Publication Guide
The University of Chicago Press is the largest university press in North America and one of the oldest continuously operating university presses in the United States, established in 1890 alongside the university itself. Its Journals Division publishes more than 90 scholarly journals spanning the humanities, social sciences, and the life and physical sciences - many of them on behalf of learned societies, associations, foundations, and museums. Chicago launched scholarly journal publishing with the Journal of Political Economy, which has run continuously for well over a century, and founded the American Journal of Sociology in 1895, the oldest sociology journal in the world. The Press is also the home of The Chicago Manual of Style (18th edition, 2024), the reference that defines citation practice across much of the humanities and social sciences.
This guide covers what you need to know to submit successfully: which Chicago journal fits your paper, open-access routes and fees, the peer-review workflow, Chicago-style formatting, and ethics policies.
Which University of Chicago Press journal fits your paper?
Chicago's portfolio is weighted toward the humanities and social sciences, with a handful of historic science flagships. Use the guide below to pick a starting point.
| You're most likely to... | Consider this route |
|---|---|
| Have a sociology paper aimed at the top of the field | American Journal of Sociology - founded 1895, the discipline's oldest journal and one of its most selective. |
| Have a general-interest economics paper | Journal of Political Economy - a top-five economics journal since 1892, with companion titles JPE Micro and JPE Macro for field-specific work. Also consider the Journal of Labor Economics or the Journal of Law and Economics. |
| Work in ecology, evolution, or behavior | The American Naturalist - published for the American Society of Naturalists; double-anonymized review, strong data-archiving standards. The Quarterly Review of Biology for synthesis and review work. |
| Work in literary/critical theory or cultural studies | Critical Inquiry - Chicago's flagship theory and interpretation journal - or Modern Philology. |
| Work in gender and women's studies | Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society - the leading interdisciplinary venue in the field. |
| Work in history of science, philosophy, or religion | Isis (History of Science Society), Ethics, The Journal of Modern History, or History of Religions. |
What University of Chicago Press actually publishes
90+ peer-reviewed journals across 14 subject categories, plus roughly 280 new books each year. Highlights of the journals program:
- Economics and law - Journal of Political Economy (plus JPE Micro and JPE Macro), Journal of Labor Economics, Journal of Law and Economics, Journal of Legal Studies, National Tax Journal.
- Sociology and social sciences - American Journal of Sociology, Social Service Review, The Journal of Politics, Economic Development and Cultural Change, Current Anthropology.
- Humanities - Critical Inquiry, Signs, Modern Philology, Classical Philology, Speculum, Renaissance Quarterly, The Journal of Modern History, Ethics.
- Life and physical sciences - The American Naturalist, The Quarterly Review of Biology, International Journal of Plant Sciences, The Journal of Geology, The Biological Bulletin.
- Society partnerships - many titles are published on behalf of learned societies such as the American Society of Naturalists, the History of Science Society, and the Medieval Academy of America.
The portfolio keeps growing: Renaissance Quarterly joined in 2026, and the European Journal of Sociology and Medium AEvum arrive in 2027.
Open access and fees
Chicago is a subscription-first publisher with flexible OA routes rather than a big-deal APC machine. There are no read-and-publish agreements listed in the ESAC registry - open access works per article.
| Route | Cost | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Green OA (self-archiving) | $0 | Permitted on the entire portfolio. Deposit the published PDF or accepted manuscript in a non-commercial repository after a 12-month embargo; shorter embargoes (including zero) accommodated for funder mandates using the accepted manuscript. |
| Gold OA (per-article) | Set per journal | Offered on ~68 listed journals at the editor's discretion, primarily for authors under funder mandates. Anchor price: The American Naturalist charges 2,000 for ASN members), plus page charges of $100 per typeset page. Check each journal's instructions for authors. |
| Default license | - | Gold OA articles carry CC BY-NC; a CC BY license (required by funders such as UKRI) is available for an additional fee. |
| Free access | $0 | CENI (Chicago Emerging Nations Initiative) gives 13,000+ registered institutions across 125 eligible countries free access to the whole portfolio; selected journals free their issues after a two-year embargo, and articles older than 95 years are free. |
Because fees are set journal by journal, always check the current instructions-for-authors page of your target title before budgeting.
Peer review process
- Double-anonymized review is standard across most humanities and social-science titles, and required at The American Naturalist for articles, syntheses, and notes.
- Editorial screening: editors may decline manuscripts without external review when a paper is out of scope or unlikely to succeed.
- Turnaround varies widely by journal; selective HSS flagships commonly take several months to first decision. Check with the journal's editorial office.
- Some journals charge a modest submission fee (common in economics); the journal's instructions page states any fee before you submit.
How to submit
- Pick the journal. Browse the portfolio at journals.uchicago.edu or start from the flagship list above.
- Read the instructions for authors. Every Chicago journal publishes a title-specific guide covering article types, word limits, and fees.
- Prepare your manuscript. Most titles follow The Chicago Manual of Style - notes-bibliography in the humanities, author-date in the sciences and social sciences. LaTeX templates exist for science titles such as The American Naturalist; SciSpace hosts Chicago-style templates too.
- Submit online. Submission systems vary by journal - The American Naturalist uses Editorial Manager, and other titles use Editorial Manager or ScholarOne; the journal's instructions page names the system.
- Respond to review. Expect double-anonymized review at most titles; keep identifying information out of the manuscript file.
Chicago style in brief
The Press literally wrote the book on citation. The Chicago Manual of Style (18th edition, 2024) defines two systems: notes-bibliography (footnotes/endnotes plus a bibliography, standard in history and the humanities) and author-date (parenthetical citations, standard in the sciences and social sciences). Individual Chicago journals specify which variant they use - and some society-owned titles keep their own house styles - so confirm against the journal's instructions before formatting your reference list.
Ethics and integrity
The University of Chicago Press is a member of COPE, and its journals follow COPE-aligned practices on authorship, plagiarism, corrections, and retractions. Science flagships enforce strong open-data standards - The American Naturalist requires all data and code needed to reproduce results to be archived in a public repository (Dryad, Zenodo, OSF, or similar) with a README at submission. Generative-AI use must be disclosed, AI tools cannot be authors, and preprints are generally permitted on non-commercial repositories such as bioRxiv and arXiv (policies vary by title).
