Interested in submitting to this journal?

Submission information

All submissions should be written in English. Articles should be between 4,000 and 6,000 words, including footnotes. Case notes should not exceed 4,000 words. Comments should not exceed 2,000 words. When submitting your contribution, please ensure that it complies fully with ASLJ’s house style. An abstract of 250-300 words should also be included as well as 10 key words.

ASLJ House Style

A copy of the ASLJ house style can be found on the Author Guidelines page.

We recommend that you review the About the Journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the Author Guidelines. Authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the five-step process.

Plagiarism Warning

The ASLJ will not accept nor publish any plagiarised submissions. Please ensure that your submission is free of plagiarism.

Guidelines for ASLJ

The Editors of Emerging Scholar Student Law Journal (ASLJ) encourage the submission of journal articles in English for publication in our journal.

Journal Articles submitted will be considered for publication in ASLJ on the following conditions:

• Only by virtue of assurance that the article has not in whole or part been submitted for publication or published elsewhere
• On the understanding that it may be submitted in confidence to an editor of ASLJ for evaluation
• On the understanding that editors reserve the right to make possible changes where necessary to:

• view the article through the lens of the house style of the ASLJ
• to improve the writing style
• eliminate possible grammar, punctuation, and spelling errors
• eliminate the possibility of plagiarism and to produce accuracy

Authors are required to read their articles to avoid the need for editors to exercise these rights. At all times, authors are dissuaded from plagiarising. This may be done through ensuring accurate referencing where necessary, and ensuring that all sources reflect accurately in the bibliography submitted.

Author/s who aspire to submit a journal article to ASLJ are required to acquaint themselves with the house style of the journal. A comprehensive guideline appears below:

• All submissions must be in Microsoft Word format (English SA or English UK).
• Journal articles submitted should average between 4000-6000 words (including footnotes) in length.
• The author is responsible for ensuring that the article remains within the word limit.
• Footnotes must be numbered correctly and consecutively.
• Font style and size should be at Arial or Times New Romans 12pt, 1.5 spacing, with indented text at 11pt, and footnote text at 10pt.

Co-writing with generative AI

The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and AI-assisted technologies in scientific discourse has been in the spotlight recently, especially in relation to ChatGPT. This chatbot, which was launched in November 2022, can provide detailed responses across multiple domains of knowledge and produces text that is almost indistinguishable from text written by humans.

In response to the increasing use of Generative AI and AI-assisted technologies by authors, we adopt Elsevier’s new AI author policy, which focuses on ensuring the integrity of the scholarly record and aims to provide greater transparency and guidance to authors, readers, reviewers, editors and contributors.

Where authors use AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process, authors should:

Only use these technologies to improve readability and language, not to replace key researcher tasks such as interpreting data, drawing scientific conclusions or discussing findings.

Apply the technology with human oversight and control, and carefully review and edit the result, as AI can generate authoritative-sounding output that can be incorrect, incomplete or biased.

Not list AI and AI-assisted technologies as an author or co-author, or cite AI as an author. Authorship implies responsibilities and tasks that can only be attributed to and performed by humans, as outlined in Elsevier’s AI author policy.

Authors should disclose in their manuscript the use of AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process by following the instructions below. A statement will appear in the published work. Please note that authors are ultimately responsible and accountable for the contents of the work.

Disclosure instructions

Authors must disclose the use of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process by adding a statement at the end of their manuscript in the core manuscript file, before the References list. The statement should be placed in a new section entitled ‘Declaration of Generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process’.

IMPORTANT TO NOTE:

The editors of ASLJ reserve the right to modify articles that have successfully passed through the peer-review process, in conformity with the house style, to improve accuracy, and to bring the journal in line with the tenets of plain legal language.