The Oxford Handbooks make up an authoritative and engaging reference series that addresses a multitude of disciplines across the humanities, sciences, and social sciences. Each Handbook consists of a number of substantial new essays by leading experts on a particular aspect of the subject in question, giving graduate students, scholars, and practitioners a comprehensive overview of the issues that inform research, teaching, and practice.
The volumes are ambitious in scope and far reaching in impact. They aim not only to review a discipline or topic, but to contribute to it and to carry forward relevant debates. The issues considered range from those hotly contested for decades to those only now being opened up for discussion. In this way, a Handbook can serve as a discipline and practice map, addressing the development of thought and the current state of learning, as well as new departures in research currently being explored.
At a time when it has become increasingly difficult to review all the literature within a given field of research and practice, the Handbooks also serve a cross-disciplinary function, enabling readers to survey developments across a host of related and interlinked research areas.
The key to scholarly merit in the Handbooks is their thorough and expert approach to each subject. Each volume contains chapters from many of the leading minds in the discipline, ensuring that all avenues of investigation are succinctly addressed.
The Oxford Handbook of Interdisciplinarity
The Oxford Handbook of Interdisciplinarity is to some degree unique for the Oxford Handbooks series precisely because it aims to cover issues that involve the relations between disciplines in research, teaching, and practical affairs. As scholarly research and practice has over the last two centuries become increasingly specialized there has arisen as well the need to develop means to synthesize and integrate the disciplines. This has taken place in general education curriculum development and teaching, in problem oriented research, in the practices of collaboration and team work, and has been manifest in a variety of forms: multidisplinarity, cross-disciplinarity, interdisciplinarity, and transdisciplinarity. Interdisciplinarity is a term that can serve to refer both to a particular form of relation between disciplines and to the collection of such forms. In the present Oxford Handbook, it functions in the title to refer to the collection of possible relationships without excluding more particular uses in the main body of the handbook.
Because interdisciplinarity is a phenomenon with pedagogical, research, and practical dimensions, the Oxford Handbook of Interdisciplinarity also extends in scope beyond the normal academic or scholarly community. Diverse forms of interdisciplinarity can be found not only in education and scholarly research but also in governmental activities, in the business and financial worlds, in manufacturing and design, and in public affairs generally. As is appropriate for a volume in the Oxford Handbooks series, the Oxford Handbook of Interdisciplinarity will emphasize interdisciplinarity in education and research but not at the exclusion of the consideration of interdisciplinarity in government, business, and the worlds beyond education and research.
General considerations
One of a contributors first responsibilities will be to submit a chapter abstract of approximately 500-1000 words to the volume editor. This abstract should be in informal outline format, indicating clearly the basic section headings that contributors foresee as structuring their chapters. These abstract outlines will be uploaded to a unique password-protected website dedicated to the volume. They may then be viewed by all contributors to help establish demarcation lines between chapters covering adjacent topics.
When the chapter is completed, final submission will also include a 150-200 word abstract that will be included in the Handbook. Each finished chapter abstract should be followed by a list of four to ten keywords (significant, descriptive words that reflect chapter content), some of which should be contained in the abstract. Terms such as interdisciplinarity, multidisciplinarity, etc., are inappropriate as keyword.
Sidebar Guidelines
The Oxford Handbook of Interdisciplinarity will include a number of side bars that can function as mini-case studies and either (1) add specific depth to a particular chapter, (2) assure mention of something that might otherwise be slighted, and/or (3) create cross links and show how chapters are related.
Side bars should be 500 to 1000 words in length, and should be followed by no more than 3 keywords (significant, descriptive words that reflect chapter content). Terms such asinterdisciplinarity, multidisciplinarity, etc., are inappropriate as keywords. Sidebars should be signed by the author, who need not, although could, be a chapter author. Final decisions on whether to accept or not and where to place side bars will rest with the editors.
Contacts
The Oxford Handbook of Interdisciplinarity is being edited by a team composed of an editor-in-chief, Robert Frodeman, two associate editors, Julie Thompson Klein and Carl Mitcham, and an editorial assistant, Britt Holbrook. Britt Holbrook will serve as the initial point of contact for many of the details of this project, but feel free to contact any member of the editorial team.
The initial word limits per chapter agreed with your volume editor should not be exceeded. This is important given the large size of the Handbooks and the number of contributors involved. The agreed word limit will include the bibliography of references.
Each chapter should end with a reference list, and please use in-text Harvard-style references corresponding to entries in the list. In general, references should only be made to materials that are likely to remain accessible for the life of the volume. Unpublished conference papers, etc. should not be referenced unless they are forthcoming in some published form.
