Formatting guidelines for Articles

Please take an hour or two to format your manuscript exactly according to our stylesheet. The experience is that well-formatted manuscripts stand a higher chance of acceptance. Furthermore, it significantly reduces chances of errors during production.

  • Manuscripts are accepted in American English. We follow Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary (11th edition) spelling and punctuation.
  • Please use double quotation marks, except where “a quotation is ‘within’ a quotation.” Long quotations of 40 words or more should be indented without quotation marks. Please also use double quotation marks for an ironic comment or a coined expression.
  • Manuscripts should be compiled in the following order:
    • Title;
    • Author and affiliation (plus ORCID if available);
    • Correspondence details;
    • Abstract (maximum 150 words);
    • 4-6 keywords;
    • Acknowledgments;
    • Funding information;
    • Disclosure statement;
    • Biographical note (150 words);
    • Main text;
    • Endnotes;
    • Reference list;
    • Appendices (as appropriate);
    • Please include the tables and figures within the main text.
  • Please limited the number of explanatory endnotes. If something is important, it probably should be in the main text. Otherwise: delete.
  • Manuscripts should be written in a concise manner and should be to the point. Most articles in CSP are no more than 10,000 words (including notes and the reference list). However, manuscripts up to 12,000 words are accepted, for example when they include multiple case studies or use mixed methods.
  • Section headings should be concise and informative (i.e. not “theory” or “case studies”). The introduction does not have an heading. Headings are not numbered. First-level sub-headings are in bold; second-level sub-headings in italics.
  • All authors of a manuscript should include their full names and affiliations on the cover page of the manuscript. One author should be identified as the corresponding author, with postal address and email address.
  • All persons who have a reasonable claim to authorship must be named in the manuscript as co-authors; the corresponding author must be authorized by all co-authors to act as an agent on their behalf in all matters pertaining to publication of the manuscript, and the order of names should be agreed by all authors.
  • Acknowledgements are important. Please mention if your manuscripts builds on any previously published (including in different languages) or non-published work (e.g. conference papers; working papers, dissertations, etc.). There is no harm in reusing previous work, as long as it is explicitly acknowledged (see further). We will take action against self-plagiarism when not acknowledged.
  • Please supply all details required by any funding and grant-awarding bodies as an acknowledgement on the title page of the manuscript, in a separate paragraph, as follows:
    • For single agency grants: “This work was supported by the [Funding Agency] under Grant [number xxxx].”
    • For multiple agency grants: “This work was supported by the [Funding Agency 1] under Grant [number xxxx]; [Funding Agency 2] under Grant [number xxxx]; and [Funding Agency 3] under Grant [number xxxx].”
  • Authors must also incorporate a Disclosure Statement which will acknowledge any financial interest or benefit they have arising from the direct applications of their research.
  • For all manuscripts non-discriminatory language is mandatory. Sexist or racist terms must not be used.