Structure

 

The manuscript should follow the following structure:

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1. Title page

2. Abstract

3. Key words

4. Main text

5. Acknowledgments (if applicable)

6. A list of illustrations, maps, figures (if applicable)

7. A list of tables (if applicable)

8. Appendix (if applicable)

9. Endnotes (if applicable)

10. References

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Title page

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The names of all authors, affiliations, contact information (email address) should all be contained on the title page of the file. To ensure the anonymity of the peer review, no personal information or identifying features should appear on any other part of the manuscript.

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The names of the authors should include full first and last name, not only initials.

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The affiliations should be presented as ‘Department, Institution, City, Country’ if possible and ‘Institution, Country’ at the very least.

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Abstract

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In all manuscripts, the main text should be preceded by an abstract of up to 250 words. It should summarise the research question(s), main arguments of the paper, methodology (if applicable) and the conclusions.

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Key words

 

The abstract should be followed by up to six key words. They do not necessarily have to be single words but may contain key phrases. They should be as specific as possible as they are included to make the paper easier to find.

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Main text

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The manuscript should follow a clear and logical structure. It should include an introduction which will allow people who are not familiar with the subject to gain basic understanding of the issue, as well as its theoretical background.

The introduction should be followed by sections reviewing the methodology, thesis, results, discussion, and conclusions. The number of the sections, the way they are divided and their order is not restricted, however it should be done in a coherent manner.

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The manuscript should follow a clear and logical structure. It should include an introduction which will allow people who are not familiar with the subject to gain basic understanding of the issue, as well as its theoretical background. 

The introduction should be followed by sections of literature review, methodology, results, discussion (analysis of results, limitations, implications), and conclusions. The number of the sections, the way they are divided and their order, is not restricted and may be specialized depending on the nature of your research paper (qualitative or quantitative). However, it should be done in a coherent manner.

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Acknowledgements

 

Any acknowledgements should be included in a headed separate section, which should be placed after the main text and before the references.

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Endnotes

 

The use of endnotes is preferred to footnotes, however they should be used sparingly, only to explain crucial points of the paper. Endnotes should not be used for referencing, which should be done through in-text citations, as explained in the following section. The marker of an endnote should be placed after a punctuation mark.

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References

 

All external information should be referenced in the text as to avoid plagiarism issues.

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In-text citations

 

References should be given through in-text citations put in parentheses after the relevant text, before the punctuation mark. A citation should include the last name of the author and the date of publication:

 

“It has been shown to be untrue (Smith, 2003).”

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If more than one author is cited for a certain information, their names should be put in one parenthesis, in alphabetical order, separated by a semi-colon:

 

“It has been shown to be untrue (Brown, 2005; Smith, 2003).”

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If a source has more than one author, the citation should include ‘et al.’ (in italics), following the first author’s name:

 

“It has been shown to be untrue (Smith et al., 2003).”

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If more than one work of the same author, from the same year, is used in one citation, a lower-case letter starting with ‘a’ should be used after the year:

 

“It has been shown to be untrue (Smith, 2003a; Smith, 2003b).”

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If only a specific page or range of pages is used, it should be remarked after the year, following a colon:

 

“It has been shown to be untrue (Smith, 2003: 76).”

“It has been shown to be untrue (Smith, 2003: 76–78).”

 

In case of works published by organisations, a short form of the organisation’s name or an acronym should be used:

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“(WHO, 2017)” not “(World Health Organization, 2017)”

 

In case of a paraphrase, only the year of publication needs to be included in parentheses:

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“According to Smith (2003), it has been shown to be untrue.”

 

Reference list

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Full references should be included in the ‘References’ section, including both works directly cited in the paper and indirect inspirations (references can be divided into primary and secondary sources if needed). The references should be listed in alphabetical order by author surname. 

 

If more than one work of the same author is used, chronological order should be kept, regardless of the alphabetical order of the titles.

 

If a source has more than one author, ‘et al.’ should not be used in the full list of references, but names of all authors should be mentioned.

 

The APA reference system should be applied for all references. 

 

Format & Language 

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The paper should be between 2000 and 5000 words, excluding footnotes, endnotes, and references.

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Font

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All texts should be written in Times New Roman, size 12. They should be double spaced and justified.

