Author Guidelines
Article types | Structure | Permissions |Language & text | Data & Symbols | Figures & Tables | References
Submissions should be made electronically through this website. Once submitted, the author can track the submission and communicate with the editors via the online journal management system.
Please ensure that you consider the following guidelines when preparing your manuscript. Failure to do so may delay processing your submission.
Article types
- Research articles must describe the outcomes and application of unpublished original research. These should make a substantial contribution to knowledge and understanding in the subject matter and should be supported by relevant figures and tabulated data. Research articles should be 6,000 - 8,000 words in length.
- Commentaries are overview articles and should reflect upon or critique a specific 'happening' such as a release of a major study or other notable occurrence related to journal focus. Commentary articles should be 1,500 - 3,000 words in length.
- Interventions are similar to commentaries but more polemic pieces on current issues or events or aspects of specialist topics. They may also include pedagogically orientated pieces where a particular case study may inform a current issue. These should be 1,500 - 3,000 words in length.
- Interviews conducted with a notable subject should be topical-, theory- and issue-led and may be with an academic, professional or anyone with relevance to the themes and concerns of the journal. These should be 1,000-1,500 words in length.
- Reviews can focus on one or more book titles and may also touch upon current controversies or the historical development of studies and critically engage with the relevant body of extant literature. Review articles may also consider other documents or media, conferences, key journal material and should be between 1,000 and 1,500 words in length.
- Visual Essays are visually-led pieces with accompanying text that illustrate material that might speak to larger Anthropocenes concerns from the margins or from an unusual angle. Any accompanying text should be between 1000-4000 words long. The visual material can be images (typically between 10-12 images) or in the form of a video not exceeding 12 minutes. Images should be available in high resolution (300 dpi) at the size to be reproduced in the journal’s standard PDF page. Videos should be hosted on Vimeo and/or YouTube and accessed by link. It is recommended that videos not exceed 2 GB in file size due to data tariffs that might inhibit access for viewers in certain formats.
- Audio Essays are material whose key element is an mp3 sound file. Audio material should not exceed 15 minutes (in total) and 12 minutes (per single file). Text material can be between 1000-3500 words long.
- Practice pieces are creative forms of expression, often from a practitioner’s point of view, that might require specific imagery, digital support (e.g. complex hyperlinking, supplementary audio/visual material up to 10 minutes long), other supplementary files or otherwise employ an experimental format. Practice pieces are welcome, subject to publisher capability and approval, and should be discussed in advance with the journal’s editors.
All word limits include referencing and citation.
Structure
Title page
To ensure blind peer review, please only list the title and abstract on the submitted manuscript file.
The names of all authors, affiliations, contact details, biography (optional) and the corresponding author details must be completed online as part of the submission process. All authors must fit within the journal's definition of an author, available here.
Author names should include a forename and a surname. Forenames cannot include only initials.
- J. Bloggs is not preferred. The full name, Joe Bloggs is required (this will enhance the 'findability' of your publication).
The affiliation should ideally include ‘Department, Institution, City, Country’. However only the Institution and Country are mandatory.
Abstract
Research articles must have the main text prefaced by an abstract of no more than 250 words summarising the main arguments and conclusions of the article. This must have the heading ‘Abstract’ and be easily identified from the start of the main text.
A list of up to six key words may be placed below the abstract (optional).
The Abstract and Keywords should also be added to the metadata when making the initial online submission.
Main text
The body of the submission should be structured in a logical and easy to follow manner. A clear introduction section should be given that allows non-specialists in the subject an understanding of the publication and a background of the issue(s) involved. Methods, results, discussion and conclusion sections may then follow to clearly detail the information and research presented.
Up to three level headings may be present and must be clearly identifiable using different font sizes, bold or italics. We suggest using Headings 1, 2 and 3 in MS-Word’s ‘Style’ section.
Data Accessibility
If data, structured methods or code used in the research project have been made openly available, a statement should be added to inform the reader how/where to access these files. This should include the repository location and the DOI linking to it. Read our reproducibility guide for more information on best practice and maximising the impact of your open data.
If it is not possible to use a repository then the journal can host supplementary files. Such files must be listed in the Data Accessibility section, with a corresponding number, title and optional description. Ideally, the supplementary files are also cited in the main text.
e.g. Supplementary file 1: Appendix. Scientific data related to the experiments.
