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Author Guidelines

1. Submission of Articles

Articles in English, clearly related to the Journal's editorial focus and scope, are sought in the following four categories: (a) Main Article (about 6000 words), (b) Research Design (about 3000 words), (c) Provocative Idea (about 3000 words), and (d) Review of published material (about 3000 words). The word-limits are only indicative.

Authors should submit articles online, in common word-processing format. Authors should retain a copy of their articles. Submissions should be typed in single spacing (including all quotations, notes, and references). Both British and American spellings are acceptable provided the usage is consistent. The first page should be a Title Page (center-justified) and contain these details: (a) manuscript category (Main Article, Research Design, Provocative Idea, or Review), (b) manuscript title, (c) author details (each author's name, affiliation, and contact details, including postal address, phone/fax numbers, and e-mail), (d) corresponding author, in case of multiple authors (i.e., name of the author to whom all correspondence must be sent), (e) number of words in the entire document, and (f) date of submission (and revision). (The Title Page will be removed by the editor before the article goes for peer review. The rest of the article should not contain the author's name or any hint to the author's identity in order to facilitate blind review. The word "Author" should be used in the reference list instead of the author's name.)

The article itself should start on the second page with the article title, followed by an abstract of about 200 words and four to six keywords suitable for indexing and searching purposes (no abstract/keyword required for reviews). The main body of the text can start immediately thereafter, on the same page. To facilitate the peer-review process, the author's identity should not be revealed, or indirectly suggested, anywhere within the article, although there can be exceptions. Permission to reproduce copyright material in the article must be obtained by the authors before submission.

Submissions must be original, unpublished work not under consideration for publication elsewhere. Authors retain the copyright of all material published in JRP. By submitting an article, the authors agree that the right to electronically reproduce and distribute the article has been given to the publishers of JRP.

2. Writing for JRP

Articles must be written for a relatively wide readership consisting of researchers and research students from different disciplines, and research-inclined individuals from different fields. Any discipline-specific or profession-specific convention or notion should be sufficiently articulated so as to make sense to a wider audience. In this vein, the authors should also be conscious of the multiple cultural and institutional settings within which their writings may be read and interpreted.

Some degree of critical self-reflection by the authors is normally expected in JRP articles. The writing should show an awareness of the constraints and choices that exist before researchers in particular contexts and the considerations that guide research practice in those contexts.

All articles should be edited by the authors carefully for language and typographical deficiencies. If the author's written English is inadequate, then the article should be corrected by a language editor before it is submitted to the journal. Articles with language and typographical deficiencies will not be considered for publication.

JRP is able to provide excellent copyediting service without any charge. However, authors are welcome to pay for this service (at the rate of USD 100 or less per article, depending on their ability to pay)--Payment Instructions

The journal expects all submissions to be authentic writings by the authors. Articles resorting to any form of plagiarism, will be rejected without completing the review procedure and the authors will not be allowed to resubmit them.

3. Tables/Figures

Tables and figures should not be inserted within the main body of the article but included each on a separate page placed at the end of the article. Figures (diagrams, charts, drawings, images, exhibits) and tables (statistical material, tabular comparisons) should be distinguished and numbered in separate sequences, such as Figure 2 and Table 4. Each illustration should have a short caption, at the top in case of tables but at the bottom in case of figures. The original source of the information and explanatory notes, if any, should be cited at the bottom of the table/figure. Computations, if any, should be checked for accuracy. Each illustration should be mentioned in the text (e.g., "as shown in Figure 2"). The location of each illustration should be indicated ("Insert Figure 2 about here"). For figures, the width should be less than 500 pixels.

4. References

The APA system should be followed. When citing references within the text, only the surnames of the authors are used with the year of publication, for example, "Bricmont (1996) has clarified some common confusions" or "as another study of bias in research (Hammersley & Gomm, 1997) indicates," and so forth. Page numbers are necessary when directly quoting from a source or paraphrasing its ideas.

