How to Publish in an African Academic Journal

How to publish in African journals, in short: pick a journal whose scope and indexing fit your paper, follow its author guidelines exactly, submit through its online system, and answer reviewers on the same submission.

Picture a first-time author with a finished thesis chapter and a list of unfamiliar journal names. The advice below draws on rules that journals, publishers and universities publish themselves, and the wider landscape is mapped in african academic journals.

Choosing a journal for your paper

The right journal is one whose subject scope, peer-review standing and indexing match what your paper is and what you need it to do. Decide on those three points before you format anything, because a well-prepared manuscript sent to the wrong journal still fails.

Use finders and indexes to build a shortlist

The University of Cape Town library guide on choosing where to publish points out that some publishers provide databases where you enter keywords about your research and receive matching journals. Treat those results as a starting list, not a verdict. Read the aims and scope page of each title and compare it with your abstract.

The same guide notes that the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) indexes “high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals”. That makes it a sensible place to look if you want your article to be open access. If you are searching for titles published on the continent, read what is african journals online to see how that platform can feed your shortlist.

Check national approval lists if your degree depends on them

UCT encourages postgraduate students to publish in peer-reviewed journals approved by the South African Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET), and it publishes an updated list every year. If you are a South African postgraduate, check a candidate journal against that list before you invest time in formatting. Students elsewhere should ask their own research office whether a comparable list applies.

Verify credibility before you commit

A directory listing is a starting point, not a guarantee of quality. Before submitting, work through how to check if an african journal is legitimate, and discuss the shortlist with your supervisor or co-authors, who may know a journal’s reputation in your field.

Reading the author guidelines before you write the final draft

A journal’s author guidelines set the length, structure and anonymity rules your manuscript must meet, and they differ by article type. Read them before the final edit so you can cut and restructure once rather than twice.

The Southern African Journal of Policy and Development shows how much the article type matters. The same topic can fall into very different formats.

These limits come from the journal’s published style guide, and other journals set their own figures.

The same guide asks authors to put a word count in the text of the submission. Check whether the limit you are working to includes the abstract and references, because that changes how much argument you can keep. If your draft is far over the limit for a research article, a different journal with a longer format is often a better fix than gutting the analysis.

Preparing the submission package

A complete package is a manuscript prepared for blind review plus the separate documents the journal asks for. The requirements below are drawn from the Southern African Journal of Policy and Development’s guide and the UJ Press submission page, and your target journal may add or drop items.

• Anonymised manuscript. For peer-reviewed sections, the journal’s guide says its blind review instructions must be followed, and no identifying author information should appear in the manuscript.
• Separate title page. Author names and details belong here, not in the manuscript file.
• Biographical document. The same guide asks for a separate Word or WordPerfect file giving position, affiliation and prior publications.
• Conflict of interest statement. Potential conflicts and competing interests are disclosed at the end of the manuscript.
• Stated word count. Put it in the text of the submission, as the journal requests.
• Reference DOIs. The UJ Press submission page asks that the DOIs (Digital Object Identifiers) of references be provided where available, so look them up while you finalise the reference list.
• Completed checklist. The journal’s checklist is completed at submission, so use it as your final proofreading pass.

If the journal also requests a cover letter, keep it to the manuscript’s contribution and fit with the journal’s scope, and make sure it does not reveal anything the blind review is meant to hide.

Fees and costs

Whether a journal charges depends on the journal and its publisher, so confirm the position on the journal’s own submissions or about page before you upload. Do not assume that open access or free access to readers settles the question for authors.

One published example shows why the wording matters. The UJ Press submission page states that book publications are accompanied by a cost estimate covering origination and first printing. That is a book-proposal rule, and it should not be read as a statement about article charges in the press’s journals. If an article fee exists, it should be stated by the journal, so treat silence or vague wording as a reason to email the editor before submitting.

Submitting and following the editorial path

You submit online, the journal checks the package against its rules, peer reviewers assess it, and you revise on the same record. The journal-published workflows used here support that sequence, though individual journals add their own stages.

1. Find the journal’s own submission page. At UJ Press, journal articles must be submitted to the specific journal on the UJ Press Journals Platform, not to the press generally.
2. Log in to the manuscript submission system. The Southern African Journal of Policy and Development asks for contributions through its online OJS login page. Register, upload the anonymised manuscript and the separate files, and complete the checklist.
3. Expect a compliance check. The journal’s guide warns that submissions may be returned to authors who do not follow the guidelines, so a rejected-for-format notice is a risk you can avoid.
4. Wait for peer review. Peer-reviewed sections use blind review, which is why the anonymity steps above matter.
5. Revise if asked. The next section covers how.

Handling a revision request

A revision request means the journal wants to keep working with your paper, and your task is to answer each point systematically on the existing submission. The UJ Press page states that revised versions must be loaded on the existing submission, so do not open a new record.

• Answer every comment in turn. Keep a short response note that says what you changed and where, or why you kept a passage as it was.
• Keep the revised file anonymous. The blind review preparation that applied to your first upload applies to the new version too.
• Recheck the guidelines after editing. Added text can push you past a length limit, and a non-compliant file can be returned.
• Disagree politely and with evidence. If a suggestion does not fit your design or data, say so with a reason rather than ignoring it.

Troubleshooting common problems

• The manuscript came back before review. Compare it line by line with the author guidelines and the checklist, correct what differs, and resubmit through the same system.
• Your name appears in the manuscript. Remove identifying details from the text and move them to the separate title page before blind review begins.
• The draft is over the limit. Trim endnotes and references first where the limit includes them, or choose an article type or journal with a longer format.
• You are unsure the journal is sound. Pause the submission and run the credibility checks linked earlier rather than hoping the review process will reveal problems.

Frequently asked questions