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Author Guidelines
IMPORTANT NOTE FOR AUTHOR REGISTRATION
You must be registered as an author to submit an article to the JCER. If you are registered as a reader, but not an author, you should register by clicking HERE and selecting the author button to register with your existing username and password. If you have any problems please email JCER | Journal Administration
What Sort of Articles Does the JCER Publish?
The JCER publishes two kinds of paper: full-length original research articles (7,000 to 10,000 words) and shorter commentary pieces (3,000 to 6,000 words) which critically examine and provide a reflective discussion on the literature and research direction of a particular topic of interest relating to European Studies
The JCER also publishes research notes. These take the form of a series of short news-style articles (1000 words) over the course of two or three issues which detail new research projects in terms of aims, objectives, methods and outcomes. If you have a research project that you think might be a suitable subject for the JCER Research Notes series then please contact the JCER Editor.
All submissions (with the exception of book reviews, research notes and occasional invited guest articles) will undergo peer-review. Further guidelines for authors can be found below.
GENERAL DETAILS FOR ALL CONTRIBUTORS
All contributions are accepted on the understanding that they are the original work of the author(s).
Manuscripts
Manuscripts should be formatted in either Word (.doc) or Rich Text File (.rtf) format.
Submissions
All submissions should be written in British English. Full-length research articles should not exceed 10,000 words in length and should be written as clearly and concisely as possible. Shorter articles, including commentaries and policy analysis, should not exceed 6,000 words. Book reviews and research notes should be approximately 1,000 words in length. Manuscripts must include a 100-150 word abstract and a short biography of about 70 words. The first page should bear the title of the paper together with the name(s) and institutional affiliation(s) and title(s) of the author(s). Only main headings and sub-headings should be used. Footnotes should be kept to an absolute minimum. All articles must conform to the JCER style requirements.
Presentation
Abbreviations: Where appropriate abbreviations (i.e., e.g., etc.) can be used. Excessive use of abbreviations should, however, be avoided
Acronyms: Spell out in full first time, use initials thereafter.
Italics: Use to add emphasis to words and phrases, for Latin expressions (e.g. prima facie, ad hoc, a priori), as well as names of books, journals and newspapers, but not organisations.
Numbers: Write out numbers below 10 in full e.g. nine, otherwise as numerals, separate thousands using commas e.g. 123,456
Centuries: use numbers, e.g. 20th
Decades: use numbers and ‘s’, e.g. 1990s
Percentages: in numbers followed by per cent; use % only in tables
Dates: number, month and year, e.g. 11 September 2001
Times: e.g. 4:00 p.m.
Capitalisation: Use minimum capitalisation for all headings, i.e. only use capitals for the first letter and proper nouns.
Quotation Marks: Use double "quotation marks", except when quoting within a quote, when single 'quotation marks' should be used. Quotations should close before the full-stop which ends the sentence.
Spelling: Use British English spelling, e.g. specialisation, colour. Use local spelling for names - for names in another alphabet, use standard English transcriptions. If in doubt about spelling, please refer to the Oxford English Dictionary.
Footnoting additional information: When using the Harvard method of referencing footnotes should be used sparingly. They should only contain discursive information, and their use should be limited. Remember, if it is interesting enough to be in an footnote, it is interesting enough to be in the main body of text. Footnotes should be marked clearly in the text at the point of punctuation by superior numbers, and listed consecutively at the bottom of each relevant page.
Tables and Figures: Tables and illustrations must be prepared in separate pages at the end of the main document. They should be numbered consecutively by Arabic numerals. The approximate position of tables and figures or illustrations should be indicated in the manuscript. Graphs and diagrams must be in a form suitable for reproduction.
Web Address Referencing: it is important that you provide as many details as possible when referencing a web address. This includes, author if appropriate, title of webpage, full URL address, and date accessed.
REFERENCES *Very Important*
Due to the multi-disciplinary nature of the JCER, there are two recommended referencing styles. The main referencing style which we recommend for authors submitting a paper in political science, economics or sociology is the Harvard system. For authors submitting an article in European Law where there is substantial use of case law, then a footnoting method of referencing is also acceptable. Details of both of these referencing styles can be found below.
(1) Harvard
In this system, references are indicated in the typescript by giving the author’s name with the year of publication and pages in parentheses, e.g. (Smith 1994: 6); or if there are more than two authors Smith et al. (1994: 6). If several papers from the same author(s) and from the same year are cited, (a), (b), (c), etc. should be put after the year of publication, e.g. (Smith 1994a: 7). If you refer to more than one work at the same time, enclose all the references within the same parentheses and separate each reference from the next by a semi-colon (Smith 1994: 101; Hix 2003: 43).
Bibliogrpahical Referencing
The JCER recommends that authors use the 'APA 5th' system of bibliographical referencing. This will allow you to sync your bibliography with major referencing software packages, such as EndNote 9.01. References should be listed in full alphabetical order at the end of the paper in the following standard 'APA 5th' form:
Alter, K. J. (1998). ‘Who are the “Masters of the Treaty”?: European Governments and the European Court of Justice’, International Organization, 52 (1), pp.121-147.
