Creative Commons License
The works published by MCUP are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.


Call for Submissions

MCUP is interested in cultivating full-length scholarly monographs that create an open dialogue between scholars, policy makers, analysts, and military leaders. These titles should provide a forum for interdisciplinary discussion of national security and international relations issues from either a historical, contemporary, or forward looking perspective and how they impact the Department of Defense, the Department of the Navy, and the U.S. Marine Corps directly and indirectly. Review the book proposal guidelines to the right and submit your manuscript today to mcu_press@usmcu.edu.

MCUP Acquisitions

Editorial Policies and Review Procedures

Dedicated to the dissemination of open access, scholarly and professional information, the MCUP publishing program provides quality resources. As professional publishing arm of Marine Corps University, MCUP is also a partner for university faculty and staff wishing to disseminate the results of their research. However, authors do not have to work for MCU to publish with this program.

Open Access Statement

As a platinum open access publisher, the MCUP publishing program is not based on revenue generation, either from the author or from the reader. The content is freely available without physical or fiscal obstacles and authors are not required to pay any fees to publish their work. As part of our open access model, we encourage authors to register with ORCID and submit their ID with all proposed work https://orcid.org/register.

Publishing Scope and Aims

Established in 2008, Marine Corps University Press (MCUP) recognizes the importance of an open dialogue between scholars, policy makers, analysts, and military leaders and of crossing civilian-military boundaries to advance knowledge and solve problems. To that end, MCUP focuses on scholarly books and academic journals that provide a forum for interdisciplinary discussion of national security and international relations issues and how they impact the Department of Defense, the Department of the Navy, and the U.S. Marine Corps directly and indirectly. While the press does not operate on a revenue basis, MCUP must be creative, entrepreneurial, focused, and far-sighted to anticipate the current and future needs of Marine Corps University, History Division, and the broader DOD community in a rapidly evolving industry and respond with vision and commitment.

The freedom to publish is a fundamental element of the basic right to freedom of expression. Freedom is a prerequisite for a university press to thrive, and it represents an essential part of a democratic society based on a knowledge economy. Part of MCUP’s mission is to protect and promote the author’s freedom to publish their original intellectual property. We rely on these works to circulate information, ideas, beliefs, and opinions that further the conversation on advanced military studies generally and the Department of Defense and its military Services. MCUP defends its right to publish and distribute these works with complete autonomy, even when it presents controversial viewpoints that are supported by evidence, provided that it respects all legal rights that may be attached to the work and the country of origin. Further, MCUP defends itself against internal or external influence whereby administrators, faculty, board members, or public officials may attempt to pressure the publication of certain works or topics to appease personal or professional aims that may go against the mission or ethical standards of the press and its staff, which are also upheld by the Association of University Presses, the professional scholarly publishing association of which MCUP is a member. The press director makes the final decision on all works to be published under any MCUP imprint without fear of retribution or reprisal for them or their staff.

MCUP does not publish classified information, biographies, or works of fiction. Please ensure that your submissions do not fall into these categories before you submit. We also do not encourage authors to dual submit their works here and simultaneously at other publishers. Intellectual freedom and ownership of that property is critical to an ethical publishing process. As such, all submissions to any MCUP imprint will be run through Turnitin to guard against all forms of plagiarism. Finally, we use a double-blind peer review process with all our publications. Our editorial and advisory boards actively participate in our publishing process, serving as subject matter experts and guiding our work throughout the year.

The Journal of Advanced Military Studies (JAMS) publishes twice a year (spring and fall). Articles must be at least 4,000-10,000 words, including footnotes, and formatted according to Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition). Articles under consideration must pass peer review with two positive results. 

Expeditions with MCUP is our digital-only journal. It features all the same rigor as our print journals but can be published in half the time. Most articles can be posted within 4-6 weeks of acceptance. These articles are much more timely and should follow the same guidelines as JAMS.

MARINE CORPS HISTORY
Articles for Marine Corps History must be between 4,000-10,000 words, including footnotes, and formatted according to Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition). Marine Corps History publishes twice a year, and the editors are currently looking for new articles and book reviews on all topics within the long history of the Corps: Civil War, Spanish-American War, Banana Wars, WWI, WWII, Korea, Cold War, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, women and minorities in the military and focus on some aspect of the Corps either directly or indirectly, including foreign marines and joint operations. We are particularly interested in masters and PhD students who are ready to venture into scholarly publishing.

DEADLINES: For Summer and Winter issue deadlines, contact the managing editor at stephani.miller@usmcu.edu.
Author guidelines provide more detailed information on submitting to Marine Corps History.

 

MCUP Book Proposal Guidelines

Authors: please note in your proposal if you are submitting your project to multiple publishers. If your book is ready for MCUP to review, in 500–2,500 well-chosen, polished words, the proposal should provide the following:

1. Subject, scope, and thesis.

2. Core contribution: what's unique, significant, exciting?

3. Comparison to the most important, germane books.

4. Intended audience.

5. Reasons for undertaking the work.

6. Research methodology.

7. Length of work (preferably in words) and number of illustrations (what kind?).

8. Table of contents (preferably annotated sufficiently to convey both the chapter's coverage and how it develops the overall argument).

9. Status of proposed work: if not begun or finished, what is the schedule for completion?

10. Qualifications of author.

MCUP welcomes e-mailed proposals and will contact prospective authors regarding partial or full submission of manuscript.

For information or to submit an article or book review, contact the director at mcu_press@usmcu.edu.

Persistent Identifiers 

MCU Press is now requesting that authors provide a personal ORCID iD, which will be published with an author’s biographical information, in addition to a unique DOI for the article. If you do not already have an ORCID iD, please register and create one at https://orcid.org/

Copyright, Licensing, and Permissions

Copyright for all works—journals and monographs—is retained by the author(s). Some works of authorship from Marine Corps University Press (MCUP) are created by U.S. government employees as part of their official duties and are now eligible for copyright protection in the United States; further, some of MCUP’s works available on a publicly accessible website may be subject to copyright or other intellectual property rights owned by non-Department of Defense (DOD) parties. Regardless of whether the works are marked with a copyright notice or other indication of non-DOD ownership or interests, any use of MCUP works may subject the user to legal liability, including liability to such non-DOD owners of intellectual property or other protectable legal interests.

Works published by MCUP are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. This license allows readers to share (copy and distribute) the content in any medium or format as long as they meet the following requirements:

  • Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.

  • NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes.

  • NoDerivatives — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you may not distribute the modified material.

​For more complex permissions requests or foreign language rights, please send an email with your name, affiliation, and a description of the use/request to mcu_press@usmcu.edu.

 

Advertising Policy

The MCUP publishing model does not rely on any form of advertising revenue, even if there is no formal prohibition to it. The press may create partnerships for in-kind advertising with organizations who align with the mission of the press and Marine Corps University. Advertisements are not related in any way to the editorial decision-making process and shall remain visibly distinguishable and separate from the published content.


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