Manuscript Preperation
Submissions to NCMR should be submitted as a single Microsoft Word file that contains all components of the manuscript, including title page, abstract, references, figures, tables, endnotes, and appendices. The manuscript should be created using a 12-pitch font, with margins of one inch, block formatting, with an extra double space between paragraphs. The manuscript should include a title page listing all authors’ affiliations and contact information. In addition, the abstract page should include the title of the manuscript, but no other identifying information.The manuscript should be no more than 25 pages of text.
Please note: TWO copies of the file should be submitted – one with and one without the title page.
The manuscript should include a 100 – 150 word abstract that describes the paper, including the question addressed or focus of the manuscript, the type of study reported (e.g., empirical, field study, laboratory study, qualitative, theoretical, etc.), the context (e.g., work groups, hospitals, police departments, etc.), and key insights (theoretical frameworks) or major findings (empirical). Manuscripts should be submitted in APA format.
Manuscripts should be written as simply and concisely as possible without sacrificing clarity. All manuscripts are evaluated in terms of their contribution-to-length ratio. Manuscripts comprising strong contributions will be permitted more pages than those with narrower contributions. In general, those with more narrow contributions should be limited to 25 pages, while those with extensive contributions should have a maximum of 40 pages, inclusive of references, tables, figures and appendixes. At the discretion of the editor, papers may be allotted additional space.
The manuscript should be organized by using primary, secondary, and tertiary headings. Use footnotes sparingly. Essential material should be incorporated in the text and material with weak relevance should be deleted. To preserve anonymity in the blind-review process, authors should avoid revealing their identity in any way in text, through obvious self-references to previous work, or in footnotes. Use only abbreviations known to the general public and avoid unnecessary acronyms; spell out an abbreviated term when first used. Tables and figures should each appear on a separate page and should be attached at the end of the manuscript after the references, rather than inserting them in the text. All tables and figures should be clearly labelled.
Use gender neutral language. Unless the context requires reference to a specific person whose biological sex has been made clear, the reference should be gender neutral. For example, “human beings” or “humanity” can replace “mankind”, “people” should be used instead of “men”, and “chair” can replace “chairman”. Finally, plural pronouns (e.g. they, them) should be used to refer to a singular noun when the reference is not to a specific person whose sex is known. This not only avoids more awkward phrasing such as “he or she”, “his or her”, but is consistent with practices that have been in use since the 14th century (the prevalence of using masculine pronouns as the generic is a relatively recent invention).
Use the active voice whenever possible, but use “we” only for multiple authors. Use the past tense for discussing earlier studies or presenting methods, samples, data, findings, results, and conclusions. Use the present tense for discussing tables or figures as they are presented in text.
Finally, if the author(s) have used the “track changes” feature, they should be aware that recent versions of WORD show corrections to previous versions if the “Showing Markup” option is clicked when the Reviewing tool bar is activated. To prevent showing corrections before submitting your manuscript you should (1) click on “Final,” (2) select the entire document, and then (3) save this version as a new file under a new name. It is this “clean” version that should be submitted.
