991)”
Nested citation: Garrod 1957, as cited in Kaufman et al. 2018
2.4.3 Special characters and scripts
Letters and diacritics. We adjusted the Unicode system for problematic cases. Please, use Calibri or Times New Roman font families, which can display all diacritics.
Mathematical scripts. Special care should be taken with the most common mathematical symbols. The zero numeric character should be „0”, the multiplication sign is „×” (U+00D7), not an x letter or * asterisk. Fractions should be noted with a fraction slash (U+2044), without spaces, e.g. 3/5. The division is noted by the division slash (U+2215), with non-breaking spaces, e.g., 3 / 5. You can apply the subtraction sign – (U+2212) both for negative numbers and as a subtraction operator. The hierarchy of parentheses is: { [ (…) ] } For complex equations, units, and symbols, the SI system should be used.
Symbols in physics. Vector quantities should be written in bold (v, t, ω). Scalar quantities and scalar magnitudes of vector quantities should be written in italic (m, K, t), except for Greek symbols that are upright (α). Units and mathematical operations should be written upright, e.g. the weight of my keyboard is m = 300 g; 15 kg × 20 m/s; the temperature of this room is 23 °C (you should use Celsius degrees, not Fahrenheit). Please, use non-breaking space between a unit and a unit symbol or operator (U+00A0, Microsoft Word and OpenOffice: Ctrl + Shift + Space, MacOS: Opt + Space).
Measurement units. Please, use the SI metric system, you can check the latest edition of the National Institute of Standards and Technology SI manual here: https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.SP.330-2019.
2.4.4 Dates
Historical dates should be noted by BC/AD or BCE/CE, e.g., 1222 AD or 10th century BCE. For radiocarbon dates, please use 14C years before the present, one sigma standard deviation, and lab ID, with non-breaking space: 24,070 ± 150 BP (Beta 242617). For calibrated dates, use this formula: 28,882 ± 391 cal BP (Beta 242617). The shorthand of millennia and millions of years should follow the SI formulae. For 24,000 years that is kiloannum (ka): 24 ka BP, 24 cal ka BP (calibrated), 24 ka ago, or 24 kya (kilo years ago). For 2.3 million years that is megaannum (Ma): 2.3 Ma BP, 2.3 Ma ago or 2.3 mya (million years ago).
2.5 Cited works, list of references – Harvard style
The manuscripts should close with a list of works cited, in alphabetical order by the last name of the first author according to the conventions of the manuscript’s language. If the name’s initial letter does not exist in the alphabet of the manuscript’s language, the name should be placed after the end of the base letter (e.g. Çoşkun should stand after names starting with C). Authors’ and editors’ first names should be given as initials adapted to the orthography (i.e. “Th.” for Thomas, etc.). Name suffixes such as “Jr.”, and “IV” should be omitted. Works of the same author should be listed in descending chronological order.
Titles of journals and series should not be abbreviated but given in full. Collective works with more than three articles cited should be included in the bibliography as individual titles. Do not give dates of reprints, but rather supply the original date of publication.
Edition information should appear after the title separated by a period and not in italics. If the real and official years of publication are significantly different, you may wish to add the real year in square brackets, e.g. “(2013) [2015]”. Volume information should consist only of the number of the volume (without any abbreviations such as “Vol. 2.”).
Online publications without a date should be listed after the same author’s dated publications. Please, supply your online references with a valid DOI. In the lack of a DOI, you should give a valid URL and date of access (dd Month yyyy). You can check and manage the possible DOIs of your references with the help of CrossRef’s online search engine: https://search.crossref.org/
Regarding the format of the bibliography, the Harvard citation style is the guide, for which a comprehensive guide can be found on the website of the University of Sheffield in both html and pdf versions. To help prepare the list with reference management software, we have also created a csl template based on Bloomsbury’s Cite them Right, which is considered the basic literature. The csl template can be downloaded from this link.
