Submissions

Author Guidelines

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 the processing of your submission.

All word limits exclude referencing and citation. Where relevant, approvals from human or animal research ethics committees or institutional review boards should be cited in the methods.

Article Type

Author Guidelines

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 the processing of your submission.

All word limits exclude referencing and citation. Where relevant, approvals from human or animal research ethics committees or institutional review boards should be cited in the methods.

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.

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

Research articles must have the main text prefaced by an abstract of no more than 350 words summarising the aims, methods, results, 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 five Keywords must be placed below the abstract. 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 should allow non-specialists in the subject an understanding of the publication and a background of the issue(s) involved. Aims, methods, results, discussion and conclusion may then follow to provide details of the information and research being presented.

Supplementary Files (optional)
Any supplementary/additional files that should link to the main publication must be listed, 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.

Note: additional files will not be typeset so must be provided in their final form. They will be assigned a DOI and linked to from the publication.

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).

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 (optional)
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 (optional)
A sentence or a short paragraph detailing the roles that each author held to contribute to the authorship of the submission.

References
All references cited within the submission must be listed at the end of the main text file in Vancouver format (numbered).

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: Stabilization 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. Authors are welcome to use American or British spellings as long as they are used consistently throughout the whole of the submission.

• Colour (UK) vs. Color (US)

When referring to proper nouns and normal institutional titles, the official, original spelling must be used.

• World Health Organization, not World Health Organisation

Grammar
American or English grammar rules may be used as long as they are used consistently and match the spelling format (see above). For instance, you may use a serial comma or not.

• red, white, and blue OR red, white and blue

Font
The font used should be Times New Roman, 12 point. Underlined text should be avoided whenever possible. Bold text or italicised text to emphasise a point are permitted, but 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.

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 http://www.bipm.org/utils/common/pdf/si_brochure_8_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, 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 [Numeric]

Every use of information from other sources must be cited in the text so that it is clear that external material has been used. Each time a reference is being cited it should be in Vancouver style—represented by sequential numbers held within square brackets, within punctuation. Each citation should be a unique number. The reference list at the end of the publication will reflect this numbered list, with full reference data for each entry.

• This is citing an existing source [1].

If citing multiple sources at the same point, separate the citations with a comma.

• This is citing multiple existing sources [2,3,4].

Reference list
All citations must be listed at the end of the text file, in Vancouver style (numbered).

All reading materials should be included in ‘References’—works that have not been cited within the main text.

NOTE: DOIs should be included for all reference entries, where possible.

Reference format

This journal uses the Vancouver system—see below for examples of how to format references.

• Books:

Author AA, Author BB. Title. Place of publication: Publisher; Year.

Leaver BL, Ehrman M, Shekhtman, B. Achieving success in second language acquisition. Cambridge; Cambridge University Press; 2005.

• Chapters within books:

Author AA. Chapter title. In: Editor A, Editor B (eds.) Title of book. Series title and number and edition (if appropriate). Place of publication: Publisher; Year. Page numbers.

Jacobs GM, Hall S. Implementing cooperative learning. In Richards JC and Renandya WA (eds) Methodology in language teaching: An anthology of current practice. Cambridge; Cambridge University Press. 2002. pp. 52-58.

• Journal articles:

Author AA, Author BB. Article title. Journal title. Year; Volume(issue): Pages. DOI

Radford M. Aesthetic and religious awareness among pupils: similarities and differences. British Journal of Music Education. 2001; 18(2): 151-159. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0265051701000249

• Newspaper articles (online):

Author A. Article title. Newspaper. Day Month Year of publication. URL (assessed day month year).

McMahon S. Fund new Victorian era. Herald Sun. (19 July 2010).http://www.heraldsun.com.au/ (assessed 02 March 2012).

• Newspaper articles (print):

Author A. Article title. Newspaper. Day month year of publication: page number.

Parker K. Plea for languages. Koori Mail, 3 December 2008: 19–20.

• Conference papers:

Author A. Title of paper. In: Editor AA, Editor BB. (eds.) Conference proceedings title, Place of publication: Publisher; Year. Page numbers.

Wittke M. Design, construction, supervision and long-term behaviour of tunnels in swelling rock. In: Van Cotthem A, Charlier R, Thimus JF, Tshibangu JP. (eds.) Eurock2006: multiphysics coupling and long-term behaviour in rock mechanics. In Proceedings of the International Symposium of the International Society for Rock Mechanics, EUROCK2006, 9–12 May 2006, Liège, Belgium. London: Taylor and Francis; 2006. 125–156.

• Organisational publications/Grey literature:

Organisation. Title. Series/publication number. Place of publication: Publisher; Year. Retrieved from (if online).

Department of Health. Choosing Health: making healthier choices easier, CM6374. London: Stationery Office; 2001.

• Theses and dissertations:

Author AA. Thesis title. Type of thesis. Academic institution; Year. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/xx.xxxxxxxx

Murray BP. Prior knowledge, two teaching approaches for metacognition: Main idea and summarization strategies in reading. PhD thesis. Fordham University, New York. 2008.

• Webpages / PDFs:

Author AA. Title of work. URL (accessed date month year).

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. Australia's health 2004.