Guidelines for Accepted Manuscripts

Please note:  Social Forces has transitioned to all electronic submission and reviewing of manuscripts

Manuscripts are limited to 9,000 words INCLUDING references and endnotes for articles and 5,000 words INCLUDING references and endnotes for research notes. (Research notes should also have fewer figures and references.)  We will enforce these limits before publishing a manuscript.

IMPORTANT NOTE:  If you use Office 2007, please make sure to save your files in a format that is compatible with Office 1997-2003.

Organize the manuscript in Microsoft Word in the following order:

Cover Page:

Includes  (1) Title; (2) Running Head (shortened title - 50 characters or less, including spaces) to appear in the article's running head); (3) Word Count; (4) Authors and affiliations; (5) Abstract (125 words for articles, 70 words for research notes); and (6) Acknowledgements (financial or other assistance, author's field of study, name, address and e-mail address of the primary contact to whom correspondence should be sent).

Text:

1-inch margins all around. Include callouts to tables and figures by placing copies of Table and Figure titles in the text where they should be located. (For example, Table 1: Rankings by Number [about here]).

Manuscript Title should be in 14 pt. boldface Times New Roman. Heads should be in 11 pt. boldface Times New Roman. Text should be in 11 pt. Times New Roman, SINGLE SPACED.

Endnotes/Notes:

Use only for substantive comments bearing on content.  Mark consecutively beginning with numeral 1.  Notes should be in 10 pt. Times New Roman.  No footnotes.  No automatic formatting.   This includes headers/footers, page numbers, and references formatted with programs such as EndNote. Type endnotes manually rather than using the Insert menu of your word processing program.

Figures:

All figures and graphics must be black and white.  Send photographs as press quality (300+ dpi) jpegs, PDFs or tiff.  When possible, compose figures in MS Word or Excel.  Otherwise, copy/paste into Word AND send include copies saved as press quality PDF (300+ dpi).  Graphics should conform to the following guidelines:

• Horizontal Figures: 7.75 in. wide by 4.75 inches deep, or shorter
• Vertical Figures:  4.75 in. wide by 7.75 in. deep, or shorter
• .5 pt. rules
• All text 10pt Arial Narrow
  
• Shading in 20% increments (20% minimum)
• Titles for figures should be in a text box (not in the figure itself)
• Provide titles in the format Figure 1. This is a Figure Title

Tables:

All tables must be black and white, editable in MS Word or Excel and should conform to the following guidelines:

• Horizontal tables: 7.75 in. wide by 4.75 inches deep, or shorter
• Vertical tables:  4.75 in. wide by 7.75 in. deep, or shorter

Use MS Word to produce tables.  Do not create your tables using the TAB key and/or the space bar.  Do not split up the tables and "continue" them on the next page if they do not fit.  If tables are produced in Excel, copy them into Word so that they are editable in Word. Do not link them to Excel.  For values in tables, omit leading zeroes and when possible restrict decimals to two places (For example, .02, not 0.02). Include any notations to tables in the following order and manner:

Source:

Notes:

p values in descending order with spaces in the equations and no italic

*p < .10 **p < .05 ***p < .01

Provide labels for tables in the text (not in the table or figure itself) in this form: Table 1: This is a Table Title

References (See also Submission Guidelines):

References must NOT be formatted with any sort of field codes.  If you used EndNote or a similar program to organize your references, you must unlink the document by removing the field codes.  Save the new copy to send to us. 

Use the following format for references:

• When naming the author in the text, give the year of publication in parentheses: Lipset (1960)
• When not naming the author in the text, give the author and year in parentheses: (Lipset 1960)
• Use page numbers only for direct quotations or specific notes or tables: (Braudel 1969:213-14)
  
• For more than three authors, use: et al.
• With more than one reference to an author in the same year: distinguish references by using letters (a, b, c) with the year of publication (1975a)
• An earlier publication should follow a later publication in brackets with parentheses:  (Tocqueville 1956[1835])
• For a series of references, in parentheses list alphabetically the references separated by  semicolons: (Adler 1975; Adler and Simon 1979; Anderson, Chiricos and Waldo 1977; Bernstein et  al. 1977; Chesney-Ling 1973a, 1973b).
• List authors alphabetically by surname. Spell out first names of all authors and editors.
• For authors with more than one work cited, list works earliest to latest.
• For articles, give author(s), year of publication, title of article (caps and lower case), name of journal, volume number, issue number and pages.
• For books and monographs, give author(s), year of publication, title and publisher.
• For dissertations, follow the example given below.
• For all other types of references, see Chicago Manual of Style (15th ed.).
  

Examples

Elder, Glen H. 1975. "Age Differentiation and the Life Course." Pp. 165-90 in Annual Review of Sociology. Vol. 1, edited by Alex Inkeles, James Coleman and Neil Smelser. Annual Reviews.

Myrdal, Gunnar. [1944] 1962. An American Dilemma. Harper & Row.

Ritzer, George. 1975a. "Sociology: A Multiple Paradigm Science." Allyn & Bacon.

_____. 1975b. "Sociology: A Multiple Paradigm Science." American Sociologist 10:156-67.