Is my paper in scope?
Most papers the editorial office declines are declined for one of three reasons: they describe without asking a question or giving material others can use; they stay inside a text or a site and never reach the people behind it; or they have no Indian material. You may write in any design. This page shows, area by area, papers that fit and papers that do not, and what their answer to “What moved, or what held?” in the Transformation Notes would be. The examples are kinds of paper, not titles.
The questions the editors ask
- Are the five Transformation Notes answered — who and where, when, what moved or what held, why, and so what — and does the paper's evidence support each answer?
- A change: what is the unit, what was it before, what after, and how and why did it move?
- Something that held: what are the parts, who acts, and how does what they do keep it in place?
- A research note: what state does it establish, where and when; how was the evidence gathered or read; what does it make possible; where can the material be consulted?
- For every paper: does it take up recent work on the subject, and is it one argument, followed through? A paper that tries to cover a whole field is better as a case study or two.
Area by area
| Subject area | What moved (a change) | What held (a mechanism, or persistence) | Research note | Does not fit as it stands |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Education and learning | how girls' schooling in a district moved between two censuses, and why. | how a coaching economy sorts students by caste and class. | who the first-generation learners of one block are, by caste, sex and school, from a stated survey. | students' opinions on a teaching method, with no stated method and no question. |
| Society, community and welfare | how endogamy loosened among a caste that moved to the city. | how endogamy is kept: matchmaking, dowry, community councils. | how marriages are arranged in one community today, from life-history interviews. | a demographic profile with no question and no stated method. |
| Health and wellbeing | what a maternal health scheme changed for Dalit and Adivasi women in one state. | how a village decides who is taken to the clinic and who to the healer. | who was treated at a district's dispensaries, 1930–1960, read from the registers. | a clinical trial, or prevalence figures with no social question. |
| Governance, economy and livelihoods | who gained land when a tenancy law was enforced, and who did not. | how a cooperative's credit follows caste lines. | who held the land of a taluka at the 1950s settlement, read from the village records. | a list of a scheme's targets and achievements. |
| Politics, law and the state | how a court's reading of “reasonable classification” changed the reach of reservation. | how a dominant caste holds a panchayat after reservation. | what a body of unpublished petitions shows of who asked the state for what, in one decade. | a summary of a judgment. |
| Culture, media and the arts | what a festival's new patrons changed in who takes part and who is kept out. | how a hereditary craft keeps its knowledge inside the family. | who performs a tradition today, for whom and on what terms, from recorded fieldwork. | a reading of a novel that stays inside the novel. |
| Environment and natural resources | how a village's rights to a forest were lost, kept or regained. | how water from a canal is shared out, and who decides. | which wells of a village each caste may use, surveyed in a stated year. | measurements of a river's chemistry. |
| Languages and textual traditions | how a text's readership widened when it was printed. | how karma was used to explain and keep caste. | a newly identified manuscript: its scribe, owners and readers, and what that shows. | a critical edition on its own; a theory of inference nobody is shown to have used. |
| History, archaeology and heritage | what a settlement's changing layout shows about labour and hierarchy. | how a temple's grants tied villages to it. | a newly read inscription: its date, place, and the people and offices it names. | a pottery sequence with no reading of the society that made it. |
Still not sure?
Send a proposal — a working title and an abstract of 150 to 250 words — through the submission page. The editorial office replies within seven days, using the same questions as for a finished paper.
The full guide — why scope matters, how to write Transformation Notes, how to present a paper, and nine published papers to read — is Writing for the journal.
Download
Writing for the journalScope guide · PDF · 8 pagesManuscript format guidelinesPDF · 4 pagesManuscript templateWord · anonymised textTitle page templateWord · names and affiliationsFree to download and share.
Transformation Notes
Who and where · When · What moved, or what held · Why · So what
Five short answers after the abstract, published with the article.
Two lengths
Research article · 6,000–10,000 words
Research note · 4,000–5,000 words
Both are peer-reviewed. See Aims and scope and For Authors.