Authors should bear in mind the following guidelines concerning form and content. The journal may refuse to accept, and may even reject, submissions that do not conform to these guidelines.

Guidelines on Form

• Contributions may be as short as 2,000 words but they may not exceed 7,000 words, including footnotes.
• Contributions must be written in clear and accessible English (whenever logical notation is not being used).
• The journal has a house style of impersonal writing, which avoids altogether use of first-person pronouns in propria persona. This guideline is enforced with draconian rigor.
• Submissions should be double spaced, with wide margins.
• Footnotes should be used sparingly and should be placed at the end of the paper, numbered consecutively. They should also be double spaced, with side margins.

• Contributions must be original and substantive discussions that advance our understanding of a philosophical problem or position. The journal does not publish
  • discussion pieces, i.e. papers of whatever length whose main object is the critical discussion of some particular author's position or arguments;
  • uncritical literature surveys that merely compare and contrast various views;
  • pieces of a derivative nature;
  • term papers;
  • seminar presentations;
  • over-hastily excised chapters of theses or dissertations;
  • papers in the history of philosophy.
• The most important criteria for acceptance for publication in the journal are
  • originality, intrinsic interest, and importance of the main theses;
  • rigor, inventiveness and exactitude of argumentation and analysis;
  • depth of philosophical insight;
  • mastery of the relevant philosophical literature;
  • lucidity of style.

Electronic submissions should be made as email attachments, with "APQ:" as a subject-header prefix.

The preferred formats are Word or .pdf; but we can also handle .dvi files and .ps files.

Important tip: In order to ensure anonymity of submissions for blind reviewing, authors using Word are advised to go to "File...Properties..." and to delete all author-identifying information, under all tabs, before saving an anonymous version of their file for submission.

The journal will consider only papers whose authors certify that, while under consideration with us, their papers will not be submitted elsewhere for consideration. A submission counts as under consideration with us from the time its receipt is acknowledged to such time as either the author writes to us to withdraw it or we write to the author to decline it.

Articles submitted for publication before May 1, 2007 and replies to editorial communications initiated by him should be addressed to:

While the journal holds copyright on materials published in its pages, it routinely accords contributors permission to reprint in books or anthologies authored or co-authored by themselves. All other requests to reprint should be addressed to the business office.

The journal gives teachers and their institutions blanket permission for reproducing individual articles for class use at a fee of $1 per copy, payable in advance to the American Philosophical Quarterly.