Material on the web should be treated with caution. Please give a hard copy reference as opposed to an online one, if possible. Where an item is available exclusively online, include it as a reference only if you have substantial confidence that it will remain valid without a change in web address.
Each chapter will conclude with a bibliography listing all references made in the text. It may also include other publications, which may also include short annotations.
Neither footnotes nor endnotes will be used in the Handbook chapters. Material that might otherwise be included in a note should be rewritten so that it can be included in the main body of the text. However, modest annotations for some references are acceptable.
The Handbooks are sizeable volumes and in order to facilitate correct indexing, contributors will eventually be asked to compile a list of terms, phrases, and topics that should be indexed. This list should be one of the last requested submissions from each contributor.
To aid interdisciplinary use of the Handbook and encourage general accessibility, please endeavor to use language that makes a chapter accessible to as wide an academic audience as possible. Technical terms should be defined on first occurrence. The language used should be accessible to graduate students and above, and be aimed at an international audience.
The Handbook should be a valuable resource for several years. Avoid reference to anything that is obviously ephemeral and will cause chapters to date very quickly. To a large extent this simply involves avoiding obvious references to recent events which, a few years later, will cause a chapter to age rapidly. In addition, avoid writing such phrases as "two years ago" or "recently"; instead, date your references.
Each chapter should have a balance of references to classic as well as recent works, though certain subjects may have a natural bias in favor of more recent research. Overall, please aim to ensure the longevity of a chapter while upholding the scholarly merit of the volume as a whole.
Unless otherwise agreed, the clearance and payment of permissions for copyrighted material in a chapter is the contributors responsibility. Each contributor should clear non-exclusive world rights in English for print (hardback and paperback editions) and online dissemination for all copyrighted material on a chapter, unless otherwise advised by your volume editor or by the Press.
It is advisable to clear any permissions as soon as possible. Failure to obtain permission for copyrighted material may significantly affect the content of a chapter.
Tables and figures occupy a disproportionate amount of space on the printed page and can be complicated to reproduce in electronic format for online dissemination. At the same time, tables and figures can be a very effective means for summarizing and communicating complex bodies of material. If included in a chapter, they should nevertheless be used sparingly.
American spelling should be used. Merriam-Websters Collegiate Dictionary should be followed for spelling and hyphenation.
Please prepare a short biographic paragraph about yourself, to be submitted as requested in the editing process. This should include your full name as you wish it to appear in the Handbook and any relevant affiliations.
Please submit your chapter abstract and outline, chapter, finished chapter abstract and associated keywords, indexing material, and biographic paragraph, to your volume editor(s) as requested.
Following are some of the key submission points to ensure that your manuscript passes efficiently through the production process. More detailed information can be found in the main Notes to Authors.
- Double-space and key in 12 pt serif type all parts of the script, including notes, tables, quotations, and references.
- Ensure that different levels of subheading are clearly distinguished and that the style chosen for each level is applied consistently.
- Clear all copyright permissions and check all aspects of the legal status of your typescript.
- Paginate the typescript in a single sequence throughout.
- Print out each table or figure on a separate sheet of paper and cue them into the typescript.
Please provide:
- original artwork and a photocopy of each item;
- a list of acknowledgements for copyright permissions;
- an identifiable list of captions for tables, illustrations or figures (if any);
- a list of symbols or other unusual characters that you have used;
- notes on special conventions used in the script.
If requested, print out the required number of copies of your typescript on A4 or US letter paper, on one side only of each sheet.
- Ensure that the printout (if requested) matches the electronic files exactly.
- Label any disks with your name, the book title, the date, and the software package you have used.
- Keep a copy of your text and electronic files that exactly corresponds with your submission.
At this stage your volume editor will examine the chapter for content and coverage and may contact you with a set of queries for discussion.
After delivery each chapter will be reviewed. This review will normally be by more than one member of the editorial team and/or a representative of the Editorial Advisory Board. On rare occasions, the editors may decide to seek external reviewers as well. Your volume editor will contact you with feedback and any suggestions for changes to the material if necessary.
During production the volume editor is the conduit for all queries and corrections.
When first page proofs are available, a complete copy will be sent to the volume editor for reading and checking. Each contributor will also be sent a proof for checking and will be asked to return it to the volume editor by a given date.
Volume editors will take responsibility for collating the corrections submitted by each contributor onto their set of proofs, which becomes the master. They may also be asked to collate proofreaders corrections onto the master set, reconciling any rival changes made by different parties to the process.
Figure, map, and illustration proofs follow a separate route through the production process from the text; they may or may not be in place on the first page proofs.
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