Author guidelines

Information for Authors

The editor and Student Editorial Board invite the submission from authors of research articles , as well as briefer commentaries, practical notes on recent cases and statutes and book reviews with a view to publication. In general the most acceptable length for articles is 7000-10,000 words (excluding footnotes).  As the UWA Law Review is published in an online format, articles outside of this will be accepted. Articles should be accompanied by a short abstract of approximately 75 words.

All authors must have significantly contributed to the research and if financial support has been obtained this must be indicated.  No fees or charges are required for manuscript processing and/or publishing materials in the UWA Law Review.
 
The submission of a paper is taken to imply that it contains original, unpublished work and is not being submitted for publication elsewhere.

The Staff editors and Student Editorial Board are happy to discuss drafts and proposed contributions with authors.

The UWA Law Review has adopted, in general, the style guide of the Melbourne University Law Review Association Australian Guide to Legal Citation.

Manuscripts should follow our recommended Style Guide as closely as possible and should be submitted through the online submission form.

All authors are obliged to provide retractions or corrections of mistakes.

Peer-review process

  • All of the content of the UWA Law Review is subjected to peer-review.
  • Peer-review is defined as obtaining advice on individual manuscripts from reviewers’ expert in the field.\
  • Judgments of reviewers should be objective.
  • Reviewers should have no conflict of interest.
  • Reviewers will point out relevant published work which is not yet cited.
  • Reviewed articles will be treated confidentially.

Publication Ethics

The Staff Editors, Student Editorial Board and the University of Western Australia as publisher, shall take reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of contributions where research misconduct has occurred.  In no case will the Staff Editors, Student Editorial Board and the University of Western Australia as publisher, encourage such misconduct, or knowingly allow such misconduct to take place. In the event that the Staff Editors, Student Editorial Board and the University of Western Australia as publisher, are made aware of any allegation of research misconduct, these allegations shall be dealt with appropriately. 

Corrections, Clarifications, Retractions and Apologies

Where appropriate, corrections, clarifications retractions and apologies will be published as needed.

The retraction of a contribution will be considered where:

  • there is clear evidence that the findings are unreliable, either as a result of misconduct (eg, data fabrication) or honest error (eg, miscalculation or experimental error);
  • the findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper cross-referencing, permission or justification (ie, cases of redundant publication);
  • it constitutes plagiarism; 
  • it reports unethical research. 

An expression of concern may be issued if:

  • inconclusive evidence is received of research or publication misconduct by the authors;
  • there is evidence that the findings are unreliable but the authors' institution will not investigate the case;
  • an investigation into alleged misconduct related to the publication either has not been, or would not be, fair and impartial or conclusive;
  • an investigation is under way but a judgement will not be made available for a considerable time.

A correction will be issued if:

  • a small portion of an otherwise reliable publication proves to be misleading (especially because of honest error);
  • the author/contributor list is incorrect (ie, a deserving author has been omitted or somebody who does not meet authorship criteria has been included).

Retractions are not usually appropriate if:

  • a change of authorship is required but there is no reason to doubt the validity of the findings.

Notices of retraction should:

  • be linked to the retracted article wherever possible (ie, in all electronic versions);
  • clearly identify the retracted article (eg, by including the title and authors in the retraction heading);
  • be clearly identified as a retraction (ie, distinct form other types of correction or comment);
  • be published promptly to minimize harmful effects from misleading publications;
  • be freely available to all readers (ie, not behind access barriers or available only to subscribers);
  • state who is retracting the article;
  • state the reason(s) for retraction (to distinguish misconduct from honest error);
  • care will be taken to avoid statements that are potentially defamatory. 

Further information

Copyright of articles published in The University of Western Australia Law Review remains with the individual authors. Royalties for copying of articles in The Review are received from the Copyright Agency Ltd from time-to-time. As from June 2011, due to the associated administrative costs, royalties less than $150 will be retained by the journal, along with any royalties received from articles published 15 or more years ago.