For referenced online content, we’ve simplified Harvard’s somewhat cumbersome marking system. The viewing date [e.g.: “(Accessed: 17 April 2023)”] and the complete hyperlink are sufficient as the last two members of the bibliographic data. All other abbreviations or extra terms are unnecessary. There is no need to write out the expressions “online”, “Available from”, “URL”, and “doi.” In the case of digital object identifiers, the entire hyperlink has to be written out, not just the doi section. For example, not just “10.15184/aqy.2018.59” but https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2018.59
Examples of the most commonly cited article types are:
Book | Two authors
Demars, P.-Y. & Laurent, P. (2000). Types d’outils lithiques du Paléolithique supérieur en Europe. Paris: CNRS Editions
Edited book | Single editor | Book in a series without series number | With doi
Groucutt, H.S. (ed.) (2020). Culture History and Convergent Evolution: Can We Detect Populations in Prehistory? Cham: Springer International Publishing (Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46126-3
Translated, re-published book | Single author
Plato (2019). The Republic. Translated by B. Jowett. Delhi: Lector House
Journal article | More authors | More issues per volume | With doi
Almeida-Warren, K., Camara, H.D., Matsuzawa, T. & Carvalho, S. (2022). Landscaping the Behavioural Ecology of Primate Stone Tool Use. International Journal of Primatology, 43(5), pp. 885–912. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10764-022-00305-y
Book chapter | Edited book | Book in a series with series number
Borić, D. & Cristiani, E. (2016). Social Networks and Connectivity among the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic Foragers of the Balkans and Italy. In: R. Krauß & H. Floss (eds). Southeast Europe Before Neolithisation. Proceedings of the International Workshop within the Collaborative Research Centres sfb 1070 “RessourcenKulturen”, Schloss Hohentübingen, 9th of May 2014. Tübingen: Universität Tübingen (RessourcenKulturen, 1), pp. 73–113.
Report | Organization as author | With URL
English Heritage. (2023). 2021/22 Annual Report. https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/siteassets/home/about-us/annual-reports/7308-eh-annual-report-2021-22-password-protected.pdf (Accessed: 14. August 2023)
Thesis, dissertation | Single author | With URL
Heath, J.-L. (2021). Neanderthal craft: an assessment of evidence for crafting activities within Neanderthal societies with a focus on clothing. Master’s thesis, University of York. https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/28887/ (Accessed: 17 April 2023)
Archived preprint | More authors | With doi
Sun, T., Liu, Q., Shang, M. & Wang, K. (2021). The most recent common ancestor for Y chromosome lived about 3.67 million years ago. bioRxiv. https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.04.04.438302
Map | Organization as author | With URL
Arcanum Adatbázis Kft. (2004). Az Első Katonai Felmérés 1763–1785 (The First Military Survey, 1763–1785). Budapest: Arcanum Adatbázis Kft. https://mapire.eu/hu/browse/country/firstsurvey/
Online dataset | With doi
Massa, M. & Palmisano, A. (2017). Commercial Landscapes of Long-distance Contacts in Western Asia, c. 3200 – 1600 BC: Perspectives from Material Culture. UCL Institute of Archaeology: London, UK. (2017). London, UK: UCL Institute of Archaeology. http://dx.doi.org/10.14324/000.ds.10027581 (Accessed: 14 August 2023)
Online blog post | With URL
Tremayne, A. (2021). Tent Ring Archaeology in Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve (U.S. National Park Service). National Park Service. https://www.nps.gov/articles/-articles-aps-v8-i1-c3.htm (Accessed: 30 December 2021)
Software, application | Organization as author | With URL
JASP Team (2021). JASP 0.14.1.0. https://jasp-stats.org/
2.6 Tables
Tables should present new information rather than duplicating what is in the text. Readers should be able to interpret the table without reference to the text. We accept tables in separate, editable formats only, we do not accept them as raster artworks such as tiff or jpeg. If you send one single table file with more tables in it, separate them on distinct worksheets. The file name should consist of the author’s last name and the table number (e.g. Kramer_table_01.csv).
