Criminology

Published on behalf of the American Society of Criminology

Edited by:
Denise Gottfredson, Editor, and Bianca Bersani, Managing Editor

Print ISSN: 0011-1384
Online ISSN: 1745-9125
Frequency: Quarterly
Current Volume: 48 / 2010
ISI Journal Citation Reports® Ranking: 2008: 1/31 Criminology & Penology
Impact Factor: 2.069

TopAuthor Guidelines

GUIDE FOR PREPARING MANUSCRIPTS FOR CRIMINOLOGY

Please read this document carefully and take steps to ensure that your manuscript is consistent with these guidelines. Once a paper is accepted for publication, any deviations from these guidelines can cause significant delays in publishing. Thank you.

EDITORIAL POLICY

The journal is interdisciplinary, devoted to the study of crime, deviant behavior, and related phenomena, as found in the social and behavioral sciences and in the fields of law, criminal justice, and history. The major emphases are theory, research, historical issues, policy evaluation, and current controversies concerning crime, law, and justice.

MANUSCRIPTS

Manuscripts may be submitted online at our secure site, www.criminology.umd.edu. Follow the instructions on the web page regarding registration and manuscript submission. The manuscript should be submitted in one Word or Word Perfect file with tables and figures in the same document as the manuscript text. Additional documents, including cover letters or memos to the editor, may also be submitted on the website as supplemental files. Although we strongly encourage online submission, those who prefer not to submit online may send two copies of the manuscript to Denise Gottfredson, Editor, Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Maryland, 2220 LeFrak Hall, College Park, MD 20742 (301) 405-4699.

All submissions, whether electronic or regular mail, must be accompanied by a $10 nonrefundable processing fee, payable to the American Society of Criminology (papers written solely by student members of ASC exempted). This fee can be paid via cash, money order, or check. Unfortunately, we cannot accept international checks.

The American Society of Criminology regards submission of a manuscript to this journal as a commitment to publish herein; simultaneous submission to another journal is unacceptable. Every effort will be made to notify authors of editorial decisions within three months of manuscript receipt.

Each manuscript should contain a title page. In addition to the title, this page should list each author and his or her affiliation. Any acknowledgements should be included at the bottom of the title page.

The title page should be followed by a separate page containing an abstract of approximately 150 words. Keywords should be included directly after the abstract. This page should be headed by the manuscript title and should also include brief biographical paragraphs describing each author's current affiliation, research interests, and recent publications.

Papers accepted for publication should comply with the American Psychological Association's guidelines concerning non-sexist language.

In preparing the final draft of your manuscript, please note the following:

1. HEADINGS AND SUBHEADINGS:

Our style provides for four levels of headings. Leave extra space in the double-spaced draft before all levels of headings. The four heading levels are:

MAJOR HEADING LEVEL "A"
MAJOR HEADING LEVEL "B"
Subheading Level "C"
Subheading Level "D" (text follows a period on the same line)

"A" is centered, all capital letters, and boldface. "B" is flush left and all capital letters. "C" is flush left on a separate line, capital letters for all important words. "D" Begins at paragraph indentation, capital letters for all important words, and is in italics.

2. TABLES AND FIGURES

Please note that if a paper is accepted for publication, all the formatting and layout of tables and graphs will have to be redone in the composition stage of publication. It is therefore requested that table formatting and layout be kept simple and straightforward. Information should be conveyed as simply as possible.

In a draft manuscript, which will undoubtedly undergo revision, please place all tables, even small ones, on separate pages at the end of the manuscript. Tables should be numbered consecutively throughout the article. Insert a location note at the appropriate place in the text, e.g. "Table 2 about here".

The title of the table is flush left at the top of the page. "Table" is followed by a space, the table number, and a period. This is followed by two spaces and then the title of the table, with initial capital letters for all important words, and no period.

Tables should have no borders or shading. This will be added during composition. Set the first column heading and column flush left; other headings and columns can be arranged in whatever format best presents the data, so long as all data within a column are aligned with the heading and with other data in the column.

Consult a recent issue of Criminology for style and placement of general notes to the table, specific footnotes, and the source.

Put every figure, even small ones, on a separate page at the end of the paper. Be sure the text refers to all figures, including photographs, line drawings, and graphs and insert a location note at the appropriate place in the text. "Figure" followed by a space and the figure number is centered at the top of the page. The title of the figure also is centered on the next line with initial capital letters for all important words.

Figures submitted with the final draft must be of professional quality and ready for reproduction. If figures originate in a program other than MS Word or WordPerfect, please supply the native format files, for example, PowerPoint or Excel.

Equations must be typed in symbol font. Expressions should be aligned and compound subscripts and superscripts clearly marked if there is any potential for confusion. Clarify all symbols with notes in the margin of the manuscript.

