Submissions

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 file is in Microsoft Word (.docx) format.
  • An abstract of 150 words or less is provided.
  • Your name is NOT included in the file submitted for publication review.
  • All illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text at the appropriate points, rather than at the end, and meet stylized requirements (properly labeled), standard indentations and paragraph format where applicable.
  • Where available, URLs for the references have been provided.
  • The paper was written during the candidate’s undergraduate studies (e.g. if you are recently graduated alumni, your submission must have been written during your undergraduate degree). This promotes fairness amongst applications and ensures that our journal only showcases undergraduate work — as is its intention.
  • 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).
  • An AI disclosure statement has been added to the Comments for the Editor textbox.

Author Guidelines

Who can submit:

All undergraduate student work will be considered, though we encourage those in 3rd year and above.

Non-UBC student papers are also accepted and encouraged!

Students up to 2 years post-graduation may also make submissions (must be written during time as an undergraduate).

Authors may submit up to 3 articles to be considered for each edition.

*New* Multi-Media Submissions Announcement

The 10th Edition of The Ethnograph is excited to announce the acceptance of photo/art of submissions. We recognize that knowledge production and dissemination can take a variety of forms, and while we are currently limited to art/photos for this year, in future years we hope to expand to audio and film.

If you are submitting a photo/art piece for this edition of The Ethnograph, we ask that you include an 800-1000 word artist's statement. Within this commentary, please outline your creative process, the purpose/message of your work, as well as any sources or references used in its production. This written statement will serve as the primary means by which our editors can review and critique your work, if accepted. 

Articles

Article topics should fall into one of the 4 fields of Anthropology :

  • Sociocultural
  • Linguistic
  • Physical
  • Archaeology

Papers should be 4-12 pages in length

  • This is a general guideline, we encourage articles of all lengths to be submitted

Submitted text is in 12 point font with 1 inch margins.

Submissions meet requirements of an approved citation style (ie. APA, MLA, Chicago/Turbarian).

All published articles are peer reviewed and indexed, with citation in CMOS style.

Submissions must include an abstract of roughly 150 words or less at the beginning of the article.

All works submitted must be original creations by the author, with all secondary materials properly attributed (using an official citation style).

Submissions must meet UBC’s conduct of academic integrity.

Original fieldwork including 3rd party sources must be certified in the appropriate ethics qualifications (ie. Canadian Tri-Council Ethics Policy of research working with humans).

Art/Photos

Paste your photo/art on the first page of a Microsoft Word .docx for initial review.

Include your 800-1000 word artist's statement on the second page. In this commentary please describe your creative process, the purpose/message of your piece, as well as any sources or references used in its production.

All other submission guidelines apply, including the newly announced AI policy (see below).

AI Policy

As of December 26, 2025, The Ethnograph requires an AI disclosure statement as part of the submission process. With no official University wide policy on the usage of AI in academic writing, our team will be assessing AI usage on a case-by-case basis, with some general guidelines in mind, as listed below. Acceptable use of AI (listed or otherwise) falls under the discretion of the Executive team.

 If you have used any form of GenAI at any point in the writing process of your submission, even if it falls under the “acceptable usages”, we ask that you disclose it in the Comment for the Editor textbox below the Submission Requirement checklist. Please note that disclosure does not rule out your paper as a contender for publication, it is simply an element we must take into consideration when assessing submissions. Please include adequate detail in this disclosure, including why you decided to use it and how it impacted your writing process. Failure to disclose AI use will result in a termination of your paper in the submission process.

Acceptable usages of AI: 

  • Spellcheck (such as Grammarly)
  • Structuring your paper
    • Creating a paper outline that suggests how to best arrange content
      • This does not include using GenAI to determine the logical flow of ideas or connection of content that will be used in the paper
    • Word-counting
    • Research outline (this does not include topic brainstorming or refining)

Unacceptable usages of AI: 

  • Content creation (if AI produced any of the text in your submission)
    • This includes creating citations for bibliography or reference list entries
  • Summarizing sources
  • As an information source (at no point in your paper should you have to cite AI)

If you have an extenuating circumstance that requires you to rely on GenAI tools beyond what is above outlined as acceptable, let us know and we will consider it when evaluating your case.

We appreciate your understanding in this new development and are always open to suggestions, thoughts, and feedback.

Copyright Notice

You agree to grant The Ethnograph first publication rights, ensuring that this work has not been published in any other journal, nor have you entered into any contractual agreements regarding the copyright of the article. You will retain your copyright to the work (what is copyright?). As this is an Open Access journal, we will assign a Creative Commons BY-NC 4.0 license that will allow others to read and reuse your works for free, with proper attribution to you, the author, and this journal (Creative Commons BY-NC). 

You are encouraged to post your work online before, during, and after the submission and publication process should you want to. You are also encouraged to seek further publication in other journals, given a non-exclusive contract and proper acknowledgement of first publication in this journal.

By submitting your work to The Ethnograph, you agree to the above statements.

Privacy Statement

All information that is stored (ie. names and emails) is agreed on between The Ethnograph and the authours, to be used and shared only with the authour’s consent. The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.