Contributions

Submission Guidelines

Guidelines for submissions are available at the bottom of this page.

Social Alternatives accepts academic papers, commentaries, book reviews and essays, short stories and poetry focussed on the aims of the journal. The journal also accepts proposals for themed issues from guest editors. Proposals may emerge from workshops, networks and conferences.

The submissions of articles, commentaries, reviews and fictional works are subject to double blind peer review and should be emailed to a Non-Themed Article Editor. Authors are encouraged to consider papers previously published in Social Alternatives, and where appropriate, reference them in order to promote ongoing and fluid discussion.

Submissions should be double spaced with page numbers on the bottom right.

Academic articles should be 3000-5000 words in length. Commentaries and review essays should be between 800 to 1500 words and book reviews generally 800 words and should refer to the book review guide. Short stories can be up to 1000 words and should refer to the Short Story Guide.

Ensure Copyright belongs to the contributing author[s], that the manuscript appears no-where else, that it is not under consideration elsewhere or ‘in-press’ and that the manuscript can be transferred to the journal for Copyright Release (accepted authors are required to sign a form to that effect);

Preparation for submitting a manuscript for peer review should ensure that both formatting and referencing requirements are followed. Note authors will be asked to fix such errors in submission at short notice so it is best to ensure issues are addressed in first submission.

Formatting

A separate document with a title page is attached with the contributing author[s] full name, contact details, affiliation and short bio (300 words);

An abstract of approximately 150 to 200 words is submitted along with 3-5 keywords

The manuscript is submitted with full reference lists included in accordance with Harvard referencing system (see below);

Tables, graphs, pictures and diagrams are to be submitted on separate pages with clear labelling and indication where they should appear to facilitate ease of desktop publishing. Tables, graphs, pictures and diagrams need to follow publishing guidelines. Pictures must be 300 dpi good quality images - black and white and all graphs should be in word, and editable OR in 300 dpi jpg picture, and good quality;

In text references identifying the author[s] are removed and replaced with [name removed for the peer review process];

All ‘review’ comments made through the production of manuscripts are removed;

Article titles, subtitles, and text subheadings are appropriate and succinct, with a maximum of two levels of subheads. The first level should be in bold with first letter of each word capitalised except for articles and prepositions. Avoid second level headings, but if used indent and italicise;

The first paragraph after any heading or subheading should NOT be indented. Thereafter a new paragraph should be indented 0.3 cm

Single space between sentences;

Short quotations within the text should be indicated by single quotation marks and only use double for quotations within quotations. Long quotations or extract material (without quotation marks) should be indented about 0.7 cm along the left margin. All quotations should be somehow embedded in a sentence written by the submission author, not just pasted after a full stop. Words, punctuation, or italicisation not present in the original should be enclosed in square brackets or noted as [italics added];

Spell out the numbers one to nine, time periods of a century (twentieth century) and even hundreds, thousands and millions. Always write out a number or year if it begins a sentence, though it may be better to rewrite the sentence to avoid such a circumstance.

Exceptions to spelling out the numeral in words include:

if they include a decimal point or fraction (e.g. .25);
where they refer to page numbers;
where there are sets of numerals, some of which are higher than ten (e.g. 14, 9 and 6);
Percentages are expressed as figures followed by % even if the number is less than 10.

Use Arabic numerals ( 12, 13 ...) for other numbers.

Dates should be written in the following form: 9 January 2001. Periods of time should be written in the following form: 1990s (not 1990’s);

For acronyms, avoid the use of full stops (e.g. NSW, NATO, ANZUS) and full title should be spelt out when first used

In-text References

Social Alternatives uses the Harvard referencing system, as illustrated in the following examples.

Note that every entry in the final list of references must appear as an in-text reference somewhere in the paper and vice versa.

All references to books, articles and other sources must be identified appropriately within the text by the name of the author[s], year of publication, and pagination (within parenthesis where appropriate). Footnotes are to be used rarely. Footnotes are to be in the form of endnotes and are to be limited to observations that are supplementary to the article.

If the author’s name is within the text itself, the year and pagination (if appropriate) follows. Eg. ‘As Beck (1992: 34) famously argues’.

If the author’s name is not within the text but their idea is cited, the author’s name, year and pagination (if appropriate) follows the statement. Eg. Risk society notions are prolific in modern society (Beck 1992: 34);

Where two authors are involved, both are cited. Where three or more authors are involved, the first named author is cited first followed by the abbreviation (et al.). Eg. ‘Gurran et al. (2006) suggest that . . .’

In the case of institutional authors, the organisation name is cited as the author. Eg. ‘CSIRO (2006) suggest that . .’.

Separate multiple citations with semi-colons. Eg. ‘Climate change is . . .(CSIRO 2006; Adger et al. 2009; Smith 2010)’.

When there is more than one reference to an author in the same publication year, the year of publication is distinguished using lettering. Eg. (Smith 2008a; Smith 2008b)

References

All items appearing in-text should be referenced alphabetically by surname or organisation and year of publication. For example:

Douglas, M. 1992 Risk and Blame: Essays in Cultural Theory, Routledge, London.

Giddens, A. 2010 The Politics of Climate Change, Polity Press, London.

Honneth, A. 2001 ‘Recognition or Redistribution? Changing Perspectives on the Moral Order of Society’, Theory Culture and Society, 18, 2-3: 43-55.

Lash, S. & Featherstone, M. 2001 ‘Recognition and Difference: Politics, Identity, Multiculture’, Theory Culture and Society, 18, 2-3: 1-19.

Wolf, J. Lorenzoni, I. Few, R. Abrahamson, V. & Rosalind, R. 2009 ‘Conceptual and Practical Barriers to Adaptation: Vulnerability and Responses to Heat Wave in the UK’, in W.N. Adger, I. Lorenzoni & K. O’Brien (eds) 2009 Adapting to Climate Change: Thresholds, Values, Governance, Cambridge, New York: 181-196.

Publication ethics and publication malpractice

Social Alternatives upholds the highest standards of publication ethics and takes all possible measures against any publication malpractice.

Authors must submit original work. Contributions must not be copied or plagiarised in whole or in part from elsewhere.Authors must disclose conflicts of interest and partial benefits associated with their work.

Social Alternatives is committed to objective and fair double-blind peer-review of submissions, and to addressing conflict of interests between editors and reviewers. Problems are addressed by the Editorial Collective who are committed to providing swift resolutions to disputes.