Author Guidelines

General requirements
(updated: July 23, 2026)

1. The journal publishes contributions in Lithuanian, Latvian, English, German, French, and Russian. Each article must be accompanied by an abstract (up to 1,500 characters) and keywords. If the article is written in Lithuanian, Latvian, German, French, or Russian, its title, abstract, and keywords must also be provided in English. If the article is written in English, its title, abstract, and keywords must also be provided in Lithuanian or Latvian.

2. The recommended maximum length is 40,000 characters for articles, 20,000 characters for reviews, and 10,000 characters for reports. Longer contributions may be published exceptionally, subject to a separate decision by the editors.

3. Articles must be submitted to the editorial office through the electronic publishing system (https://www.zurnalai.vu.lt/baltistica/).

4. In addition to the abstract at the beginning of the article, a more detailed summary in another language (up to 4,000 characters) may be included at the end. The summary may briefly discuss the content of the article and present the principal findings of the study. Articles written in Lithuanian or Latvian may be followed by a summary in English, German, French, or Russian; articles written in languages other than Lithuanian or Latvian may be followed by a summary in Lithuanian or Latvian.

5. The journal’s editorial office provides language editing of abstracts and summaries submitted in Lithuanian and English, as well as the translation into Lithuanian of abstracts and summaries submitted in Latvian, English, German, French, or Russian. Authors are responsible for the linguistic quality of the article itself.

6. If an article is written in a language other than the author’s native language, the author must ensure that the text is edited by a native-language editor before it is submitted for publication.

7. The article must be prepared in *.doc or *.docx format.

8. The text must be typed using Palemonas, a computer font designed specifically for Lithuanian, Baltic, and Indo-European studies, which can be downloaded from the website of the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language (https://www.vlkk.lt/palemonas). If other non-standard fonts are used for any reason, the relevant font files and a *.pdf version of the article must be submitted as supplementary files.

9. All cited works in the reference list and bibliographical references must be given in the Latin alphabet. When transliterating bibliographical details of works published in Cyrillic, authors are advised to use the international scholarly system of Cyrillic transliteration (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_transliteration_of_Cyrillic). If the article is written in Russian, the reference list may be provided in both forms: in Cyrillic and in transliteration.

10. Since the submitted text file will be sent to anonymous reviewers, it must not contain the author’s name or any other indications of authorship (e.g., “As I have argued previously [see Author 2008: 23–35]”).

11. The author’s name, contact information, and other details must be provided separately when the article’s text file is submitted through the electronic publishing system.

12. Illustrations must be suitable for publication. If illustrations are submitted in color, the colors will be visible only in the electronic version of the journal. The printed journal is in black and white; authors are therefore advised to submit black-and-white illustrations or to use highly contrasting colors. Illustrations must have a resolution of at least 300 dpi. They must be placed in the appropriate locations in the publication’s text file, and higher-quality versions must also be uploaded as supplementary files. Authors are also advised to submit a *.pdf version of the entire article as a supplementary file.

Requirements for bibliography
The sources cited in the article must be shown according to the examples provided below concerning the bibliographic description. We recommend providing the literature and sources in footnotes or as a list at the end of the publication.

If the sources are shown as a list at the end of the publication:

• in citing sources within the text, please include the following in parentheses in the following order: the name(s) of the author, compiler(s) or editor(s), then the year and after a colon the page numbers; separate works should be separated with a semicolon, for example: (Petit 2004: 75–76; Mikulėnienė, Morkūnas 2005: 189; Ulvydas et al. 1976: 125, 258);
• abbreviations can be used for publications, dictionaries and grammars that are cited often; a comma should be put before the page numbers after the abbreviation (for example, DLKG: 123); publications, the abbreviations of which are not in the list provided, must be included in the list of the publication’s literature or abbreviations;
• volumes of a multi-volume or ongoing work should be shown with Arabic numerals. A colon is not placed before the numeral (LKG 1: 356; LKŽ 19: 1024);
• if citing sources within the text, the last names of the authors, compilers or editors should have a space of 1.4 between each letter of the last name;
• there is no spacing for the last names in the list of sources;
• spaces are not used between the letters of abbreviations either in citations in the text or in the list of sources.

If sources are shown in footnotes:

• if citing a source for the first time, a complete bibliographic description of the work must be given;
• the last names of the authors, compilers or editors should use a spacing of 1.4 between each letter of the last name.

 
Examples of Bibliographic Description
Notes:

• in the list of sources, the last name of the author should be written first. If there is more than one author, then only the last name of the first author is written before the name;
• in the footnotes, the authors’ first names come before their last names;
• the first and last names of all authors must be provided;
• individual parts of the bibliographic description should be divided by commas;
• additional information, such as reissues and series, should be written in parentheses.

Download examples of bibliographic description: PDF

Abbreviations
Download abbreviations: PDF