This page sets out what belongs in each part of a manuscript and in what order. Use it together with the Author Guidelines, which give word limits, file formats, and the anonymization rules. Empirical work follows the full sequence below. Argument-based work — doctrinal legal analysis, conceptual, historical, or philosophical scholarship — replaces Methods, Results, and Discussion with substantive sections of your own naming, but keeps the Title, Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Conclusion, Declarations, and References. Nothing in this page permits you to omit the Declarations.
Title
Give a title of no more than 20 words that states the subject and, where the work is empirical, the population or material studied. A subtitle after a colon is acceptable. Avoid abbreviations, question marks used for effect, and claims the article does not establish. The title appears in the manuscript file, on the title page, and in the submission metadata; all three must match.
Abstract
The abstract stands alone: no citations, no abbreviations that are not defined within it, no reference to figures, tables, or section numbers. Whether it is structured and how long it may be depends on the article type, as set out in the Author Guidelines.
- Structured abstracts (Original Research, Systematic Review, Methods, Case Study) use the headings Background, Methods, Results, and Conclusions, up to 300 words in total. State what was done, on what material or with which participants, what was found, and what follows.
- Unstructured abstracts (Review Article, Short Communication, Perspective, Commentary) are a single paragraph stating the problem, the approach, and the contribution.
- For argument-based Original Research where the structured headings would misrepresent the work, submit an unstructured abstract of up to 250 words and say so in your cover letter. The editor decides which form is published.
Keywords
Supply four to eight keywords, in lowercase except for proper nouns, separated by semicolons. Choose terms a reader would search for. Prefer terms that do not merely repeat the title, and use the accepted vocabulary of your field rather than coinages. Enter the same keywords in the submission metadata.
Introduction
State the problem, what is already known about it, what remains unsettled, and what this article contributes. End with the research question, hypotheses, or the claim the article defends, and, if helpful, one sentence on how the article proceeds. Do not include results in the introduction.
Methods
Describe what you did in enough detail for a competent reader to repeat it. Cover the design; the participants, cases, corpus, or sources, with how they were selected and how many were excluded and why; the materials or instruments; the procedure; and the analysis, naming the software and version. Report the ethics approval and the consent procedure here in anonymized form, and state any preregistration with its location. Legal and documentary work states the sources consulted, the jurisdictions and the period covered, and the basis on which sources were selected. Methods that exist only in a supplementary file are not acceptable.
Results
Report the findings without interpreting them. Give exact values with measures of uncertainty rather than referring the reader to a figure alone. Do not repeat in the text what a table already shows; point to the table and state what matters about it. Every table and figure is cited in the text in the order it is numbered. Report all preregistered analyses, including those that did not work out, and label any analysis decided on after seeing the data as exploratory.
Discussion
Interpret the findings against the literature set out in the introduction. Say what the work supports, what it does not, and where the interpretation is uncertain. Include a limitations paragraph that is specific to this study — sample, measurement, design, jurisdictional reach, generalizability — not a list of generic caveats. Do not introduce new results here.
Conclusion
Two paragraphs at most. State the contribution and its practical, doctrinal, or policy consequences, in terms the evidence supports. Recommendations for future work belong here only if they are specific.
Declarations
Place the Declarations immediately before the reference list, under a single heading with the following subheadings. In the anonymous manuscript they appear in anonymized form; the full text goes on the title page.
- Author contributions — what each author did, using the CRediT roles (for example: conceptualization; methodology; formal analysis; writing — original draft). Anonymized as "Author 1", "Author 2".
- Funding — each funder, the grant number, and which author held it; or "This research received no specific grant from any funding agency."
- Conflicts of interest — financial and non-financial interests that a reasonable reader might think could affect the work; or "The authors declare no conflicts of interest."
- Ethics approval and consent — the approving body and reference number, and how informed consent was obtained; or a statement that approval was not required, with the reason. Research with human participants, personal data, or animals cannot be published without this declaration.
- Use of generative artificial intelligence — which tool was used, for what, and in which part of the work; or "The authors used no generative artificial intelligence tools in the preparation of this manuscript." Such tools cannot be listed as authors, and you remain responsible for everything in the text.
- Data availability — one of the wordings in Research Data.
- Acknowledgments — thanks to people who helped but do not qualify as authors. Removed entirely from the anonymous manuscript.
References
A single alphabetical list in APA 7th edition, starting on a new page, containing every work cited in the text and nothing else. See Referencing Style.
Appendices
Use appendices for material a reader needs in order to follow the argument but that would interrupt it: instruments, proofs, extended tables, coding frames, the text of a provision under discussion. Label them Appendix A, Appendix B, and number their tables and figures within them (Table A1, Figure B2). Each appendix must be cited in the text. Appendices are typeset with the article and count toward neither the word limit nor the supplementary material; material that is merely useful rather than necessary should be deposited as data or uploaded as a supplementary file instead.