All research articles require the addition of English metadata. Abstracting & Indexing services may reject a journal for their program, or even remove an already indexed journal from their list, if these metadata are lacking.
For the online version of an article this is the minimal requirement:
- One abstract with a string of keywords in English, regardless the language of the article. This must be available in the full-text PDF too.
- A title or translated title in English, regardless the language of the article. The English language article title can be displayed before the paywall only; not necessarily in the full-text PDF. Since an English abstract and keywords are enforced it may be easier to include it in the PDF too.
- Author affiliation, with the author's academic title, their position within their institution and at least their department and/or faculty, institution name, city* and country in English language. The institution name may remain in the original language. Example: Faculty of History, Campus Den Haag, Universiteit van Leiden, Leiden, The Netherlands
- The author's ORCID.
- Contact details (an e-mail address is the minimum requirement; in some countries fax is still customary)
*) Including the state in some English speaking nations (US, Canada, Australia)
Ad 1) I&A services do not specify a word count for abstracts, although this is a question often asked by publishers. It is therefore useful to suggest a word count of 125-150 words. Very short abstracts for research articles and tantamount are strongly advised against. For articles submitted in Editorial Manager, 150 words is the maximum for journals in the humanities. For STM (Biology) abstracts up to 250 words are accepted.
Ad 2) JMRH has some good examples for this: Journal of Modern Russian History and Historiography Volume 15 Issue 1 (2022) (brill.com). In the case of JMRH, some PDF articles contain a full Russian-language page with the title, abstract and keywords, followed by a full English-language page with the same information. See also Rural China Volume 19 Issue 2 (2022) (brill.com) for good examples in Chinese and English.
Do note that both (1) and (2) also apply for articles in European languages in Latin script such as French, German, Italian, Dutch et cetera. This would require a change of editorial policy (instructions for authors) for Simone de Beauvoir Studies | Brill, for instance.
Ad 4) It has become increasingly important for Scopus to include editor and author ORCIDs. Until now, Brill does not require ORCIDs for the online version of the article. Nonetheless, we encourage authors who do not currently have an ORCID to obtain one.
How to obtain required metadata if missing
Production Editors shall do their utmost to complete such metadata in case they are missing. Incomplete copy for that matter may be submitted to the journal compositor for styling in order to gain time. In that case the vendor's kindly asked to "author query" for required elements that seem to be missing. An author query is included in a first proof (author proof), labeled with "AQ" in a box.
It must be noted that both Brill and Brill's vendors have access to author data and translated titles in a growing number of cases (though not all!) as these are in Editorial Manager. For journal articles with an automatic transfer to RSuite, such metadata can be found in a JATS file with the copy.