A detailed and complete reference list should appear at the end of the main text of the article. The reference list should include every work cited in the text, published or unpublished. Please ensure that dates, spellings, and titles used in the text are consistent with those listed in the reference list. The content and form of the reference list should conform to the examples given below.

Book:
Gibbons, M., Limoges, C., Nowotny, H., Schwartzman, S., Scott, P., & Trow, M. (1994). The new production of knowledge. London: Sage.

Article in Edited Volume:
Bricmont, J. (1996). Science of chaos or chaos in science? In P. R. Gross, N. Levitt, & M. W. Lewis (Eds), The flight from science and reason (Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Volume 775) (pp. 131-175). New York: The New York Academy of Sciences.

Journal Article:
Ormerod, R. J. (1998). Beyond internal OR groups. Journal of Operational Research Society, 49(4) (Special Issue: The foundation, development, and current practice of OR), 420-429.

Journal Article--Online:
Hammersley, M., & Gomm, R. (1997). Bias in social research. Sociological Research Online, 2(1). Retrieved January 20, 2004, from http://www.socresonline.org.uk/socresonline/2/1/2.html

Journal Article--From Electronic Database:
Eisenhardt, K. M. (1989). Building theories from case study research. Academy of Management Review, 14(4), 532-550. Retrieved January 20, 2004 from EBSCO database.

Web Page--No Publication Date:
Banathy, B. H. (n.d.). The evolution of systems inquiry. Retrieved January 20, 2004, from http://www.isss.org/primer/data/003evsys.htm

Web Page--No Author:
APA referencing. (2004). Retrieved February 14, 2004, from http://lisweb.curtin.edu.au/referencing/apa.html

5. Style Guideline

It would be helpful if contributors were to bear in mind the following points of style when preparing their article for the Journal of Research Practice.

Justification of Text: Use the unjustified (or left-justified) mode.

Headings: Headings should be short and numbered in the decimal format, such as 3.2.1. Roman numerals, i.e., (i), (ii), can be used for a fourth-level heading, if required. Set all the headings in Title Case.

Notes: Avoid footnotes and endnotes.

Punctuation: Use a single (not a double) space after a full stop, and after commas, colons, semicolons. Do not put a space before a question mark, or before any other closing quotation mark.

Spelling: Be consistent in your use of either British or American spelling.

Initial Capitalisation: Please keep capitalisation to a minimum. When possible, use lower case for government, church, state, party, volume; north, south, and the like are only capitalised if used as part of a recognised place name, for example, Western Australia, South Africa; use lower case for general terms, for example, western India, south-west of Paris.

Full Stops: Use full stops after abbreviations (p.m., e.g., i.e., etc.) and contractions where the end of the word is cut (p., ed., ch.). Omit the full points in acronyms (USA, BBC, NATO, plc), after contractions that end in the last letter of the word (Dr, Mr, St, edn, Ltd) and after metric units (cm, m, km, kg). Note especially: ed. eds; vol. vols; no. nos

Italics: Indicate italics by using the italic font, and use for titles of books, journals, newspapers, plays, films, poems, and paintings. Extensive use of italic for emphasis should be avoided.

Quotations: Use double quotation marks to introduce a word/phrase used as an ironic comment, as slang, or as an invented expression, only the first time it appears. Also use double quotation marks to set off the title of an article or chapter when it is mentioned in the text (such quotation marks not required in the reference list). Place periods and commas within closing single or double quotation marks. Use double quotation marks for quoted material within the text; single quotation marks should only be used for quotes within quotes. Do not use leader dots at the beginning or end of a quotation unless the sense absolutely demands. When required, used three leader dots. Quotations of over 40 words should be extracted and indented; quotation marks are unnecessary here.

Numerals: In general, spell out numbers under 10; but use numerals for measurements ("3 km") and ages ("8 years old"). Insert a comma for both thousands and tens of thousands (1,000 and 20,000). Always give page numbers and dates in full (pp. 245-253; 1900-1999). Use the percentage sign only in figures and tables; spell out per cent in the text using a numeral for the number ("7.3 per cent").

