6
Preparing and Submitting a Manuscript to an ASA Journal
ASA journals have specific format requirements for manuscripts submitted to them for publication. Authors are advised to follow closely the guidelines listed below, because editors might return manuscripts that do not conform to these specifications. A checklist of elements required for submission is included in Section 6.6.
6.1 Keyboarding Specifications
6.1.1 Page Format
The checklists in Section 6.6 contain detailed specifications for page format requirements for manuscripts submitted to ASA journals in general. Authors are advised, however, to check with specific journals on guidelines for mechanics of submission (number of copies, policies on electronic submissions) and to verify details on issues such as submitting blinded versus unblinded copies.
6.1.2 Title Page
The title page should include the full title of the article, the name(s) and institution (s) of the author(s) (listed vertically if more than one), a running head, the word count for the manuscript (including footnotes and references), and a title footnote. An asterisk (*) following the title can be used to refer to the title footnote at the bottom of the page. This footnote includes the name and address of the corresponding author, acknowledgements, credits, and grant numbers.
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Running Head = SHORTENED TITLE
Full Title of the Articles Capitalize Subtitle After Colon*
Author Full Name Institution
Author Full Name Institution
Word Count = Text, Footnotes, and References
* Title footnote includes name, address, and e-mail address of the corresponding author, as well as any acknowledgments, credits, and grant numbers
6.2 Submitting a Manuscript
Read and revise a manuscript multiple times. Before sending it to a journal, read the manuscript one more time. Then package it securely and include the following:
• A cover letter giving the address, phone and fax numbers, and e-mail address of the corresponding author; the title of the manuscript; and any other important information, such as changes of address and availability.
• Four (4) copies of the manuscript, including title page, abstract, text, footnotes, appendices, references, tables, and figures, illustrations, and photographs with titles. {Note: The number of copies may vary among different ASA journals.)
• An electronic copy of the manuscript is highly recommended but not required. Submission of an electronic copy will allow the manuscript to be sent for review electronically and will reduce the length of time required
for the review process. The electronic copy of the manuscript, which must be prepared using standard word processing software (e.g., MS Word or WordPerfect), may be forwarded to the editorial office as an e-mail attachment or in some other electronic media format. Exceptions to these word processing or media formats must be cleared with editors of journals before submission.
• A check for the $25 manuscript processing fee, made payable to the American Sociological Association. No fee is required for papers authored by ASA student members.
• Processing fees are not required for comments, replies, or revise-resubmits. Submit comments on previously published articles directly to the journal.
• Reminder: Double-space all text in the abstract, text, references, footnotes, and acknowledgments; block quotations may be single spaced. All text must be in 12-point Times New Roman type (Times is also acceptable).
6.3 Ethical Guidelines
The American Sociological Association regards the submission of a manuscript to more than one professional journal at the same time as an unethical practice. Manuscripts that have appeared or will appear in whole or part in other publications must be clearly identified as such. All persons who publish in ASA journals are required to abide by the ASA Code of Ethics regarding plagiarism, authorship credit, and other ethical issues. See the ASA Code of Ethics available online at http://www.asanet.org.
6.4 Copyright
ASA holds copyright on all materials published in ASA journals, although material published in 1964 or earlier is now in the public domain. Should a manuscript be accepted
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for publication, an author will be required to transfer the copyright to the ASA. After an article has been published, an author may use it without charge or permission in any future printed book or article of which that author is the sole author or editor.
6.5 Formatting a Manuscript for Publication
If a manuscript is accepted for publication, an author may be asked to provide manuscript materials as electronic computer files. Some generally accepted software program for text and graphics are listed below. Contact the journal office to confirm that a particular software format or computer file is acceptable.
Text
For manuscript text (body of manuscript, biography, references, etc.), MS Word or WordPerfect is preferred.
Tables
Preferred table programs are MS Word (table function) or Excel. Lines (called "rules") within a table should be at least 1/2 point or thicker. (Do not use hairline rules, which are too fine for print production.) Tables should be embedded within the electronic manuscript file.
Journal Page Size
For most ASA journals, the page of a bound print journal is smaller that a regular piece of letter-size (8.5" by 11") paper. All text, tables, and figures are typeset and sized to fit this journal page dimension. When figures are sized down to fit on the page, any text or type in the actual figure should not be smaller than 8-point Times New Roman font in the final printed journal page. For example, an Excel
chart/graph that is to be reduced to 55 percent in the print journal article should use 14.5 Times New Roman font in the original (100 percent size) Excel chart/graph file.
