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*The American Journal of Political Science is the official journal of the Midwest Political Science Association.  AJPS is committed to significant advances in knowledge and understanding of citizenship, governance, and politics, and to the public value of political science research

 

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Guidelines for Articles

 

  • If The American Journal of Political Science accepts a manuscript for publication, then it achieves the status of an article.  In preparing an accepted manuscript to become a published article, the author must carefully follow these guidelines.
     

  • The manuscript should include:

    A short title for the running head;

    Keywords or phrases for the electronic version of The Journal;

    Identifying information that includes an email address and a postal address for each author. Note that accurate email and postal addresses are required to receive proofs and complimentary copies of an article.

    An article title (that should be concise and descriptive);

    An abstract not to exceed 150 words;

    An acknowledgement section, as appropriate;

    All text, figures, tables, and appendices as appropriate.     

     

  • The manuscript should follow the style guidelines of the American Political Science Association’s Style Manual for Political Science (rev. August, 2006) which is based on The Chicago Manual of Style (15th edition).  The guidelines include, but are not limited to, matters of text style (but, The AJPS prefers use of the third person, rather than “I” or “we” unless such use leads to very awkward writing), citations, appendices, notes, references, and tables and figures. 

  • The manuscript also should be prepared using Microsoft Word or WordPerfect.  The contact author’s email submission identifies the word-processing software used in the manuscript. 

  • If it also uses mathematical programs, such as LaTeX, then the contact author should send a LaTeX file of those as well as the .pdf version of the file that enables the viewer to copy text.  The file must be distilled, that is, created in Acrobat with the “security” setting to allow selection of text and graphics.
     

  • Citations and references must be formatted properly.  That is, citations should be listed in alphabetical order, with dates, in parentheses.  References in the bibliography must be checked against citations in the text, as well as for accuracy of the spellings of author(s)’s names(s), journal, publisher, and title, and of page numbers.
     

  • The prepared manuscript is sent by email to Dr. Susan M. Meyer, Assistant Editor, at meyer.26@osu.edu.  If a hard copy is required, then she will notify the contact author later.  She copyedits the manuscript.  If her copyediting reveals inaccurate, incomplete, or improperly formatted citations and/or bibliography, grammatical or style errors, or other problems, then she contacts the author with instructions on how to correct them.  Failure to do so promptly, and according to Dr. Meyer’s instructions and schedule, will delay publication of an article.  She then emails a copy of the copyedited manuscript to the contact author who has an opportunity to make revisions as well as to approve changes made to the text.  Please note that this is not an opportunity for major revisions of the manuscript.  The manuscript then is sent to a compositor who readies the text for publication. 
     

  • Once copyediting is complete, the contact author must sign a return a Copyright Release Form, and all other authors must complete and return an Author Address Form.  These forms are available at www.ajps.org and are mailed to:

    Martha Lovvoll, Production Editor,

    Blackwell Publishing, Inc.,

    350 Main Street,

    Malden, MA  02148
     

  • The contact author receives a .pdf proof of the article from Blackwell Publishing.  S/he has 48 hours to review it and to return any corrections that must be made to the proofreader.  Again, this is not an opportunity for major revisions of the proof.  The proofreader then uses a set of proof to check that all changes from the first-proof stage were made by the compositor.  The contact author does not see the second set of proofs.
     

  • All authors receive 2 printed copies of the issue in which the article appears and 1 .pdf copy of the article when The Journal goes to press.  If an author wants more than 2 copies, then s/he can order more using an order form included with the page proofs or by requesting them (by e-mail) from Martha Lovvoll at mlovvoll@bos.blackwellpublishing.com.

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