Dates: Set out as follows: 20 January 2004 (no comma) or January 20, 2004, on 25 June, or on the 25th; 1990s (do not spell out, no apostrophe); nineteenth century (not 19th century) and insert hyphen when used adjectivally ("seventeenth-century innovation").

Em Dash, En Dash, Hyphen: Follow the common practice of single hyphen or double hyphen. Use double hyphen for parenthetical remarks or abrupt changes of thought. Do not include spaces around or between the hyphens. Example: "Systems methodology--a vital part of systems inquiry--has two domains . . . (Banathy, n.d.)." In other cases, use a hyphen. Do not include spaces around the hyphen. Be consistent in the hyphenation of words. Do not alternate, for example, between co-ordination and coordination.

Review: Reviews must also have a title, a title page, and follow all the style guidelines. Complete bibliographic details of the material under review must be given, for example:

The Design Way. By Harold G. Nelson and Erik Stolterman. Published by Educational Technology Publications, Engelwood Cliffs, New Jersey, USA, 2003, 327 pp., ISBN 0 877 78305 5, $55.01.

Last updated: 3 Feb 2007

 

Submission Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.

  1. I, the author, represent and warrant that the material I am submitting for publication (the Work):
    a) does not contain any libelous or unlawful statements;
    b) does not infringe on any copyright, privacy rights or any other proprietary rights;
    c) has not been previously published elsewhere in its entirety. In the event, the Work contains material that has been previously published, such excerpted material has been attributed to the proper author(s) and identifies where it has been previously published; and
    d) is my sole, original work, or in the case the Work is prepared jointly by more than one author, I warrant that I have been authorized by all co-authors to submit the Work on their behalf.
  2. I agree to hold harmless, indemnify and defend the journal publishers, its employees, contractors and agents from any and all losses, damages, expenses, claims, suits and demands of whatever nature (including legal fees and expenses on a solicitor client basis) resulting from any breach of the above warranties.
  3. By submitting the Work, I agree that the right to reproduce and distribute the Work has been given to the journal and its publishers and that they may authorize third parties to republish, index or share the Work in alternate formats. However, I understand that I as author will retain copyright of the Work and may reuse and redistribute the Work.
 

Copyright Notice

Copyright © 2005-2009 Journal of Research Practice (ISSN 1712 851X) and the authors

The copyright of the material published in Journal of Research Practice (JRP) is held primarily by the respective author(s). By agreeing to publish their work in JRP, they permit the journal (JRP) to electronically reproduce and disseminate their work over the Internet. However, the authors retain all rights over their articles, including self-archival, reproduction, commercial use, etc. After the authors, the copyright passes over to JRP, unless transferred by the authors to any other designated person or entity.

Readers are welcome to use these material with due acknowledgment to the source, as indicated in the suggested citation for each article. The readers can also print and make copies of JRP articles for the purpose of education, learning, and review. However, the articles cannot be used for any commercial purpose without the consent of the respective author(s).

If you are referring to an article published in JRP, please inform the respective author(s) and/or Editors as a matter of courtesy. Similarly, if you are giving a hypertext link to the JRP Web site, please inform the Editors.

Archival agencies, libraries, publishers, and other agencies associated with academic/scholarly publishing are welcome to contact the Editors to discuss any specific proposals they may have. If the proposal involves a commercial interest, they would be expected to share a part of their benefit with JRP.

 

Privacy Statement

The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.

 


ISSUE NAVIGATION   Vol. 1, 2005 (1.1, 1.2) Vol. 2, 2006 (2.1, 2.2) Vol. 3, 2007 (3.1, 3.2)
Vol. 4, 2008 (4.1, 4.2) Vol. 5, 2009 (5.1, 5.2) ALL ISSUES (2005-2009)