Submission Guidelines

Please read our submission guidelines carefully before submitting.

YRIS seeks interesting, diverse, and compelling scholarship on international questions broadly understood: the relations between countries, trends or challenges of transnational or global scope, and the interaction of people and ideas from different countries.

YRIS accepts submissions on any topic or discipline that has broad relevance to international affairs. The top three print submissions will be published in our print issue, and a certain percentage of all submissions will be published on our website.

Print Submissions

For print submissions, we accept papers between 2,000 and 10,000 words (roughly 8 to 40 pages double-spaced). For longer pieces, we can suggest portions to excerpt. Pieces submitted until February 21, 2024 will be considered for our Winter Issue. Pieces submitted between February 21, 2024 and March 20, 2024 will be considered for our Spring Issue. Pieces submitted after March 20, 2024 by Yale authors will be considered for our Acheson Issue; otherwise, they will be considered for our fall Global Issue. Access the submissions form here!

Online Submissions

For online submissions, we accept comments and analysis pieces between 500 and 2,000 words (roughly 2 to 8 pages double-spaced) pertaining to current events in international affairs. These pieces can be analytical, research-based, opinion, or based on personal experience. We also accept reviews of books or other media relevant to international affairs. The top entries will be published on this website. Access the submissions form here!

Stay tuned for our 2024 high school essay competition later this spring.

Guidelines and FAQs:

Graduate students, high school students, and individuals not currently enrolled in an undergraduate institution are not eligible to submit.

    • Acceptable file formats are .doc, .docx, although .docx is preferred
    • Our journal uses the Chicago manual of style, but we do not require that pieces are Chicago formatted upon submission.
    • There are no required topics for each issue, though we do seek to have a variety of subjects and regions represented in each issue.
    • We only accept undergraduate pieces, and we refer graduate students and others above the undergraduate level to the Yale Journal of International Affairs at yalejournal.org.
    • Due to a high volume of submissions, one author may only submit one paper per issue. Pieces can be submitted even when we are not officially soliciting, and we will add them to the pool for our upcoming issue. We will only be able to notify you if your piece was selected.
    • Submitted articles must be previously unpublished work by the listed author(s). We will not publish an article that has already been accepted at other journals.
    • YRIS takes plagiarism very seriously. Submissions must represent the original work of the listed authors, and information that authors use in their article must be attributed to original sources. Submissions with multiple authors are permitted.
    • YRIS reserves the right to retract any published article if our staff finds that the article does not adhere to submission guidelines.

Our print issues are circulated across the Yale campus (dining halls, academic buildings, and more) and are also disseminated to other college campuses.

If you have any further questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out to yris@yira.org.

Issue-specific Information

Global Issue

Official solicitation for our Global Issue takes place between October and November. Only undergraduate students at universities outside of the United States are eligible to submit essays for review.

Winter Issue

Official solicitation for our Winter Issue takes place between December and February. The Winter Issue is open for submissions from any undergraduate student from anywhere in the world.

Spring Issue

Official solicitation for our Spring Issue takes place between January and March. The Spring Issue is open for submissions from any undergraduate student from anywhere in the world.

Acheson Prize Issue

Official solicitation for our Acheson Prize Issue takes place between March and June. The Acheson Prize Issue is open to submissions from Yale undergraduates only.