For tables, all the text and/or data should fit on the print journal page (vertically) across two columns. If the table is too wide for the journal page, it will be typeset as a broadside table (oriented 90 degrees from original) on the page. Please refer to a recent issue of the journal to see how tables and figures have been typeset previously.
Disks and CDs
For the accepted manuscript, send the journal office the disk/CD that contains the computer file of the figure as created in the original program (e.g., an Excel graphic must be sent as an Excel file, not pasted into a Word document file). Do not send laser proofs; they do not reproduce well in print composition. Sending a word-processing document with a figure placed in it is not useful unless the original graphic file is also sent as a separate file (see previous paragraph).
Figures and Graphics
Send only black-and-white figures; do not send color figures. When available, send the computer file of the figures. Some journal offices may prefer Excel (*.xls) computer files for graphs/charts. For other illustrations and images, acceptable programs include Photoshop, PowerPoint, Illustrator, Freehand, or Corel Draw. Preferred formats for illustrations, images, and photos are *.tif files using grayscale (not CMYK) with LZW compression, or *.eps files (not *.ps files). Do not send files from StATA and Paint; these are not suitable for graphics for print. Authors can convert StATA files to Excel and then submit the Excel file. Contact the journal office to confirm that the software or computer file is acceptable.
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Provide the original computer file(s) of the figure(s) as created in the original program (e.g., an Excel chart/graph must be sent as an Excel file), not pasted or inserted into a Word document file. Do not send a figure placed in a word-processing document; this is not useful because the word-processing document contains only a low-resolution 72 dpi preview.
Use at least 300 dpi resolution for grayscale (not CMYK); use at least 600 dpi resolution for line art (1200 dpi is preferred). Do not send 72 dpi "screen shots" or Web gifs because while they appear clear on a computer screen, they will reproduce very badly in print form.
Lines (called "rules") within a figure (chart/graph), at reduction size, must be at least 1/2 point or thicker. (Do not use hairline rules, which are too fine for print production). For example, if the chart/graph will be printed in the journal at 55 percent reduction, the original (100 percent) size of the rule should be at least 1 point to appear in the journal at 1/2 point.
A note about Excel graphs/charts: Excel is the preferred program for figures, graphs, and charts in some journal offices. When creating or generating a chart in Excel, be sure to designate the "chart location" in the Excel file "As new sheet." Name this new sheet Figure 1, etc. All the data for the figure(s) can appear on one worksheet, but do not make the graph/chart an object within that same data worksheet (i.e., do not designate the chart location for the graph/chart "As object in"; locate each figure "As new sheet").
Authors who choose to send reflective art, should send veloxes, PMTs (photo mechanical transfer), or Photostats instead of laser printouts. If the illustration contains grays, a continuous tone print is preferred. Authors should also consider the size that an illustration will be reduced to in
the published print article. For example, if an illustration will be reduced 50 percent in print, the finest rule in a 100 percent original should be 1 point, which will reduce to 1/2 point at the print size. If you must send a laser proof of an illustration that contains grays, do not use the printer's default screen. The screen, at the final print size, must be no finer than 133 line (e.g., if an illustration will reduce to 50 percent in print, a laser proof s screen must be no finer than 66.5).
Consistency of Type (Font) Size
To ensure that the type sizes are the same in all the figures in the print journal page, the author or artist needs to compute the inverse of the focus of the reproduction size of the image and size the type (font) in the original accordingly.
6.6 Checklist for Preparing and Submitting a Manuscript to an ASA Journal
For more specific information on any of following issues, review the contents of Section 6 in the ASA Style Guide. See also The Chicago Manual of Style (2003:59, 68-69); "Electronic Manuscript Preparation Guidelines for Authors," available at http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/ emsguide.html; and "Preparation Checklist for ASA Manuscripts," available at http://www. asanet.org/galleries/default-file/ asaguidelinesnew.pdf.
Check for items shown on the following pages:
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6.6.1 Keyboarding the Manuscript
□ Double-space text (including references, footnotes, and endnotes).
- Text must be in 12-point Times New Roman (Times is also acceptable).
- Block quotes may be single-spaced.
□ Create margins of 1.25 inches on all four sides to allow room for the editors or copyeditor's marks.
□ Number all pages sequentially.
□ Remove comments or other hidden text; accept all tracked changes as final (i.e., there should be nothing hidden in the manuscript).
□ Avoid using space bars or indents to achieve tabs, align text, or create hanging indents.
