POLITICAL CROSSROADS: NOTES FOR CONTRIBUTORS
Political Crossroads is an international forum for critical and empirical scholarship in political science and
related disciplines. The journal debates major issues in international relations, political theory, economic
and cultural factors affecting politics, patterns of power, leadership, ideology, conflict, warfare and
political culture. Its special areas of focus includes borders, security, terrorism, problems of national
identity, issues of citizenship and the economics of resources and trade.
Guidelines for Authors
An author submitting an article for consideration for publication in Political Crossroads can greatly speed
up the processing and refereeing of the article and secure a quick response from the Editor as to its
acceptance or non-acceptance for publication by adhering to the following Guidelines for Authors.
Articles are only considered for publication on the understanding that they have not been published and
are not simultaneously under consideration elsewhere. Manuscripts are therefore accepted for
consideration on the understanding that they report unpublished work not under consideration for
publication elsewhere.
The submission should be accompanied by a letter addressed to the Editor, stating that the article
reports original unpublished work not under consideration for publication elsewhere.
The Refereeing Process
Articles chosen for publication in Political Crossroads are refereed and are considered anonymously. The
submission should only identify the author/s on a separate page bearing the title, author’s name, full
mailing address and institutional affiliation. A brief biographical note (2-4 lines) which includes previous
publications and current research interests should be included on this separate page. Manuscripts are
reviewed by the Editor, other members of the editorial panel and by invited reviewers with a special
competence in the area represented by the manuscript. After completion of the review process, the
Editor lets the contributor know in writing by email whether the article is accepted for publication.
Revisions may be suggested at this stage. The time between initial submission and appearance in print
of accepted manuscripts ranges from 3 to 6 months.
Preparation of Manuscripts
Authors should submit their manuscript together with an ABSTRACT of up to 100 words. The language of
the publication is English. Articles should generally contain between 3000 and 6000 words. Shorter
commentaries of 1000 to 3000 words are also considered.
Manuscripts are accepted in the following formats: MS Word or RTF.
The number and length of NOTES should be kept to a minimum. They should be serially numbered and
included at the end of the text before the reference section. Footnotes should not be used.
FIGURES, MAPS, DIAGRAMS and TABLES should be kept to a strict minimum and be included at the end
of the manuscript not in the body of the text. They should be of good quality: e.g., a minimum of 300ppi.
References in the text should be quoted as follows: (Goodlad, 1977); (Hargreaves & Fullan, 1992) or
(Bellah et al., 1985). Pagination is included where appropriate as follows: (Lee, 1965, p. 129). Specify
subsequent citations of the same source similarly; do not use ‘ibid.’, ‘op.cit.’ or ‘loc. cit.’
(b) If the author’s name is in the text, use only the year of publication in parentheses, e.g., Dewey
(1938).
(c) Use single quotation marks (except for quotes within quotes).
List all entries cited in the text, alphabetically by author and year of publication in a separate, headed,
reference section. Please follow the examples:
Journal References
Mau, R. (1995) Assessment in the classroom: The value of achievement targets, Educational Practice
and Theory, 17(1) 77-86.
Book References
Holmes, B. (1985) Equality and Freedom in Education. London: George Allen & Unwin.
Authors should obtain permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations or lengthy
quotations previously published elsewhere.
The authors take responsibility for presenting only original work, for informing and gaining written
agreement from all co-authors of the work and for obtaining written permission from the relevant
publishers to include any copyright material, for ensuring that the article contains no unlawful or
libellous statements, and does not infringe on the rights of others, and for informing the Editor that the
article is submitted only to this journal, and has not been published before.
ADDITIONAL NOTES
Form of common abbreviations
e.g., et al., i.e.,
(edn) (edition), (edns) (editions)
Dashes to mark parenthetical elements
For a pair of dashes used to mark parenthetical elements in a sentence a spaced en rule ( – ) should be
used in preference to a number of hyphens (---)
Position of quotation marks
If the punctuation mark relates to the sentence rather than the quotation, it should be place outside the
quotation mark:
Thinking according to Costa (1996), is . . . ‘seen not only in the numbers of answers students
already know but also in their knowing what to do when they do not know’.
If the whole of a sentence is a quotation, the full stop should be placed inside the closing quotation
mark. However, if any part of a printed sentence contains matter not quoted, the final stop should be
placed outside the closing quotation mark.
Preferred spelling
“percent” not “per cent”
“focused” not “focussed”
cooperative/cooperation not co-operative/co-operation
Running heads
Authors are welcome to suggest possible running heads at the beginning of the article however, these
should not be included on each page of the submitted manuscript. Running heads are placed in the
article during typesetting.
Keywords
Authors should suggest five to seven keywords for the article.
For further information visit www.jnponline.com or e-mail [email protected]