INSTRUCTIONS FOR AUTHORS

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Submission of manuscripts

Authors should submit articles (with any original illustrations and including all references and notes) to Contemporary-Political-Theory@open.ac.uk in Word format. Authors should retain one copy of their article on file.

Authors without email access should send by post a disc containing a Word file together with three copies of their submission to:

  • Raia Prokhovnik,
    Submissions Editor, Contemporary Political Theory,
    The Open University,
    Department of Politics,
    Walton Hall,
    Milton Keynes MK7 6AA,
    UK.

Authors should confirm at this point that their article is not under consideration for publication elsewhere.

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Presentation of the paper

Articles should be in English, typed in double spacing (including all notes and references). Articles should not normally exceed 8,000 words in length. Print a word count at the end of the text, together with the date of the manuscript. Provide an abstract of 150-200 words with the article, plus a list of up to 6 keywords suitable for indexing and abstracting services. Give authors’ full postal and e-mail addresses as well as telephone and fax numbers.

On acceptance of an article authors are requested to send an electronic version of their article on disk, preferably as a Word file. It is important that your manuscript should be an exact printout of what is on the disk.

Notes

Keep textual notes to a minimum, indicate them with superscript numbers, and provide the note text as a list at the end of the article before the references. Please do not use footnotes.

References in the text

In the text, refer to the author(s) name(s) (without initials, unless there are two authors with the same name) and year of publication. Unpublished data and personal communications should include initials and year. Publications which have not yet appeared are given a probable year of publication and should be checked at proof stage on author query sheet.

  • Example:

    Since Paterson (1983) has shown that ... This is in results attained later (Kramer, 1984, 16). Results have been reported (Robinson, 1989, personal communication) which suggest ....

  • Publications by the same author(s) in the same year should be identified with a, b, c (e.g. 1974a, 1990b) closed up to the year. If there are two authors for a publication, put both names separated by 'and' (not &). If there are more than two authors, put the name of the first author followed by et al. References to material on the internet must be given in brackets in the text, not in the reference list. The full URL must be given.

  • Example:

    www.nature.com/onc/v18/n1/1234567.html

List of references

References are placed in alphabetical order of authors. Examples of correct forms of references for alphabetical style:

  • Paper in journal

    Streeck W, Schmitter PC (1991). From corporatism to transnationalism pluralism: organized interests in the single European market. Politics and Society 19: 133-164.

  • Book

    Diener BJ, Wilkinson P (eds) (1989) Transplantation Techniques. Harvard University Press: Harvard. 80 pp.
    Kay J, Mayer C, Thompson D (1986). Privatization and Regulation. Clarendon Press: Oxford. 54pp

  • Chapter in book

    Harley NH, Vivian L (1974). Invading microorganisms. In: Sodeman WA, Smith A (eds). Mechanisms of Disease, 4th edn. Saunders: Philadelphia. pp 457-472.

  • Conference paper

    Harley NH (1981). Radon risk models. In: Knight AR, Harrad B (eds). Indoor Air and Human Health. Proceedings of the Seventh Life Sciences Symposium; 29-31 October 1981; Knoxville, USA. Elsevier: Amsterdam. pp 69-78.

  • Thesis

    Zito, A. (1994) 'Epistemic communities in European policy-making' Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Political Science, University of Pittsburgh.

  • Newspaper article

    Barber, L.(1993) 'The towering bureaucracy', Financial Times, 21 June.

  • Online documents

    Food and Drug Administration. Pharmaceutical cGMPs for the 21st Century – A risk-based approach. Available at http://www.fda.gov/oc/guidance/gmp.html, accessed 8 November 2003.

Spelling

Use either UK or US spellings consistently throughout. For UK spellings, take as a guide the new edition of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary and the Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors; Websters Collegiate for US spellings. UK spellings will therefore prefer '-ize' to '-ise', as a verb ending (e.g. realize, specialize, recognize, etc.).

Illustrations and tables

Supply tables, figures and plates on separate sheets at the end of the article, with their position within the text clearly indicated on the page where they are introduced. Provide typed captions for figures and plates (including sources and acknowledgements) on a separate sheet. Electronic versions should be saved in separate files to the main body of text and should be saved in either Tiff or Jpeg format.

Present tables with the minimum use of horizontal rules (usually three are sufficient) and avoiding vertical rules excptt in matrices. It is important to provide clear copies of figures (not photocopies or faxes) which can be reproduced by the printer and do not require redrawing. Photographs should be preferably black and white glossy prints with a wide tonal range.

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Proofs

The corresponding author will be sent an email containing a link to an online PDF proof of the article. Please print a copy of the PDF proof, correct within the time period indicated and return as directed. Please make no revisions to the final, edited text, excptt where the copy-editor has requested clarification.

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Offprints

A copy of the printed journal and article offprints (25, to be shared with co-authors) are dispatched to authors shortly after publication.

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Clearing Permissions

Authors are responsible for obtaining permission from copyright holders for reproducing through any medium of communication those illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. Add your acknowledgements to the typescript, preferably in the form of an Acknowledgements section at the end of the paper. Credit the source and copyright of photographs or figures in the accompanying captions.

The journal's policy is to own copyright in all contributions. Before publication authors assign copyright to the Publishers, but retain their rights to republish this material in other works written or edited by themselves subject to full acknowledgement of the original source of publication.

The journal mandates the Copyright Clearance Center in the USA and the Copyright Licensing Agency in the UK to offer centralised licensing arrangements for photocopying in their respective territories.

Books for review

Books for review should be sent to:

  • Simon Tormey
    School of Politics
    University of Nottingham
    University Park Nottingham
    NG7 2RD
    UK