□ Avoid using the automatic hyphen feature.
□ Do not right-justify text.
□ Use only "normal" settings. (Do not assign different styles for headings, block quotations, etc.)
□ Create block quotations using the word-processing feature for indenting paragraphs. Use one hard return at the end of the quotation block.
□ Produce special characters using only the word-processing programs built-in character set (i.e., do not create characters from characters on the keyboard).
□ Use a hard return after the following:
- Title of the article
- Running heads
- Each paragraph
- Each text heading
- Each page heading (e.g., Abstract, Biography, Table titles)
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- Each reference
- Each footnote
□ Use italic type for variables in mathematical equations and text; use bold italic type to indicate vectors or matrices in equations and text. (See CMOS 2003:526.)
□ Place footnotes or endnotes as text at the end of the manuscript. Footnotes and endnotes in the text must be indicated by superscripted numbers.
6.6.2 Checking the Manuscript Content
□ Run spell check and grammar check. (Authors should note that these functions may not always be reliable.)
□ Check all headings and subheadings for consistency and accuracy. Are headings formatted correctly for all levels? Do titles accurately reflect content and organization of the paper?
□ Check for subject-verb agreement and parallel grammatical structures.
□ Cite all attributions to other publications and works fully, appropriately, and accurately.
□ Check accuracy of form and content of references cited in text.
□ Check that all text citations have references and vice versa (i.e., drop any references not cited in text).
□ Check that all references follow ASA style guidelines.
□ Check that references are alphabetized.
□ Proof accuracy of references (names, titles of articles, publications, page numbers, etc.).
□ Be sensitive to "blinding" the manuscript for reviewers by removing all identifying information throughout the manuscript.
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□ Proof tables and figures for accuracy.
□ Cross-checks
- Illustrations against captions, text references, and
callouts (places In text indicating placement of Illustration)
- Figures and tables with data references in text; tables against table lists, and tables against callouts (places in text indicating placement of tables)
- All cross-references
- All URLs cited and all electronic links (be sure they work).
6.6.3 Submitting the Manuscript
When submitting the manuscript to an editorial office, include the following:
□ A title page, including:
- Full title of the article
- Names and institutions for all authors (listed vertically if there is more than one author)
- Running head (60 characters or less)
- Approximate word count for the manuscript
- Title footnote
- Asterisk (*) by the title refers to the title footnote at the bottom of the title page. The title footnote includes the name and address of the corresponding author, acknowledgments, credits, and grant information.
□ Abstract, which is
- On a separate page headed by a title
- Brief (one paragraph, no more than 200 words) and descriptive (a summary of the most important contributions in a paper)
- Accessible (jargon-free and clear to the general reader)
- A good test: Can it serve as a press release about the research?
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□ A cover letter giving the address, phone:;and;fax^um--. bers, and e-mail address of the corresponding author; the title of the manuscript; and any other important information, such as changes of address and availability.
□ Four (4) copies of the manuscript, including title.:: page, abstract, text, footnotes, appendices, references, tables, and figures, illustrations, and photographs with titles. (Note: The number of copies may vary among different ASA journals.)
□ Appendices:
- Label appendices Appendix A, Appendix B, etc. Appendices appear at the end of an article (after references).
- Cross-check text for accuracy against appendices.
□ Tables:
- Number tables consecutively throughout the text.
- Print or type tables and include them at the end of the manuscript. Insert a note in the text to indicate table placement (TABLE 2 ABO UT HERE).
- Place each table on a separate page.
- Include a descriptive title and headings for all columns and rows on each table.
□ Figures, illustrations, photographs, and other graphic materials:
- Number them consecutively throughout the text.
- Include a title for each figure, illustration, and photograph. Each must be labeled clearly.
- Insert a note in text to indicate placement (FIGURE 1 ABOUT HERE)-
□ Permissions that may be required to reproduce illustrations or previously published materials.
□ If electronic versions of text are being sent with printed copies, printed and electronic copies must be exactly
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the same. (Do not make any changes-on- the disk after printing the final manuscript.) (Authors should keep one copy in the same form.)
□ Disks that are labeled and dated (including the name of the software used to produce the manuscript—e.g., Corel WordPerfect Version 10, or MS Word 2002 for Windows XP).
□ Biography (five or six lines for each author), including:
- Author's name, title, department, institution
- A brief description of current research interests, publications, or awards
□ A check for the manuscript processing fee, made payable to the American Sociological Association. No fee is
< required for papers authored by ASA student members.
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