Thank you for your interest in publishing with us here at the Centre for Internal Security Analyses (CISA).
To publish with CISA, please write to us at contact@cisa-india.in. The subject of your email should include the format (eg. Articles and Commentaries / Issue Brief / Policy Brief / Occasional Paper) and the subject or tentative title of your work. Your email should also include a short introduction to yourself.
We encourage and accept submissions around the year. However, due to the large volume of submissions that we receive, we ask you to wait for our team to respond to your submission.
We invite you to contribute in one of the formats described in the following points:
An article or a commentary is written by experts in their respective domains. These are expected to be based on data and facts, and contain deep analyses of current affairs and important policy trends. Such articles may also include essays that engage with important socio-cultural changes that have policy, economic, and political implications in a non-polemical manner.
An article should have references and sources listed as hyperlinks within the body. If the source/reference is not available online, an endnote can be added as an alternative.
On structure – We encourage the production of context, history, and facts that analyse contemporary developments along with a prognosis for the future. This differentiates it from op-ed pieces carried by newspapers.
Articles will also include tweet suggestions from authors that will go with your piece.
Indicative length: 800 – 1,500 words. Exceptions can be made after consultation with the Web Editor and will be based on topic and relevance.
Review process: The article pieces undergo a review process that consists of the following steps:
Drafts are reviewed by a panel of experts, which can include our faculty or external reviewers. The reviewers’ comments are shared with the author for any required revisions.
A plagiarism check is done on the article.
Please note that plagiarism checks for short-forms are used to determine if any substantive ideas have been lifted from other publications. The editors consider not only the percentage result of the software check. Extensively quoting one’s own work is highly discouraged.
The final draft will be cleared for publication by the Web Editor after it has been copy-edited and checked for plagiarism.
An Issue Brief provides a succinct analytical account of a public policy issue that is of national or global relevance. It should be comprehensible to both the informed and general reader.
Endnotes are required. Authors are strongly encouraged to provide tables, graphs, and other graphics that will make the brief more comprehensive and visually appealing.
Indicative length: 3,000 – 5,000 words, inclusive of endnotes
Review process: The review process is mutually blind. Drafts are reviewed by at least one CISA expert, and one or more external referees. The reviewers’ comments are shared with the author for any required revisions.
The draft is copy -edited, and the author is apprised of any editorial changes that the editor deems fit. The final draft will be cleared for publication by the CISA editor after it has been copy -edited and checked for plagiarism.
An Occasional Paper is similar to an extended journal article. It is expected to be of high academic quality and may be based on secondary or primary research.
Endnotes are required. Authors are strongly encouraged to provide tables, graphs, and other graphics that will make the paper more comprehensive and visually appealing.
Indicative length: 5,000 – 10,000 words, including endnotes
Review process: The review process is mutually blind. Drafts are reviewed by at least one of our expert, and one or more external referees. The reviewers’ comments are shared with the author for any required revisions.
The draft is copy -edited, and the author is apprised of any editorial changes that the editor deems fit. The final draft will be cleared for publication by the content editor after it has been copy -edited and checked for plagiarism.
Kindly note that for all publication formats, the Publications Committee retains the right to refuse a submission at any stage of the review and publication process.
More details on our Publication Guidelines are available here. You will find our Style Guide here, and a Citation Style Sheet here
The centre assures all our contributors that we maintain transparency at every stage of our publication process.