Apart from the paper itself, we will release your tables as downloadable csv files on your article webpage.
For your tables, consider the page size and orientation of Litikum which is an A4 (210×297 mm) portrait. If your data do not fit, prepare two tables. We advise consistent appearance through your tables, including text formats that comply with our instructions, and proper usage of decimal places. Please, do not use abbreviations in tables; if it is necessary, explain them at the bottom of the table. Always display the statistical significance notes when applicable.
Provide us with continuous numbering for the tables: Table 1, Table 2, etc. List their serial number, title, and short explanation after the main text, before the reference list. Insert a bracketed note as a separate paragraph in the main text, indicating the preferred location of the table: [Table 1 goes here].
2.7 Digital artwork
A great advantage of digital publishing is the ability to display almost any kind of multimedia, with the best quality possible. To harness this advantage, we ask you to follow our guidelines. Litikum accepts only digital artwork. To publish third-party material, written permission is needed from their rightsholders.
Resolution. If anyone prints a Litikum document, the artwork has to be sharp and balanced in colour. For these, the recommended resolutions are:
– colour raster graphics and photos: 300dpi
– grayscale raster graphics and photos: 600dpi
– monochrome or line art: 1200dpi
Dimensions. An artwork with 300dpi resolution has to have a 2480×3508 pixel display size to print it in 210×297 mm. According to this example, we expect the biggest possible size for your artwork.
Size. Please, try to satisfy the above-mentioned size parameters by the smallest byte amount possible. You should omit every unnecessary visual detail such as margins, and formatting that increases file size e.g. layers or transparent objects. For details on size optimization with Adobe Photoshop, see this tutorial.
File formats. Considering compression methods and technical means of our reviewers, we accept bmp, jpeg, tiff raster graphics, and eps, pdf, ps vector, or hybrid artwork.
If the artwork contains text, you should prepare it with a clean font, and apply it consistently through your figures. If you have text in vector graphics, you should embed the used fonts into the file, or transform the characters into paths (outlines). Without these, we cannot guarantee that your figures will display their intended layout.
Captions and file naming. You should supply your figure captions after the main text before the references as a list. Name your figures with continuous numbering as they appear in the text: Figure 1, Figure 2, etc. After the name, describe the artwork with all the necessary legal notices at the end. The same formatting instructions are applicable for the captions as for the main text.
Name the artwork files with the first author’s last name and the figure number (e.g. Kramer_Figure_01.jpg). Insert a note as a separate paragraph in the main text, indicating the preferred location of the artwork: [Figure 1 goes here].
2.8 Supplementary information and research data
Supplementary information can be any digital data in any form that help to understand or enhance your paper: further texts, photos, figures, video, datasets, online maps, software, etc. This information can be an excellent vehicle for a more detailed or multimedia presentation of your research.
We encourage our authors to share such information because they make your article more discoverable and interesting, more versatile, hence your research will have a bigger impact both in your field of study and on your career. Moreover, certain funding agencies may require sharing extra data with the public, and the Litikum editors may also need supplementary information to decide about the publication of your paper.
2.8.1 Methods of sharing
Litikum commands all means needed for publishing supplementary information. Despite that, we advise you to use a third-party repository specialized in publishing such data. These well-known platforms give a better chance for your work to be discovered, and they offer you more control over your information, for example, you can update them without consulting a middleman, like our editors.
Be aware that the chosen platform should be able to give a unique digital object identifier (DOI) to your deposited material. The DOI testifies that your data was archived properly and makes your work eligible for citation in academics.
The re3data.org webpage helps in choosing the right platform for you. We use and recommend the Figshare repository, where you can upload and archive almost any format after a free-of-charge registration.
2.8.2 Sharing research data
Technically, every supplemental information is data, but „research data” reserves special attention. This term covers all the information necessary for the independent verification of your research results.
