Instructions for Authors

All submissions should be made online at the Local Government Studies Manuscript Central site. New users should first create an account. Once a user is logged onto the site submissions should be made via the Author Centre.

Authors should prepare and upload two versions of their manuscript. One should be a complete text, while in the second all document information identifying the author should be removed from files to allow them to be sent anonymously to referees. When uploading files authors will then be able to define the non-anonymous version as “File not for review”. 

The Editors of Local Government Studies welcome initial approaches from prospective authors. Acceptance of articles is subject to an anonymous refereeing process.

Articles submitted to Local Government Studies should be original contributions and should not be under consideration for any other publication at the same time. If another version of the article is under consideration by another publication, or has been, or will be published elsewhere, authors should clearly indicate this at the time of submission.

If submitting a hard copy, each manuscript should be submitted in duplicate, typewritten, double-spaced and with ample margins. All pages (including those containing only diagrams and tables) should be numbered consecutively.

There is no standard length for articles but 4,000-6,000 words (including notes and references) is a useful target. Authors should be prepared to submit an abstract of no more than 250 words, which should describe the main arguments and conclusions of the article. The author should provide brief biographical details including affiliation, research interests and recent publications.

The title of the article only should appear at the top of the first page of text. Any acknowledgements should be included on the cover sheet.

Authors whose first language is not English should have their article read and corrected by a native English speaker.

All diagrams, charts and graphs should be referred to as figures and consecutively numbered. Tables should be kept to a minimum and contain only essential data. Each figure and table must be given an Arabic numeral, followed by a heading, and be referred to in the text. We welcome figures sent electronically, but care and attention to these guidelines are essential as importing graphics packages can often be problematic.

• Figures must be saved individually and separate to text. Please do not embed figures in the paper file.
• Avoid the use of colour and tints for purely aesthetic reasons.
• Figures should be produced as near to the finished size as possible.
• All figures must be numbered in the order in which they appear in the paper (e.g. figure 1, figure 2). In multi-part figures, each part should be labelled (e.g. figure 1(a), figure 1(b)).
• Figure captions must be saved separately, as part of the file containing the complete text of the paper, and numbered correspondingly.
• The filename for the graphic should be descriptive of the graphic, e.g. Figure1, Figure2a.
• Files should be saved as one of the following formats: TIFF (tagged image file format), PostScript or EPS (encapsulated PostScript), and should contain all the necessary font information and the source file of the application (e.g. CorelDraw/Mac, CorelDraw/PC).

Please note that it is in the author's interest to provide the highest quality figure format possible. Please do not hesitate to contact our Production Department if you have any queries.

To facilitate the typesetting process, notes should be grouped together at the end of the file. Tables should also be placed at the end. Any diagrams or maps should be copied to a separate disk in uncompressed .TIF or .JPG formats in individual files. These should be prepared in black and white. Tints should be avoided, use open patterns instead.

It is the author's responsibility to ensure that where copyright materials are included within an article the permission of the copyright holder has been obtained. Confirmation of this should be included on a separate sheet included with the disk.

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.

Style

Authors are responsible for ensuring that their manuscripts conform to the journal style. The Editors will not undertake retyping of manuscripts before publication.

Sub-headings should be in capitals (or Roman numerals); sub-sub headings in lower case italic. Quotations should be in single quotation marks, double within single. Long quotations of five or more lines should be indented without quotes. Capitals should be used sparingly, principally for proper titles and where they may be necessary to avoid ambiguity. British spelling to be used throughout ('s' not 'z' in organisation etc.). Common foreign words such as regime, role, elite to be unaccented. No full stop after abbreviations (e.g. Dr, MP), and no apostrophe in plurals such as MPs, the 1930s. % to be written per cent. Dates should be in the form 31 March 1992; 1994-95.

References

Simple references to be inserted in round brackets at the appropriate place in the text, stating author's surname, publication date of work referred to and, where appropriate, relevant pages. For example: (Ludlow, 1992: 85).

Comments to appear as notes, indicated consecutively throughout the article by raised numerals corresponding to the list of notes placed at the end of the manuscript.

Reference list to appear after the list of notes, containing all the works referred to, listed alphabetically by author's surname (or name of sponsoring body), stating author's surname, forename and/or initials, date of publication, title of publication, edition, place of publication and publisher, and pages if relevant. For example:

Walsh, K., 1995, Public Services and Market Mechanisms (London: Macmillan).

Davis, H., 1997, 'Reviewing the Review', Local Government Studies, 23/3.

Book Reviews: title (italic), authors(s) or editor(s) (capitals), place of publication, publisher, date of publication, no. of pages, price.

Electronic Offprints

Free article access: Corresponding authors will receive free online access to their article through our website (www.informaworld.com) and a complimentary copy of the issue containing their article. Reprints of articles published in this journal can be purchased through Rightslink® when proofs are received. If you have any queries, please contact our reprints department at reprints@tandf.co.uk