Supplementary files will not be typeset so they must be provided in their final form and must be submitted for review during the original submission process. They will be assigned a DOI and linked to from the publication by the publisher.
NOTE: If data used in the research project has not been made available, a statement confirming this should be added, along with reasoning why.
The journal's data policy is available on the Editorial Policies page.
Ethics and consent (if applicable)
Research involving human subjects, human material, or human data, must have been performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Where applicable, studies must have been approved by an appropriate ethics committee and the authors should include a statement within the article text detailing this approval, including the name of the ethics committee and reference number of the approval. The identity of the research subject(s) should be anonymised whenever possible. For research involving human subjects, informed consent to participate in the study must be obtained from participants (or their legal guardian) and added to this statement. If a study involving human subjects/tissue/data was exempt from requiring ethical approval, a confirmation statement from the relevant body should be included within the submission.
Experiments using animals must follow national standards of care. For further information, click here.
Acknowledgements (optional)
Any acknowledgements must be headed and in a separate paragraph, placed after the main text but before the reference list.
Funding Information (if applicable)
Should the research have received a funding grant then the grant provider and grant number should be detailed.
Competing interests
If any of the authors have any competing interests then these must be declared. A short paragraph should be placed before the references. Guidelines for competing interests can be found here. If there are no competing interests to declare then the following statement should be present: The author(s) has/have no competing interests to declare.
Authors' contributions
A sentence or a short paragraph detailing the roles that each author held to contribute to the authorship of the submission. Individuals listed must fit within the definition of an author, as per our authorship guidelines.
References
All references cited within the submission must be listed at the end of the main text file.
Permissions
The author is responsible for obtaining all permissions required prior to submission of the manuscript. Permission and owner details should be mentioned for all third-party content included in the submission or used in the research.
If a method or tool is introduced in the study, including software, questionnaires, and scales, the license this is available under and any requirement for permission for use should be stated. If an existing method or tool is used in the research, it is the author's responsibility to check the license and obtain the necessary permissions. Statements confirming that permission was granted should be included in the Materials and Methods section.
Language & Text
Capitalisation
For the submission title:
Capitalise all nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs and subordinate conjunctions (i.e. as, because, although). Use lowercase for all articles, coordinate conjunctions and prepositions.
- Slip-Sliding on a Yellow Brick Road: Stabilisation Efforts in Afghanistan
Headings within the main text:
First level headings in the text should follow the same rule as the main title.
For lower-level subheadings, only capitalise first letter and proper nouns.
Headings should be under 75 characters.
Spelling
Submissions must be made in English. UK English spelling is standard for the journal.
When referring to proper nouns and normal institutional titles, the official, original spelling must be used.
- World Health Organization, not World Health Organisation
Grammar
English grammar rules are used. In some circumstances the journal editors may agree to US grammar as long as they are used consistently and match the spelling format (see above).
Font
The font used should be commonly available and in an easily readable size. This may be changed during the typesetting process.
Underlined text should be avoided whenever possible.
Bold or italicised text to emphasise a point are permitted, although should be restricted to minimal occurrences to maximise their efficiency.
Lists
Use bullet points to denote a list without hierarchy or order of value. If the list indicates a specific sequence then a numbered list must be used.
Lists should be used sparingly to maximise their impact.
Quotation marks
Use single quotation marks except for quotes within another speech, in which case double quotation marks are used.
Quotations that are longer than three lines in length must be in an indented paragraph separate from the main text.
The standard, non-italicised font must be used for all quotes.
It must be clear from the text and/or citation where the quote is sourced. If quoting from material that is under copyright then permission will need to be obtained from the copyright holder for material that is not just very short amounts of text.
Acronyms & Abbreviations
With abbreviations, the crucial goal is to ensure that the reader – particularly one who may not be fully familiar with the topic or context being addressed – is able to follow along. Spell out almost all acronyms on first use, indicating the acronym in parentheses immediately thereafter. Use the acronym for all subsequent references.
- Research completed by the World Health Organization (WHO) shows …
A number of abbreviations are so common that they do not require the full text on the first instance. Examples of these can be found here.
Abbreviations should usually be in capital letters without full stops.
- USA, not U.S.A
Common examples from Latin origin do not follow this rule and should be lower case and can include full stops.
- e.g., i.e., etc.
