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Guidelines for Journal Authors

Journal articles will in general be derived from original research. They go beyond the review or summary of existing thinking to develop a substantive reasoned argument. In keeping with the breadth of our mission, we encourage articles that stretch prevailing academic constructions of the nature of, and relationships between research, advocacy, and civic discourse.

You should write in a clear, direct style appropriate for an informed general audience. Articles should engage the interest of a non-specialist reader who should be able to grasp both the significance of the argument and the evidence and reasoning presented to support it. Please keep jargon and technical abbreviations to a minimum, and explain any at first use. The Editors encourage prospective authors to discuss proposed papers with us prior to submission.

Journal submissions are peer reviewed by multiple anonymous referees. Submissions must be original, not previously published nor being considered for publication elsewhere. Journal articles are recognised in the Commonwealth Department of Education, Science and Training’s Register of Refereed Journals (2004) as satisfying the refereeing requirements for its Higher Education Research Data Collection.

There are two issues of the Journal per year. Authors will be asked to assign to the Australian Review of Public Affairs permission to offer content to abstracting and indexing services, now or in the future. Authors are responsible for obtaining permission to reproduce materials from third parties. Please see our Mission page regarding details of our open access mission and author copyright.

The Australian Review of Public Affairs is indexed by the Australian Public Affairs Information Service (APAIS), and archived by the National Library of Australia.

Please note that expeditious review and (upon acceptance) publication of manuscripts relies on authors complying with the following detailed guidelines in every particular.

MECHANICS OF SUBMISSION

Submissions to ARPA’s Journal should be sent in Word format, attached to an email addressed to the Assistant Editor, Rhondda Hollis. Authors should remove all identifying information from the document, including obvious self-citations. The full name and affiliations of all authors should be included in the email accompanying the article. Submitted articles must conform to the ARPA style guide, set out in detail below.

COVERING INFORMATION

All submissions must contain the following details.

Title

This should be accurate, concise, and informative to a general reader. Where the title is lengthy, an abbreviated title only may appear on the cover page, although the full title will appear with the article itself.

Abstract

Journal articles must include an abstract of up to 100 words. The abstract should stand alone, enabling a reader to decide whether or not to open the file containing the article in full.

Biographical synopsis

Up to 50 words for each author. As a minimum, you should include current professional affiliation and an email address for publication. You may also like to name your latest book or your research interests.

STYLE

Writing for a broad audience

Because the Australian Review of Public Affairs aims to reach a wide audience, the Editors emphasise strong, clear writing. Like the Editors of Political Studies,

We favour the application of a strict ‘need to know’ criterion, where authors picture their audience and ask what exactly it is that they will need to know in order to assess the key message of their paper. Once this question has been answered, it should guide the whole presentation of the paper from conception through to structure through to referencing and the explanation of data analysis or formal elements (where appropriate) (Political Studies, n.d.).

Language should be as precise and concrete as possible. Accordingly, many conventions of academic expression are not appropriate for this publication. In general, authors need to pay attention to the craft of writing as well as to the soundness of their research methods and findings.

Please avoid:

  • overusing academic jargon. Expressions like ‘post war Keynesian welfare regimes’, ‘discursive practices’, ‘empty signifier’ don’t always communicate as much as we’d hoped!
  • the use of adjectives as nouns (‘social’, ‘imaginary’). Also avoid using nouns as verbs (‘critique’, ‘access’).
  • the passive voice (‘A series of interviews was undertaken to …’, ‘It has been argued that …’). Use the first person to describe the research process, where relevant. At other times, as far as possible, give sentences concrete subjects (‘Proponents of reform argue that …’, or simply ‘Reformists argue that …’).
  • nominalisation (‘This paper provides an examination of …’). Instead, use precise verbs (‘We examine …’).
  • vague and wordy expressions such as ‘in terms of’, ‘in relation to’, ‘in regards to’, ‘has been associated with’, and ‘is characterised by’. Too often writers use these locutions to put a subject and object side by side, leaving the reader to work out their precise relationship. It’s always better to let the reader know exactly how subjects and objects relate to each other. Other overused vague or verbose terms you should avoid include ‘issue’, ‘the way in which’, and ‘a number of’.

Intending authors can obtain excellent further advice on style from Joseph Williams (1991). The Editors reserve the right to edit accepted manuscripts to enhance their accessibility.

Other points of style

  • Realise, analyse | behaviour, colour | acknowledgment, judgment | co-operation, re-enter
  • Ellipsis:#…# (use option+semi-colon (Mac) or Ctrl+Alt+full stop (PC) instead of three full stops)
  • Em dash:—
  • 10 January 2001 | 1995–2000, 1995–97 | 1980s | mid-1980s | 21st century | 6#pm | 50#mya | 25 AD
  • 9,999, 10,000 | 34–35, 107–108, 110–19, 134–35
  • Ibid., id., op. cit. and et al. Roman (not italic)
  • No first line indent for paragraphs in the body of the text
  • Spell out:
    • One to twenty, digits from 21.
    • Per cent, except in figures and tables or technical texts.
    • Measurements (eg cm, km), except in figures, tables and technical texts (3#km).
    • US, UK and state names, expect when used adjectivally (eg. NSW Parliament).
    • e.g., i.e., and etc.
    • TV.