Data sharing is the backbone of all scientific inquiry, but today we use such an immense quantity of those, that would be impossible or impractical to include in the original article, whether it is printed or digital.
Of course, there are situations when data sharing is not ethical or illegal. In the absence of such prohibition, we expect our authors to share their research data in their articles or as a supplement.
2.8.3 Data availability statement
Litikum is committed to transparency in humanities research, therefore a data availability statement is required upon submission. This statement does not coerce you to follow any sharing policies, it clears the origin and accessibility of the data you used in the paper. You can choose to withdraw or to share upon request, to share publicly with or without compliance with the FAIR principles on data publication. You can use the following predefined statement templates. The statement templates can be found under Section „2.3 Data availability statement” on our Publication Ethics page.
2.8.4 Display of supplemental information
Place the data availability statement and a list of all supplementary information after the main text, before the references in the manuscript. Name your supplementary information units with continuous numbering: Supplement 1, 2, etc. After the name, give a description of the supplement material with its DOI or URL links. If you would like to publish parts or all of your supplementary material on the Litikum webpage, we will endow them with appropriate links.
Be aware of the following:
Your supplementary material has to be relevant to the topic of the article.
If you share supplementary material with a third party, you should do it before the submission of your manuscript to us, so our editors can check those.
We cannot edit or modify your material which is published elsewhere, and we cannot apply for peer review also – we have to secure your anonymity.
Extensive supplemental material with an analytical character rather than data sets should be subject to peer review. You may submit those materials together with the manuscript to us, before you share those on another platform, for an anonymous review.
3 Manuscript submission
3.1 Cover letter
You submit your article with a cover letter that you send to this email address: litikum@litikum.hu
The cover letter highlights the importance of your research and the reasons why Litikum is the appropriate medium to convey your message. You also should include your peer review and copyright preferences (see below), and a list of the items you prepared in your manuscript zipped package. We compiled a Cover Letter Template for you as a guide.
3.2 Ethics for authors
Litikum attempts to comply with all the ethical standards of scholarly publishing, and we expect this commitment from our authors as well.
When you or your employer/sponsor have a financial, legal, or professional relationship with other organizations, or with the people working with them, which could influence your research, there is a possibility of a conflict of interest. We require a disclosure statement in your manuscript, following the main text, before the list of references. The statement will be placed in the article after we considered the circumstances and accepted your manuscript. In this way, your statement can not affect peer review. The statement templates can be found under Section „2.1 Conflict of interest” on our Publication Ethics page.
We require a funding statement in your manuscript, following the main text, before the list of references. Please, supply us with the full name of your funder and the ID of your grant, and any other information that may be required by your funding agent, or you wish to note. If you have more sources, list them. The statement templates can be found under Section „2.2 Funding statement” on our Publication Ethics page.
3.3 About preprints
You can deposit a preprint (author’s manuscript) of your submitted work through any preprint server without any embargo. We do not acknowledge this as a duplicate or self-plagiarism, and this will not affect our consideration for publication. Be aware, that the anonymity of the peer review can become corrupted by a public preprint.
Upon acceptance, please update your shared preprint with: “This article has been accepted for publication in Litikum – Journal of the Lithic Research Roundtable.” After the publication of your paper, please note on the preprint: “This is the author’s manuscript of a paper published in Litikum – Journal of the Lithic Research Roundtable on [year], available online: [doi].”
3.4 Initial inspection of your manuscript
Submit the manuscript and the cover letter to our editor-in-chief at litikum@litikum.hu, with the corresponding author as the sender. The entire communication will be conducted through emails since Litikum’s publication volume does not necessitate a system of online submission on our website yet.
The elements of a manuscript may be oversized for a regular email attachment. Please, compress your manuscript files and the cover letter into one zip package (which is a lossless format), upload it to a file-sharing server, and provide us with a sharing link in your submission email. We recommend the use of Google Drive or Wetransfer.
