Submissions

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Submission Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.
  • The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
  • The submission file is in OpenOffice, Microsoft Word, RTF, or WordPerfect document file format.
  • Where available, URLs for the references have been provided.
  • The text is double-spaced; uses a 12-point font; employs italics, rather than underlining (except with URL addresses); and figures and tables are separately grouped and placed in consecutive order after the end reference list.
  • The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines, which is found in About the Journal.
  • The instructions in Ensuring a Blind Review have been followed.

Author Guidelines

Because of its affiliation with the Association of American Geographers (AAG), The Southwestern Geographer employs the same style guidelines as the Annals of the Association of American Geographers.


Submission. All manuscripts should be submitted electronically on the journal webpage. 

Review. After evaluation by the editors, manuscripts are sent to at least two reviewers with relevant expertise. The review process normally takes six to eight weeks and every effort is process, review and respond to submissions as quickly as possible.

Manuscripts. Prepare your manuscript using a word processing program and save it as a .docx or .rtf file. Do not include any identifying information in your manuscript or in your file names to ensure a blind review; do not include names of the authors, their affiliations, biographical sketches, or acknowledgements. Figure files can be embedded in the manuscript as .gif, .jpg, .eps and .tif; however, only .eps or .tif files will be accepted for publication of the final manuscript. All figures and tables should be placed at the end of the manuscript and not integrated into the body of the manuscript. Each table and figure should appear on a separate page. Text must be in 12-point font. Each page should have margins of 2.54cm (1 inch) on each side.  All parts of the manuscript (abstract, text, notes, references, and figure captions) must be double-spaced and paginated. Tables may be single-spaced.  A manuscript should be formatted as follows and each section should begin onh a new page: (1) title page, (2) abstract and key words, (3) text, (4) notes, (5) references, (6) appendix, (7) figure captions, (8) figures, and (7) tables.

Title Page. The title serves as the author

Copyright Notice

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

  1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
  2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
  3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).

Privacy Statement

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