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The use of bold or italicised text is allowed to emphasise a point, however should be restricted to minimum. Underlined text should be avoided.

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Headings

 

Headings should be written in separate lines, left-aligned. They should follow the usual rules of capitalisation (not every word should be capitalised).

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Up to two levels of headings are allowed. They should follow the format:

 

First heading: Times New Roman, size 12, bold

Second heading: Times New Roman, size 12, italicised

 

Headings should be up to 75 characters.

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Spelling

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All submissions must be made in English. Either American or British English can be used, as long as the use is consistent throughout the paper.

 

In case of proper names such as names of institutions, the original spelling should be used.

 

Avoid contractions such as “didn’t, aren’t, haven’t”

 

Lists

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The use of lists should be limited as to emphasise their importance.

 

For a list without a hierarchy, use bullet points. If the order of the points is important, use a numerated list.

 

Quotations

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Single quotation marks should be used with the exception of quotes within another speech, in which case double quotation marks should be used.

 

Quotations longer than three lines should be put in an indented paragraph separate from the main text.

 

Standard, non-italicised versions should be used for quotations. It is permitted to add your own italics in the quotation which should be done in the following format:

“italicised words [emphasis added by the author]”

 

Acronyms and abbreviations

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The majority of acronyms should be spelled out the first time they are used, in order to ensure that readers who are unfamiliar with the subject will have a full understanding of the text. The spelled out name should be immediately followed by the acronym in a parenthesis. The acronym should be used subsequently throughout the paper.

 

Example:

 

“President of the United States (POTUS) stated in his inaugural address…”

 

A list of abbreviations that do not need to be explained on the first use can be found here.

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Format & Data Symbols

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Numbers

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In the main text, numbers between zero to ten should be spelled out. For numbers 11 and higher, figures should be used.

 

For numbers up to 9999 no comma should be used; for tens of thousands and higher, it should be.

 

For large numbers both figures and words can be used e.g. one million or 1,000,000.

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For decimal numbers, a period should be used e.g 7.15 not 7,15.

 

Decimal numbers less than zero should have ‘0’ preceding the decimal point e.g 0.58.

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If a sentence begins with a number, it should be spelled out as in the following example:

 

“Three years after the agreement…” instead of “3 years after the agreement…”

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Hyphenation, em and en dashes

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Hyphens ‘-’ are used to join words or parts of words. A hyphen should be used if two words function together as an adjective before the noun they are describing.

 

Example:

 

“The well-prepared project was a huge success.”

“The project was a huge success because it was well prepared.”

 

Em dashes should be used as a means of emphasis or interruption of the main sentence. They can be used in place of commas, colons, semi-colons or parentheses.

 

Example:

 

“The policy of Donald Trump—as opposed to his predecessors—was..”

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En dashes can be used in place of ‘to’ when indicating a range between numbers or dates. There should be no spaces surrounding the en dash.

 

Example:

 

2–3 weeks

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Dates

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Dates should be written as follows:

 

19 October 2001 -  if you are using British English notation.

 

October 19, 2001 -  if you are using American English notation.

 

1970s instead of ‘70s

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If you are mentioning a range of dates, include at least the last two digits.

 

Example:

 

1914–18 not 1914–8

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If the range spans across centuries, include the whole dates.

 

Example:

 

1989–2004

 

For ranges of dates use an en dash, not a hyphen or an em dash.

 

Units of measurement

 

The brochure of symbols following units of measurement can be found on this website: https://www.bipm.org/en/publications/si-brochure

 

Formula

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If you use special software to include a formula in your text, it will appear in the publication the way it is shown. Editors will not review the formula. 

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Figures & Tables

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Figures

 

All figures should be presented in a clear manner and ordered sequentially throughout the document using Arabic numerals:

 

Figure 1., Figure 2., etc.

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All figures should have a title right before it, which should concisely present their conent. It can include an explanatory sentence if necessary—the goal is to be understood by the readers even if they are not familiar with the subject.

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The source of the figure should be included, along with any necessary copyright information. 

 

Tables

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All tables should be presented in a clear manner and ordered sequentially throughout the document using Arabic numerals:

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Table 1., Table 2., etc.

 

All tables should have a title following right after it, which should concisely present their content.

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If required, the source of the table should be included, along with any necessary copyright information. 

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If wish to clarify any doubts regarding format or structure please contact us.