We will notify you about the reception of your submission email, manuscript, and cover letter. The editor will inspect whether your topic is eligible for Litikum, all the listed elements of the manuscript are included together with the necessary permissions, and finally, whether your manuscript meets all formatting requirements. After the inspection, you will receive an email with the editor’s decision about accepting your paper:
– the manuscript was received in full and accepted for peer review
– the package is deficient, you need to complete it for inspection
– the manuscript formatting is insufficient, it will be accepted for peer review after correction
– the manuscript is refused due to the lack of third-party permissions or permission in progress
– the manuscript is refused due to incompatible content or type (genre)
After acceptance, the editor sends the manuscript for peer review.
3.5 Submission quick guide
Check the following before submission:
- Did you assemble every element of your manuscript? The submission package includes a cover letter, statements, permissions, author information, acknowledgements, main text and reference list, tables and their titles, artwork and their captions, supplemental material, and their captions with availability and links.
- Have you included all author information? Names, affiliation, contact information, and ORCiD number of all the authors in the agreed-upon order; name and contact info of the corresponding author.
- Is your abstract concise and highlights your main points? 300 words maximum length, you mention the scientific problem, your methods, and results – or the aim and results of your essay. In the case of a non-English text, you included an extra abstract in English, 1000 words maximum.
- Did you use popular and relevant keywords? There is a maximum of six key phrases indicative of your topic and your spatial and temporal range.
- Have you created a clean and structured article? You stuck to your chosen genre, applied IMRaD to your original research, you have checked spell and grammar of the English text.
- Is your article formatted to the style required by Litikum? Line spacing 1,15; no indentation, hierarchized headings, or use our Litikum manuscript template.
- Do every special characters and expression have a proper appearance? You typed with a font that can display all special characters you need (e.g. ⸢ ⸣ ʿ ḏ ġ ǧ ḫ ḥ ẖ ī ŋ š ṭ ṯ ū û ẓ); you used SI units and their notation system, radiocarbon dates are given as 24,070 ± 150 BP (Beta 242617) or 28,882 ± 391 cal BP (Beta 242617) or 24 ka BP or 28 ka cal BP.
- Did you make your quotations right? You applied quotation marks and quotes longer than 40 words are set in distinct paragraphs. All captions and table titles have valid referents, and you indicated the preferred places of your tables and artwork in the text.
- Is your list of references complete? Every item on your list is referred to in the text, and every data is in place, with the instructed Harvard format.
- No table or artwork is missing? All the tables are editable and in the same layout. The resolution of the colour raster graphics and photos is 300dpi, the grayscale images are 600pdi, and the monochromes are 1200dpi. Raster data are presented in bmp, jpeg, and tiff formats, the vector files are eps or ps. Names and captions of the tables and artwork are listed in the manuscript, after the main text, before the references. Names and file names are identical: Kramer_table_01, Kramer_figure_01, etc.
- Are your research data accessible? You stated data availability at the end of the main text. You shared your research data at a third-party repository before article submission (e.g. Figshare), or you submit those together with your manuscript to us.
- Do you have other supplementary materials? Similar to data management, other supplementary information is shared before article submission, or you submit those together with your manuscript to us. In any case, you listed all your supplementary information and research data files at the end of the main text of your paper.
- Have you got all permissions and statements? If you used third-party material, you have all the permissions for non-exclusive distribution rights. In your cover letter, you declared a conflict of interest and funding (or the lack of them). You placed all other notes and acknowledgements at the end of your main text.
- Are you informed on our editorial process, including peer review? Litikum usually devises a double-blind peer review for original research articles and position papers. Considering the reviewer’s opinion, the editor-in-chief can accept, accept with minor or major modifications, or refuse your manuscript. After acceptance and production, we publish your paper on our website, and we archive the version-of-record in our partner repository. Your article will be amended with a digital object identifier (DOI) and becomes a part of the Crossref database.