Use of footnotes/endnotes
Use endnotes rather than footnotes (we refer to these as ‘Notes’ in the online publication). These will appear at the end of the main text, before ‘References’.
All notes should be used only where crucial clarifying information needs to be conveyed.
Avoid using notes for purposes of referencing, with in-text citations used instead. If in-text citations cannot be used, a source can be cited as part of a note.
Please insert the endnote marker after the end punctuation.
Data & Symbols
Symbols
Symbols are permitted within the main text and datasets as long as they are commonly in use or have explanatory definition on their first usage.
Hyphenation, em and en dashes
There is no set rule on the use of hyphenation between words, as long as they are consistently used.
Em dashes should be used sparingly. If they are present, they should denote emphasis, change of thought or interruption to the main sentence and can replace commas, parentheses, colons or semicolons.
- The president’s niece—daughter of his younger brother—caused a media scandal when…
En dashes can be used to replace ‘to’ when indicating a range. No space should surround the dash.
- 10-25 years
- pp. 10-65
Numbers
For numbers zero to nine please spell the whole words. Please use figures for numbers 10 or higher.
We are happy for authors to use either words or figures to represent large whole figures (i.e. one million or 1,000,000) as long as the usage is consistent throughout the text.
If the sentence includes a series of numbers then figures must be used in each instance.
- Artefacts were found at depths of 5, 9, and 29 cm.
If the number appears as part of a dataset, in conjunction with a symbol or as part of a table then the figure must be used.
- This study confirmed that 5% of…
If a sentence starts with a number it must be spelt, or the sentence should be re-written so that it no longer starts with the number.
- Fifteen examples were found to exist…
- The result showed that 15 examples existed…
Do not use a comma for a decimal place.
- 2.43 NOT 2,43
Numbers that are less than zero must have ‘0’ precede the decimal point.
- 0.24 NOT .24
Units of measurement
Symbols following a figure to denote a unit of measurement must be taken from the latest SI brochure. See https://www.bipm.org/utils/common/pdf/si-brochure/SI-Brochure-9-EN.pdf for the full brochure.
Formula
Formulae must be proofed carefully by the author. Editors will not edit formulae. If special software has been used to create formulae, the way it is laid out is the way they will appear in the publication.
Figures & Tables
Figures
Figures, including graphs and diagrams, must be professionally and clearly presented. If a figure is not easy to understand or does not appear to be of a suitable quality, the editor may ask to re-render or omit it.
All figures must be cited within the main text, in consecutive order using Arabic numerals (e.g. Figure 1, Figure 2, etc.).
Each figure must have an accompanying descriptive main title. This should clearly and concisely summarise the content and/or use of the figure image. A short additional figure legend is optional to offer a further description.
- Figure 1: 1685 map of London.
- Figure 1: 1685 map of London. Note the addition of St Paul’s Cathedral, absent from earlier maps.
Figure titles and legends should be placed within the text document, either after the paragraph of their first citation, or as a list after the references.
The source of the image should be included, along with any relevant copyright information and a statement of authorisation (if needed).
- Figure 1: Firemen try to free workers buried under piles of concrete and metal girders. Photo: Claude-Michel Masson. Reproduced with permission of the photographer.
If your figure file includes text then please present the font as Ariel, Helvetica, or Verdana. This will mean that it matches the typeset text.
NOTE: All figures must be uploaded separately as supplementary files during the submission process, if possible in colour and at a resolution of at least 300dpi. Each file should not be more than 20MB. Standard formats accepted are: JPG, TIFF, GIF, PNG, EPS. For line drawings, please provide the original vector file (e.g. .ai, or .eps).
Tables
Tables must be created using a word processor's table function, not tabbed text.
Tables should be included in the manuscript. The final layout will place the tables as close to their first citation as possible.
All tables must be cited within the main text, and numbered with Arabic numerals in consecutive order (e.g. Table 1, Table 2, etc.).
Each table must have an accompanying descriptive title. This should clearly and concisely summarise the content and/or use of the table. A short additional table legend is optional to offer a further description of the table. The table title and legend should be placed underneath the table.
Tables should not include:
- Rotated text
- Colour to denote meaning (it will not display the same on all devices)
- Images
- Vertical or diagonal lines
- Multiple parts (e.g. ‘Table 1a’ and ‘Table 1b’). These should either be merged into one table, or separated into ‘Table 1’ and ‘Table 2’.