FORMATTING

Section headings

Please do not number section headings. Use a maximum of three levels of headings, formatted according to the conventions adopted within the present document.

Quotations

Please use single quotation marks. Use double quotes only where a quote occurs within a quote. (See below for usage in block quotes.) Punctuation marks should be outside quotation marks unless quotations are full sentences.

Quotations of longer than 40 words should appear in a separate paragraph, indented 1cm right and left, without quotation marks. References at the end of these block quotes should appear in brackets before the full stop or after the ellipsis at the end of the quotation. Where a quotation ends with an ellipsis, the reference should not be followed by a full stop.

Footnotes

Please use footnotes (sparingly), not endnotes. Please do not use footnotes to refer to sources you cite. Where footnote markers appear adjacent to punctuation marks such as commas, full-stops, or quotation marks, position them immediately after the punctuation mark.

REFERENCES

All authors are expected to adopt the ‘author-date’ system of referencing, as specified in pages 148–168 of the fifth edition of the Style manual for authors, editors and printers (Commonwealth of Australia 1994). (The following guide is adapted from this publication). Manuscripts that do not comply in detail with this specification—including capitalisation and the usage and positioning of punctuation markers—for both in-text citations and the reference list will encounter delays if accepted for publication. All items cited within the text should appear in the reference list, and vice-versa. Authors are responsible for verifying the accuracy of references.

A note on citing electronic sources

Where you refer to materials available online, these materials may be hyperlinked in the reference list. However, the body of an article will not in general contain hyperlinking.

Some sources and documents are available in print, but also reproduced electronically for wide dissemination—government publications are an obvious example. If you use the electronic version of such a document, please refer to it as usual, that is, treat it as if the document you used were printed for the purposes of preparing your reference list, but add the URL and date on which you last accessed the electronic file to the citation, as per examples included throughout this guide.

However, for electronic versions of academic journals that also appear in print, please do not include a URL or date of access—publishers make both the print and electronic versions available to subscribers only, making the URLs of limited general use. One obvious exception here is citing articles from the Journal of the Australian Review of Public Affairs: this publication is available freely—and only—over the internet, so a URL is genuinely useful. Relatedly, you should treat articles from the Australian Review of Public Affairs’ Digest as magazine or newspaper article, adding the URL and date of access.

We include specific instructions for citing material published solely as web pages as a stand-alone reference category.

Referring to sources in the text of your paper

Please take careful note of the punctuation of in-text references.

Key points

  • Do not use a comma after the author(s) name(s); only to separate the year and page number details when you cite both.
  • Separate multiple references in one instance of citation with semi-colons.
  • Use an ampersand (&) inside bracketed citations, but ‘and’ when you include the authors’ names in the main text.
  • Do not include URLs in the text of your paper. Cite any web pages by author and date (where available), and include the URL as directed in the reference list.

Examples

Silver (1994) shows that the concept of social exclusion recycles conservative ideas current when voluntary agencies provided most welfare services.

It is not clear that workplace relationships and processes have changed as much as some researchers predicted (Hampson, Ewer & Smith 1994, p. 534).

Smith and Kettle (1992) are unusual among security analysts, because they emphasise the profound security risks allies can pose for each other.

Roughead et al. (1999, p. 2–3) found that the Quality Use of Medicines program has significantly reduced antibiotic over-prescribing. However, other research points to the influence of increasing price (Productivity Commission 2001, p. 231; Phuong & Johnstone 2000, p. 312) or a reduction in pharmaceutical advertising (Grimston et al. 2003; Smithies 1998).

Preparing the reference list

Journal article

Silver, H. 1994, ‘Social exclusion and social solidarity: Three paradigms’, International Labour Review, vol. 133, no. 6, pp. 531–577.

Quiggin, J. 2001, ‘Active labour market policy and macroeconomic stabilisation’, The Drawing Board: An Australian Review of Public Affairs, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 51–66 [Online], Available: http://www.econ.usyd.edu.au/drawingboard/journal/0111/quiggin.html [2003, Mar 17].

Hampson I., Ewer, P. & Smith, M. 1994, ‘Post-fordism and workplace change: Towards a critical research agenda’, Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 36, no. 2, pp. 231–257.

Chapter from edited book

Fournier, V. 2000, ‘Boundary work and the (un)making of the professions’, in Professionalism, Boundaries and the Workplace, ed. N. Malin, Routledge, London, pp. 67–86.

Kittay, E.F. 2002, ‘Caring for the vulnerable by caring for the caregiver: The case of mental retardation’, in Medicine and Social Justice: Essays on the Distribution of Health Care, eds R. Rhodes, M.P. Battin & A. Silvers, Oxford University Press, New York.

Books

Bell, I. (ed.) 2002, Economic Governance and Institutional Dynamics: The Market, the State, and Networks, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Kant, E. 1933 (1781/1787), Critique of Pure Reason, trans. N.K. Smith, Macmillan, London.