3. CITATIONS AND REFERENCES

We use an author-date citation style, with complete bibliographic entries appearing in a reference list at the end of the paper. In text, all source references (including subsequent citations of the same source) are to be identified at the appropriate point in the text by the last name of the author, year of publication, and (where needed) pagination. Examples:

• If the author's name is in the text, follow it with the year in parentheses.
  Thrasher (1927)
  
• If the author's name is not in the text, insert, in parentheses, the last name and
  year (Gibbs, 1981)
  
• Pagination follows year of publication after a colon:
  (Kornhauser, 1978: 73). Note, there should be a space after the colon.
  
• Give both last names for dual authors. When there are three or more authors,
  use the first author's name and et al. (Johnson et al., 1985: 3-4)
  
• If there are two works of multiple authors and of the same date that abbreviate to the same thing (for example) Smith, et al., 2001, give the first two names, followed by et al. (Smith, Watkins et al., 2001; Smith, Murphy et al., 2001). If the first two names are the same, provide the first name and a short title of the work being cited (Smith et al., Social Development, 2001).
  
• Separate a series of references with semicolons and enclose them in alphabetical order within a single pair of parentheses: (Miller, 1958; Sellin, 1938; Sutherland and Cressey, 1955; Sutherland, 1956).
  
• For unpublished materials, use "in press" for material that is scheduled for
  publication; use "unpublished" otherwise.
  
• The reference appendix, headed by the word "REFERENCES", follows the last page of text. Facts of publication for each item must be complete, including the full names of authors and editors (not initials). Failure to include full names may delay publication. List the first and last names of all authors--do not use "et al." in the appendix.

List all items alphabetically by author(s). If there are two or more items by the same author(s), list them in order of the year of publication. If there are two or more items by the same author(s) within the same year, distinguish them by adding (in order of first text mention) the letters a, b, ... order.

Please note that quotation marks are generally not employed in the references.

Please make sure that all articles included in the references are cited in the manuscript and that all articles cited in the manuscript are included in the references

Type the references double-spaced, using Chicago Style. A few examples follow, but consult the Chicago Style Guide for further examples.

BOOKS:

Fox, James A. 1978. Forecasting Crime Data. Toronto: Lexington.

Rusche, George, and Otto Kircheimer. 1939. Punishment and Social Structure. New York: Russell and Russell.

U.S. Department of Justice. 1980. Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics - 1984. Washington, DC: National Criminal Justice Information and Statistics Service.

JOURNALS:

Messner, Steven F. 1982a. Poverty, inequality, and the urban homicide rate: Some unexpected findings. Criminology 20:103-14.

Messner, Steven F. 1982b. Societal development, social inequality, and homicide: A cross-national test of a Durkheimian model. Social Forces 61:225-40.

Miethe, Terance D., and Charles A. Moore. In Press. Racial differences in criminal processing: The consequences of model selection on conclusions about differential treatment. Sociological Quarterly 27.

CONTRIBUTION TO A BOOK:

Kobrin, Solomon. 1971. The formal logical properties of the Shaw-McKay delinquency theory. In Ecology, Crime and Delinquency, eds. Harwin L. Voss and David M. Peterson, New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.

Cohen, Jacqueline. 1986. Research on criminal careers: Individual frequency rates and offense seriousness. In Criminal Careers and "Career Criminals", vol. I., eds. Alfred Blumstein, Jacqueline Cohen, Jeffrey Roth, and Christy Visher, Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

CASE:

Goss v. Lopez, 1975. Supreme Court of the United States 419 U.S. 565.

NEWSPAPERS:

Hunt, Matthew. 1999. City sees decline in burglary rates. Norman (Oklahoma) Transcript, 24 June, A15.

Or

Wall Street Journal. 1994. National crime statistics misleading. Editorial, B12.

If the citation is from a newspaper that includes numbered sections, such as a Sunday edition, include the section and page number: sec. 1A, p. 5.

MAGAZINES:

Cannon, Jane. 1985. What about the parents of delinquent children? Parents' Weekly, February, 19-21.


4. NOTES AND FOOTNOTES

Because the citation-reference style for Criminology eliminates the use of notes or footnotes for bibliographic material, only substantive comments on the text should appear as notes. In a draft manuscript, place all substantive notes in a numbered list at the end of the paper.

5. FORMAT

All material must be typed double-spaced (including indented material, notes, tables, and references) on 8 1/2 x 11-inch paper.

Hyphenate only those words that appear in your dictionary as hyphenated words. Do not hyphenate at the ends of lines.

Letters used as statistical symbols or algebraic variables should be italicized, for example p t test; SEM; a/b = c/d; trial n. Greek letters (e.g. â, ë) should not be italicized

Do not use word processor auto-numbering functions. These usually cause delays in the composition and publishing phases.