Author Guidelines
Submissions should be made electronically through this website.
Please ensure that you consider the following guidelines when preparing your manuscript:
Length- Research articles must be between 5,000 and 8,000 words, including all notes but not including the reference list/bibliography. Under special circumstances, articles up to 10,000 words may be accepted for publication. Authors are encouraged to keep notes to an absolute minimum, such as in cases where crucial clarifying information needs to be conveyed.
- Practice notes must be between 2,000 and 4,000 words, including all notes but not including the reference list/bibliography. As with articles, please keep notes to the bare minimum.
- Commentaries should be between 1,000 and 2,000 words. In most circumstances, notes and reference lists/bibliographies should not be included. Please note that commentaries are welcome from distinguished specialists and that readers interested in submitting a commentary piece should discuss the content with the editors before submitting a manuscript.
Capitalisation of titles- Capitalise all nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs and subordinate conjunctions (i.e. as, because, although).
- Use lowercase for all articles, coordinate conjunctions and prepositions.
Examples:- Slip-Sliding on a Yellow Brock Road: Stabilization Efforts in Afghanistan
- Globalisation with a Twist: Stability, Volatility and Fragility All in One
NOTE: Tier 1 subheads should follow the same rule as the titles. For lower-level subheads, only capitalise first letter (plus proper nouns). LanguageArticles must be submitted in English. Authors are welcome to use American or British spellings and grammar as long as they are used consistently. Some of the key differences between English and American English include the following:
- Programme (UK) vs. Program (US)
- Labour (UK) vs. Labor (US)
- Centre (UK) vs. Center (US)
- Demobilise (UK) vs. Demobilize (US)
- 13 January 2011 (UK) vs. January 13, 2011 (US)
Please note that when referring to proper nouns and normal institutional titles, you should always use the official, original spelling. For instance, it is
World Health Organization, not
World Health Organisation.GrammarAs with language, American or English spelling and grammar rules may be used as long as they are used consistently. For instance, you may use a serial comma (red, white, and blue) or not (red, white and blue).
NumbersWe are happy for authors to use either words or figures to represent large figures (i.e. one million or 1,000,000) as long as the usage is consistent within an article. For numbers between zero and twelve we would recommend using words rather than figures, except for when it is a part of a dataset or presented in a table.
When referring to a percentage, please use the words ‘per cent’ rather than the symbol %, again except for when it is a part of a dataset or presented in a table.
Currencies- Use £ for British Pound Sterling, € for Euro, e.g. £50, €100.
- Use US$, C$, NZ$, A$ to distinguish between the different dollar currencies.
Quotation marks
Please use single quotation marks except for quotes within another speech, in which case double quotation marks are used.
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. You do not need to spell out abbreviations for US, UK, EU, UN and DC, as in Washington, DC.
Images & Figures
Unless it provides key information related to your submission, do not include photographs/pictures. Such images may ultimately be removed from your piece at the editors’ discretion. Figures, including graphs and diagrams, are, however, acceptable if they are professionally and clearly presented. If a figure is not easy to understand or does not appear to be of a suitable quality, you will be asked to re-render or omit it.
NOTE: Place your images, figures and tables (see below) exactly where you would like them to appear in the article. Do not place figures at the end of the article or in a separate document. if possible submit figure files in colour and at a resolution of at least 150dpi (300dpi preferred), and the file size should not be more than 20MB per file.
Tables
The same principles which apply to figures apply to tables. They should be necessary and should not repeat significant pieces of information already included in the text.
Use of footnotes/endnotes
Please use endnotes rather than footnotes (which we will refer to as ‘Notes’ at the end of the article, before ‘References’). All notes should be kept to the bare minimum and only where crucial clarifying information needs to be conveyed. Avoid using endnotes for purposes of referencing; use in-text citations instead.
In-text citations
Authors are strongly encouraged to use parenthetical citations according to the Chicago style (Adam 1984: 120ff.) 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. For instance, do NOT do the following (International Committee of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies 2000); instead, you should write (ICRC 2000). Also, please do not include URLs (web addresses) in parenthetical citations.
References
References containing works cited within an article will be listed at the end of the article, in alphabetical order of authors’ surnames). All reading materials should be included in ‘References’ – even works which may not have been cited within an article but which the author wishes to share with the reader (for these, the author should provide additional information in endnotes explaining the relevance of the work).
References
This journal uses the Harvard (author-date) system – see below for examples of how to format:
Books:
Adam, D J 1984 Stakeholder analysis. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Silverman, D F and Propp, K K (eds.) 1990 The active interview. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Achebe, C 1995 Colonialist Criticism. In: Ashcroft, B et al The Post Colonial Studies Reader. London: Routledge. pp. 57–61.
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.
Journal articles:Martin, L 2010 Bombs, bodies and biopolitics: Securitizing the subject at airport security. Social and Cultural Geography, 11(1): 17-34. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14649360903414585
NOTE: Please include DOIs for journal articles where possible.
Newspaper articles:Tate, P 2007 Illicit organ trade increasing. The Jordan Times, 6 June, p. 3.
Conference papers:Lynch, M 2003 Dialogue in an age of terror. In: The Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Philadelphia, PA on 18 August 2003, pp. 4-7.
Organisational publications/Grey literature:World Health Organization 2010 The world health report – Health systems financing: the path to universal coverage. Geneva, Switzerland: WHO.
Theses and dissertations:Yudis, A 2004 Failed responsibility of the media in the war on Iraq. Unpublished thesis (PhD), University of Manchester.
Webpages / PDFs:Pascual, Amb. C 2005 Stabilization and Reconstruction: Building peace in a hostile environment. Prepared statement to Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, 16 June 2005. Available at http://2001-2009.state.gov/s/crs/rls/rm/48644.htm [Last accessed 14 August 2012].
However, if following this particular system presents real difficulties then please contact the editors at info@stabilityjournal.org so that we can consider your particular circumstances.
Author contact detailsWhilst there will not be a space for full author biographies in the article itself, it is our practice to insert the affiliations and contact details in the space (ideally between 3-6 lines) on the bottom left hand corner of the first page of each article. Please include full postal and email addresses.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.