Morehead, A., Steele, M., Alexander, M., Stephen, K. & Duffin, L. 1997, Changes at Work: The 1995 Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey, Longman, Australia.

Rawls, J. 1993, Political Liberalism, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass.

Smith, G. & Kettle, St J. (eds) 1992, Threats Without Enemies: Rethinking Australia’s Security, Pluto Press, Sydney.

Government and parliamentary publications

Australian Bureau of Statistics 2001, Voluntary Work, Australia, 2000, Cat. no. 4441.0, ABS, Canberra.

Department of Foreign Affairs 1975, Annual Report 1975, AGPS, Canberra.

Productivity Commission 2001, International Pharmaceutical Price Differences: Research Report, Productivity Commission, Melbourne [Online], Available: http://www.pc.gov.au/research/commres/pbsprices/finalreport/pbsprices.pdf [2001, Oct 31].

Roughead, E.E., Gilbert, A.L., Primrose, J. G., Harvey, K.J., & Sansom, L.N. 1999, Report of the National Indicators: Evaluating the Quality Use of Medicines Component of Australia’s National Medicines Policy. Publications Production Unit, Commonwealth Department of Health and Aged Care, Canberra.

Senate Select Committee on Superannuation and Financial Services 2001, Prudential Supervision and Consumer Protection for Superannuation, Banking and Financial Services, First Report, Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, August.

Legislation and legal authorities

Legislation and legal authorities do not generally appear in a list of references. If they are significant to the understanding of the work, please list them separately at the end of the article under an appropriate subheading (viz. ‘Legislation’ or ‘Legal Authorities’). Please consult the Style Manual (Commonwealth of Australia 1994, paragraphs 9.161–9.179) for detailed guidance on how to cite such documents.

Discussion/working/research paper

Cowling, S. 1998, Understanding behavioural responses to tax and transfer changes: A survey of low-income households, Melbourne Institute Working Paper No. 15, University of Melbourne.

Conference/workshop/seminar paper

Lyons, M. & Chan, V. 1999, The effect of competitive markets on non-profit organisations, paper presented to the National Social Policy Conference, University of New South Wales, Sydney, 22 July.

Sissons, J. 2002, Maori tribalism and post-settler nationhood in New Zealand, paper presented at a workshop on Custom: The Fate of Non-Western Law and Indigenous Governance in the 21st Century, University House, Canberra, 1–2 October.

Newspaper/magazine article

Lampe, A. 2001, ‘Super a mystery for most workers’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 16 May, p. 3.

Apps, P. 2001, ‘Howard’s family tax policies and the first child tax refund’, The Drawing Board: An Australian Review of Public Affairs, 5 Nov [Online], Available: http://www.econ.usyd.edu.au/drawingboard/digest/0111/apps.html [2003, Mar 17].

If an article has no identified author, set out the reference as follows:

‘Investors endorse choice of fund’, 2000, Superfunds, June p. 5.

Media transcripts, press releases

Costello, P. 2001, Transcript of interview with Jon Faine, Radio 3LO, Melbourne, 23 May [Online], Available: http://www.treasurer.gov.au/tsr/content/transcripts/2001/074.asp [2003, Mar 10].

Costello, P. 2003, National accounts: December quarter 2002, Media release no. 010, 5 March [Online], Available: http://www.treasurer.gov.au/tsr/content/pressreleases/2003/010.asp [2003, Mar 10].

Web pages

The Campbell Collaboration 2003, About the Campbell Collaboration [Online], Available: http://www.campbellcollaboration.org/FraAbout.html [2003, Jan 14].

If the web page has no identified author and/or, set out the reference as follows:

Glossary, n.d. [Online], Available: http://www.utilitarianism.com/glossary.htm [2003, Jan 20].

FIGURES AND TABLES

Please cite any tables and figures you use in the text of your paper. Number them sequentially, and give each descriptive title or caption of up to two sentences. Please supply the summary data you used to generate any figures, preferably as Excel worksheets. Do not send whole data sets, only the information required to generate the figures themselves. Supply illustrations, diagrams, maps, and photos as high-resolution files in any standard machine-readable format. Please contact Assistant Editor Rhondda Hollis if such materials as are essential to a submission cannot be supplied in electronic format.

REFERENCES

Commonwealth of Australia 1994, Style Manual for Authors, Editors and Printers, 5th edn, Australian Government Publishing Service.

Department of Education, Science and Training 2004, Register of Refereed Journals.

Political Studies n.d. Advice for Authors and Style Guide.

Williams, J.M. 1991, Style: Toward Clarity and Grace, Chicago University Press, Chicago.

CONTACT US

The Australian Review of Public Affairs ceased publication in May 2016. Please address all inquiries about permissions or legacy issues to the former Editor, Gabrielle Meagher.

DISCLAIMER

Contributors are responsible for the opinions they express in the Australian Review of Public Affairs. Neither the Editors, nor the University of Sydney, necessarily endorse these opinions.

 

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