NOTE: If there are more columns than can fit on a single page, then the table will be placed horizontally on the page. If it still can't fit horizontally on a page, the table will be broken into two.
References
In-text citations
Every use of information from other sources must be cited in the text so that it is clear that external material has been used.
If the author is already mentioned in the main text then the year should follow the name within parenthesis.
- Both Jones (2013) and Brown (2010) showed that …
If the author name is not mentioned in the main text then the surname and year should be inserted, in parenthesis, after the relevant text. Multiple citations should be separated by semi-colon and follow alphabetical order.
- The statistics clearly show this to be untrue (Brown 2010; Jones 2013).
If three or fewer authors are cited from the same citation then all should be listed. If four or more authors are part of the citation then ‘et al.’ should follow the first author name.
- (Jones, Smith & Brown 2008)
- (Jones et al. 2008)
If citations are used from the same author and the same year, then a lowercase letter, starting from ‘a’, should be placed after the year.
- (Jones 2013a; Jones 2013b)
If specific pages are being cited then the page number should follow the year, after a colon.
- (Brown 2004: 65; Jones 2013: 143)
For publications authored and published by organisations, use the short form of the organisation’s name or its acronym in lieu of the full name.
- (ICRC 2000) NOT (International Committee of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies 2000)
Please do not include URLs in parenthetical citations, but rather cite the author or page title and include all details, including the URL, in the reference list.
Reference list
All citations must be listed at the end of the text file, in alphabetical order of authors’ surnames.
All reading materials should be included in ‘References’ – works which have not been cited within the main text, but which the author wishes to share with the reader, must be cited as additional information in endnotes explaining the relevance of the work. This will ensure that all works within the reference list are cited within the text.
NOTE: If multiple works by the same author are being listed, please re-type the author’s name out for each entry, rather than using a long dash.
NOTE: DOIs should be included for all reference entries, where possible.
Reference format
This journal uses a style based on a form of Chicago. Please see below for sample references.
Please try to include DOIs especially for journal articles.
REFERENCES
Capitalisation
Journal articles, journal titles, book titles and book chapters all use significant caps. Web, blog, magazine articles use lower case. PhDs and government reports use significant caps.
EXAMPLE REFERENCES
Artwork (painting)
Eisenman, Nicole. 2011. Sloppy Bar Room Kiss, 2011, oil on canvas, 99 × 122 cm. Credit: Nicole Eisenman, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects.
Book
Harries, K. (1997). The Ethical Function of Architecture. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
[State one place of publication only, with US state sbbreviation if in USA but not elsewhere with exception of New York which is New York only. Countries of publication not listed]
Chapter in Book
Weizman, E. (2014). Introduction: Forensis. In Forensic Architecture (Ed.) Forensis: The Architecture of Public Truth (pp. 9–32). Berlin: Sternberg Press
Additional Names
Include up to three names only e.g. Smith, T, Patel, S and Chen, Y (1922) etc. thereafter with more names would be Smith, T. et al. (1922)
Government Report
UK Government Department for Transport. (2018). Airports National Policy Statement. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/airports -national-policy-statement. Retrieved Feb 21, 2020.
Journal Article
Lemke, T. (2015). New Materialisms: Foucault and the ‘Government of Things’. Theory, Culture & Society, 32(4), 3–25. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276 413519340
Newspaper Article
Busby, M. (2019). Body of plane stowaway found in London garden. The Guardian. July 1, 2019. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/ jul/01/body-of-suspected-plane-stowaway-found-insouth-london-garden. Retrieved July 1, 2019
Reports
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2015). CDC Global Health – Stories – Emergency Response and Recovery: Typhoon Haiyan, Philippines. Accessed 7 November 2019: https://www.cdc.gov/globalhealth/ stories/typhoon_haiyan.htm
Thesis
Adams, S. (2019). The Biopolitics of Adaptation to a Changing Climate: Constructions of the Adaptive Capacity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. PhD thesis. Sydney: University of New South Wales
DOI
Currently used only at end of references where supplied in this form. DOI: https:// doi.org/10.1177/0305829818771277. These are not obligatory but where regularly used please try supply any that are missing.
Retrieved:
Used if date provided. Date retrieved preferred but not obligatory.
Available at:
Used if no date provided and in case of additional (as well as print) online version.