This document provides details on typesetting and layout requirements pertaining to final manuscript submission to The Mid-Southern Journal of Criminal Justice.

Instructions for Authors

Preparing Your Manuscript

Please use Microsoft Word to create your manuscript. Use Times New Roman, font size 12 and double-space. Headings and subheadings must follow the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th edition).

Set the font color to black for the majority of the text. We encourage authors to take advantage of the ability to use color in the production of figures, maps, etc., however, you need to appreciate that this will cause some of your readers problems when they print the document on a black & white printer. For this reason, you are advised to avoid the use of colors in situations where their translation to black and white would render the material illegible or incomprehensible.

Please ensure that there are no colored mark-ups or comments in the final version, unless they are meant to be part of the final text. (You may need to "accept all changes" in track changes or set your document to "normal" in final markup.) Copyedit your manuscript.

All submissions must be in English. Except for common foreign words and phrases, the use of foreign words and phrases should be avoided.

Authors should use proper, standard English grammar.

Page size should be 8.5 x 11-inches.

All margins (left, right, top and bottom) should be 1.5 inches (3.8 cm), including your tables and figures.

When possible, there should be no pages where more than a quarter of the page is empty space.

Structure of the Manuscript

Papers must include but are not limited to the following: title page; abstract; keywords; introduction, literature review, methods, results, discussion; references; appendices (as appropriate); table(s) or figure(s) with caption(s) (on individual pages). The title, keywords, and abstract are key to ensuring readers find your article online through online search engines such as Google.

Page Limits

Papers must be no longer than 30 pages, inclusive of tables, references, figures, and footnotes.

Headings

Headings (e.g., start of sections) and subheadings should follow the standards of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed).

Emphasized Text

Whenever possible use italics to indicate text you wish to emphasize rather than underlining it. The use of color to emphasize text is discouraged.

Figures, Tables, and Other Graphics

Figures, tables, or illustrations (photographs, drawings, diagrams, and charts), are to be numbered in one consecutive series of Arabic numerals (e.g., Table 1, Table 2, Tables 3, Figure 1, Figure 2, Figure 3). Tables and figures should be referred to by number in the text (without abbreviation). Each figure, table, or illustration should be typed on a separate sheet of paper at the end of the manuscript with identifiers placed within the document to mark its specific placement. All figures, tables, and other illustrations must follow the guidelines set forth in the APA Publication Manual (7th edition). For more information please visit https://apastyle.apa.org/manual/.

Footnotes

Footnotes should appear at the bottom of the page on which they are referenced rather than at the end of the paper. Footnotes should be in 10 pt. Times or closest comparable font available, they should be single spaced, and there should be a footnote separator rule (line). Footnote numbers or symbols in the text must follow, rather than precede, punctuation. Excessively long footnotes are probably better handled in an appendix. All footnotes should be left and right-justified (i.e., flush with the right margin), unless this creates awkward spacing.

Reference Style

References should follow the standards of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed).

Submitting Your Manuscript

To submit your manuscript in a single file (Word, RTF, or PDF files are accepted) to The Mid-Southern Journal of Criminal Justice, please click on Submit Manuscript [insert hyperlink here].

Permissions

It is the responsibility of the author(s) to obtain permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures, or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. Documentation of permission must be provided.