- Have you checked your copyright options? The Litikum operates by the platinum Open Access model, we do not press charges against our services on our authors and our end-users. The published works are owned by their respective authors, and Litikum retains a non-exclusive distribution right.
4 Peer review
The function of peer review is the objective scientific evaluation and improvement of your manuscript. For original research papers and review articles, the Journal usually employs double-blind peer review, thus, the reviewer doesn’t know the identity of the author, and vice-versa. However, as relatively few colleagues have expertise in the Journal’s special subject (lithic studies), in certain cases, an expert editor reviews the manuscript in a single anonymized way, to maintain prompt editing and publication. For book reviews and short communications, an expert editor reviews the manuscript in a single anonymized way. We follow the COPE guidance on review ethics; for details, see our Publication Ethics page.
The review process. The editor finds and asks two experts on the topic of the manuscript. They can choose between double-blind or open peer review. Based on their opinion and your statement in the cover letter, the editor initiates the appropriate peer review process. In the case of an open review, the authors and peers communicate directly with each other, under the editor’s supervision.
In the first round, the reviewers read and comment on the manuscript, and give a concise written report with one of the following conclusions:
– the manuscript can be accepted without modification
– the manuscript can be accepted with minor modifications
– the manuscript can be accepted with major modifications
– the manuscript should be rejected
The editor considers the reviewers’ reports and decides about acceptance. The editorial decision and the reviewers’ reports will be shared with you. If the manuscript is accepted, You will have the opportunity to amend your manuscript, react to the reviewers, and resubmit your work. If the amended second version is accepted, this stage of the process is complete, and your ’accepted manuscript’ or ’postprint’ is ready for production. The editor also can open another round of review.
We are looking for peer reviewers. Reviewing is a time-consuming task, but advantageous for every participant. The authors gain valuable feedback on their writing. The journal can publish trustworthy papers with high standards, which is welcomed by the readers too.
As a peer reviewer, you can keep up with the latest research in your field, and improve your writing. You can play a vital part in advancing the research in your area of interest, and you can boost your career as an acknowledged reviewer in your academic community.
If you are interested, please contact us.
5 Production
5.1 Litikum and Open Acces
The Litikum journal welcomes open access and the FAIR principles of sharing scientific data. Accordingly, under the Platinum Open Access model, we provide free-of-charge editing and publishing services for authors and open-access content for our users.
5.2 Copyright
Every Litikum articles are open access under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) license. This allows users to copy, modify, reuse, and redistribute the material, if they give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. They may not use the material for commercial purposes, and they are not allowed to apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits. This license will be valid until withdrawal.
If you wish to publish your paper under another open-access license, please, let the editor know. We do not publish papers under non-open access terms.
For Open Access and copyright details, see our Copyright and open access policy on our About us page.
5.3 Proofreading
Once your article has been accepted and the agreement is in effect, the copy editor corrects your text and produces the first draft of the final layout in pdf format. The copy editor and you perfect the manuscript until the editor-in-chief decides to publish the paper – that will be the version-of-record. To the corrector functions in pdf format, see this video.
6 Publication
The publication consists of four steps.
1. Litikum is a member of the Crossref organization. One criterion of this membership is that we include all of your referred works’ DOI links (if there are any), securing the FAIR principles on data sharing.
2. We convert the paper into PDF/A format, which is required for digital archiving. With this step, the editing process is complete.
3. We publish your paper on our website. Although Litikum releases one volume per year or two years, in the lack of a printed copy, we do not have any reason to wait for a nominal date of issue. As soon as your article is complete, we publish it on our website.
We create a separate page on our website for your article, with the title, authors, keywords, abstract, acknowledgements, statements, and references in html format, and with download links to the final pdf, artwork, tables, and supplementary material.
4. We archive the version of the record in the repositories of the ELTE Digital Institutional Repository (EDIT), and the Library and Information Centre of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences – REAL. With this act, the DOI of your paper will be activated.