Gabel, M. J. (1998) .Interest and Integration. Market Liberalization, Public Opinion and European Union. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.
Smith, M. and W. Sandholtz (1995). ‘Institutions and Leadership: Germany, Maastricht and the ERM Crisis,’ in C. Rhodes and S. Mazey (eds), The state of the European Union: Building a European Polity?. London: Lynne Riennerk.
(2) Footnoting Style of Referencing
This style of referencing is only recommended for those articles where footnoting is discipline specific and commonplace, such as European Law (case law, treaties etc.) and History (archives).
Footnotes should be numbered sequentially throughout the text and should appear at the bottom of the page. Authors are asked to keep footnotes as short as possible and to make cross-references within the text as sparingly as possible. The name of the author(s) and an abbreviation form of the title should be used for cross-references.
Footnote numbers in text follow should punctuation marks – comma, full point etc. The first letter of footnote will be capital except:
where it is part of Latin abbreviations: ibid.,
where it is a cross reference to another footnote, e.g. ‘n 4 above’.
Citations
Books
Books should be cited as in the following examples, with the titles italicised:
M. Jones, European Law in Context (Blackwell, 1995)
M. Jones and J. Smith, European Law in Context Revisited (Blackwell, 1995)
M. Jones, J. Smith and A. Rowe (eds), European Law in Context: Selected Readings(Blackwell, 1995)
Specific references should be as above followed by ‘p 14’.
Contributions to edited books should be cited as follows:
Jones, ‘Social Regulation’, in M. Jones, J. Smith and A. Rowe (eds), European Law in Context: Selected Readings (Blackwell, 1995)
Articles
Article titles, like the titles of contributions to edited books, should be in single quotation marks and not italicised. The titles of books and journals should be italicised. Common abbreviations of journals should be used whenever possible. If the full name of a journal is used, it should be in italics.
For example:
Jones, ‘Subsidiarity and Social Regulation in Europe’, (1995) 1 Journal of Social Regulation Studies 63
A reference to a specific page should be as follows:
(1995) 1 Journal of Social Regulation Studies 63, 67
Cases
References to Court of Justice or Court of First Instance cases should give the European Court Reports (ECR) citation, except if the case has not yet been published in the ECR, in which case the reference should give the Common Market Law Reports citation. Cases should not be cited to both the ECR and the CMLR.
Cases should be cited in the following way:
(a) for ECR citations:
Case 132/82 Commission v Belgium [1983] ECR 1649
Case 188/89 Foster v British Gas [1990] ECR I-3313
(b) for CMLR citations:
Case 246/89 Commission v United Kingdom [1991] 3 CMLR 706
TEU and Community treaties
TEU e.g. Article A TEU
EC Treaty e.g. Article 30 EC
ECSC Treaty e.g. Article 2 ECSC
EAEC Treaty e.g. Article 3 Euratom
Legislation
EC, ECSC or Euratom legislation should be cited as follows:
(a) in the text: written out:
Article 2 of Regulation 11/89
Article 3 of Directive 89/21
Article 4 of Decision 89/31
(b) in footnotes: abbreviation:
Art 2, Reg 21//89
Art 3, Dir 89/21
Art 4, Dec 89/31
BOOK REVIEWS
The special format of the JCER | Book Reviews means that in each issue two or three books are reviewed. Each book will be reviewed independently by more than one expert.
Each individual review should be about 1000 words long. It should include a brief summary of the book (i.e. its subject area and main points), a balanced evaluation of its content and arguments, and a recommendation on its potential readership. Reviewers should indicate whether they agree with their email address being published along side their named review.
EDITING
The editorial staff of the JCER reserves the right to edit articles and book reviews, both for content and style. All substantial changes will be referred back to the author before publication.
Submission Preparation Checklist
As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.
- The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
- The submission file is in Microsoft Word or Rich Text File (RTF) format.
- When available, the URLs to access references online are provided, including those for open access versions of the reference. The URLs are ready to click (e.g., http://pkp.sfu.ca).
- The text is double-spaced; uses a 12-point font; employs italics, rather than underlining (except with URL addresses); and all illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text at the appropriate points, rather than at the end.
- The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines, which is found in About the Journal.
- If submitting to a peer-reviewed section of the journal, the instructions in Ensuring a Blind Review) have been followed.
Copyright Notice
The JCER allows authors to retain intellectual copyright of their work after the initial publication. However, authors should be aware of the following conditions:
- Articles published online in the JCER cannot be published elsewhere at a later date, without explicit approval of the JCER editor.
- Authors agree that submitted articles to the JCER will be submitted to various abstracting, indexing and archiving services as selected by the JCER.
- Authors can 'self-archive' their articles in digital form at their personal homepages or their institutions' archives provided that they link back to the original URL of publication in the JCER.
Privacy Statement
The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.
Journal of Contemporary European Research [ISSN 1815-347X]