Journal Details
Construction Management and Economics
Instructions for Authors
Further information about Construction Management and Economics including links to the online sample copy and contents pages can be found on the journal homepage.
- End Note style file for formatting references and citations. Save this file into your Program Files/Endnote/Styles directory to use it. (See End Note for the software).
- Guidance on writing informative abstracts - Some suggestions for all authors
- Guidance on writing editorial notes - How to write interesting notes as a basis for press releases about your paper
- Guidance on producing clear graphics - Ideas for overcoming potential production difficulties
- Author's Charter - What you can expect to happen when you submit a paper
- Guidance on proposing Special Issues - How to propose a Special Issue for consideration by the Editors
Submission
Papers for consideration should be uploaded electronically to Construction Management and Economics' Manuscript Central site to facilitate rapid accessibility of work to readers. New users should first create an account. Once a user is logged onto the site submissions should be made via the Author Centre. File format would preferably be Microsoft Word; however, other popular file formats may be acceptable. Please note, Manuscript Central will automatically compile a pdf for the purposes of refereeing. However, if files have been created in LaTeX, please convert to Postscript or PDF before uploading. Papers will be anonymously refereed by acknowledged experts in the subject. Only those receiving favourable recommendations from the referees will be accepted for publication. If an author is uncertain about whether a paper is suitable for publication in the Journal, it is acceptable to submit a synopsis first.
Effective communication
The paper should be written and arranged in a style that is succinct and easily followed. An informative but short title, a concise abstract with keywords, and a well-written introduction will help to achieve this. Simple language, short sentences and a good use of headings all help to communicate information more effectively. Discursive treatment of the subject matter is discouraged. Figures may be used to aid the clarity of the paper but only where this is more concise than verbal description. The reader should be carefully guided through the paper. Always think about your reader.
Manuscript - papers
While there is no limit on length, papers should normally be 2000-5000 words in length. Longer, more discursive papers are welcomed, where the topic and approach warrants a longer paper. To be clear about the distinction, these are referred to as Extended Papers. These papers will be expected to deal with real theoretical contributions, and draw on a wider literature than the usual papers. Authors are requested to state in their covering letter how many words their paper contains. The manuscript must be in English, typed in double spacing, with a 4 cm margin on the left-hand side. There should be no separate addenda or notes or other explanatory material. The manuscript should be arranged under headings and subheadings.
Please avoid adding your own 'user keywords' in Manuscript Central. The abstract must not exceed 200 words and must précis the paper giving a clear indication of the conclusions it contains. Advice for writing informative abstracts is available via the link at the top of this page.
Keywords must be carefully selected to facilitate readers' search. Make sure that the first page of your paper includes the title, the abstract and the keywords, but not authorship, affiliation or address details.
Tables
Tables should be included at the end of the manuscript or uploaded as separate files. Tables should not be included in the main body of the text. They should be referred to in the text as 'Insert Table 1 here' and the actual tables and information should be included at the end of the paper, numbered in the order they will appear in the text as 'Table 1' Table 2' etc.
Illustrations
Measurements
Metric units should be used; if other units are used then metric equivalents should be given in parentheses.
References
The Harvard system is used. References in the text should be quoted in the following manner: Smith (1975) or (Brown and Green, 1976) or if there are more than two authors, Jones et al. (1980). References should be collected at the end of the paper in alphabetical order by the first author's surname. If references to the same author have the same year, they should be differentiated by using 1980a and 1980b etc. The style should follow the examples below:
Ranasinghe, M. and Russell, A.D. (1993) Elicitation of subjective probabilities for economic risk analysis. Construction Management and Economics, 11(5), 326-40.
Reynolds, C.E. and Steedman, J.C. (1988) Reinforced Concrete Designer's Handbook, 10th Edn. E & FN Spon, London.
Barrett, S. (1981) Implementation of public policy, in Barrett, S. and Fudge, C. (eds) Policy and Action, Chapman & Hall, London, pp. 1-33.
If no person is named as the author the body should be used - for example: Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (1980) Report on Urban Planning Methods, London.
A limited number of explanatory endnotes is permissible. These should be numbered 1, 2, 3, consecutively in the text and denoted by superscripts. They should be typed on separate pages at the end of the text. Endnotes should not be used for academic or project citations.
Manuscripts - short papers or notes
Short papers or notes should be as short as possible, and should not be longer than 2000 words. The specifications from the previous section apply in all respects. Short papers or notes may offer comments on other papers published by this Journal, as well as offer original contributions.
Letters to the Editor
Letters are intended to be short unrefereed contributions dealing with, for example, an opinion on some aspect of research or current thinking, a debate carried out in the pages of the journal, recent discussions on e-mail networks and obituaries. Not all contributions will be published as space is limited and valuable. The ultimate decision about publication will be the Editor's. Depending on other items in the issue, no more than four pages per issue will be devoted to these letters. Letters should begin with the text "Dear Sir" and the author's name, affiliation and country should appear at the end.
Proofs
Proofs will be sent to the corresponding author for correction. The difficulty and expense involved in making amendments at proof stage makes it essential for authors to prepare their manuscript carefully: any alterations to the original text are strongly discouraged. Our aim is rapid publication: this will be helped if authors provide good copy following the above instructions, and return their proofs as quickly as possible.
Copyright
It is a condition of publication that authors assign copyright or licence the publication rights in their articles, including abstracts, to Taylor & Francis. This enables us to ensure full copyright protection and to disseminate the article, and of course the Journal, to the widest possible readership in print and electronic formats as appropriate. Authors retain many rights under the Taylor & Francis rights policies, which can be found at www.informaworld.com/authors_journals_copyright_position. Authors are themselves responsible for obtaining permission to reproduce copyright material from other sources.
