Scottish Affairs
Scotland's Longest Running Journal
on Contemporary Political and Social Issues


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Scottish Affairs

Notes for Contributors

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*1. Type of article

1.1 Scottish Affairs publishes articles on matters of concern to people who are interested in the development of Scotland. This includes articles about similarly placed small nations and regions throughout Europe and beyond. The articles are authoritative and rigorous without being technical and pedantic. No subject area is excluded, but all articles should pay attention to the social and political context of their topics.

1.2 Thus Scottish Affairs takes up a position between informed journalism and academic analysis, and provides a forum for dialogue between the two. The readers and contributors include journalists, politicians, civil servants, business people, academics, and people in general who take an informed interest in current affairs.

1.3 A quarterly cannot be wholly topical, but the editors try to find articles which are of current interest. Contributors should bear in mind that many people will read the journal some time after it was published.

1.4 Articles should be written in a readily understandable style. The use of acronyms and jargon should be avoided if possible.

*2. Submission of manuscripts

2.1 Our preferred form of submission is email; submissions should be emailed to Lindsay Adams, Business Manager. If you are emailing an article, it must be as an attachment in Word or in Rich Text Format. No other format can be accepted.

Manuscripts (three copies, please) may alternatively be sent to

The editor,
Scottish Affairs,
Institute of Governance,
Edinburgh University,
Chisholm House,
1 Surgeon Square,
High School Yards,
Edinburgh.
EH1 1LZ

2.2 The submission of an article constitutes an assurance by the author or authors to the editors that it contains no libellous matter or breach of copyright, and no material that would contravene the Sex Discrimination or Race Relations legislation.

2.3 Manuscripts should be typewritten or word-processed on one side of A4 paper, with wide margins all round and double-spaced. There is no set length for articles. Authors should keep a copy of the manuscript.

2.4 A detachable title page should give the title, the name and address of the author(s), and the text of a biographical note that will appear as a footnote on the first printed page of the article. This biographical note should be about three sentences long, and should concentrate on matters that are relevant to the author's or authors' qualifications for writing the article. It should include any acknowledgements that you want to make.

2.5 Please supply an abstract of about 200 words. This is not printed in the journal, but is made available on the Scottish Affairs web site, which is at: http://www.scottishaffairs.org

2.6 A selection of articles in the journal is made available electronically on the Scottish Affairs web site some time after the issue in which they appeared is published. The editors will assume that you have no objection to your article's being made available in this way, unless you inform the editorial office otherwise.

2.7 Please break up the text by using headings. The headings should be left-justified, bold, and not in capitals. There should be an extra line-space above each heading.

2.8 All articles are refereed.

2.9 The editors reserve the right to require even commissioned contributions to be rewritten to conform to the goals and audience outlined in section 1 above.

2.10 An electronic copy as an email attachment or on floppy disc should be made available to the editors once final corrections have been completed. This copy must be in Word or be an RTF file.

2.11 Authors receive a free copy of the journal in which their articles appear.

*3. Honorarium

Scottish Affairs is not in a position to pay a fee for articles which it publishes. The costs of production do not receive financial subsidy from any source, and have to be met by sales and advertising. However, the editors recognise that expecting freelance writers to contribute without some financial reward would be unreasonable. Therefore an honorarium is offered to contributors whose income is directly dependent on their writing. The editors ask contributors to inform them whether this is indeed the case. Any honorarium is payable on publication only.

*4. References and technical material

4.1 Extensive technical material that cannot be included in the main text should be put in an appendix: an example would be the technical details of a statistical survey.

4.2 The preferred style for references is exemplified below (sometimes known as the Harvard style); there should be a single alphabetical list at the end that contains full details of the references as illustrated (see also note 5.6 below). Scottish Affairs does, however, accept references in the footnoted style that is common in humanities journals and books.

Books

In the text as Kellas (1984), and in the alphabetical list at the end as:

Kellas, J. (1984). The Scottish Political System. Cambridge: University Press, third edition.

Journal articles

In the text as Farrar (1990), and in the alphabetical list at the end as:

Farrar, S. (1990). Scottish construction industry: 1990 assessment. Scottish Economic Bulletin, vol 42, 25-36.

Government publication

In the text as Scottish Home and Health Department (1979), and in the alphabetical list as:

Scottish Home and Health Department (1979). Structure and management of the NHS in Scotland. Edinburgh: HMSO.

Chapters in books

In the text as Cohen (1991), and in the alphabetical list as:

Cohen, B. (1991). Developing childcare services in Scotland: whose responsibility? Scottish Government Yearbook 1991, eds A.Brown and D.McCrone, 217-227. Edinburgh: Unit for the Study of Government in Scotland.

Articles in newspapers or magazines

In the text as Harvie (1992), and in the alphabetical list as:

Harvie, C. (1992). Czech-mate trumpets the beginning of the end. The Scotsman, 13 June 1992, 9.

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University of Edinburgh

Scottish Affairs is published by
the Institute of Governance
at The University of Edinburgh

Send enquiries and feedback about Scottish Affairs and this web site to Lindsay Adams
email: l.adams@ed.ac.uk
   tel: (+44)(0)131 650 2456


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