Style Guide
Journal of Academics Stand Against Poverty
Style Guide
June 2022
The following Guide contains style requirements that must be met by all papers submitted to the Journal. Papers that do not meet these requirements will be returned to the author(s) for correction.
Authors are encouraged to refer to papers previously published in the ASAP Journal for additional guidance on matters of style and formatting.
- Spelling and punctuation
Authors may use either British or American spelling and punctuation, but usage must be consistent throughout the paper. The key difference between British and American punctuation concerns the use of double (“) versus single (‘) quotation marks, and the placement of quotation marks in respect of periods/full stops and commas. Details are provided here: https://www.unr.edu/writing-speaking-center/student-resources/writing-speaking-resources/british-american-english.
- Structure of the paper
The paper should have the following structure:
Title Centred, in bold
Full name of author(s) Centred, in bold.
A footnote to the author’s name should contain, as succinctly as possible: (i) the institutional affiliation of each author, and disclaimers as appropriate concerning the views expressed in the paper (eg. The views expressed in this paper do not necessarily reflect those of [author’s name’s] institution); (ii) acknowledgement as appropriate of intellectual assistance received; (iii) acknowledgment of any funding received to support work on the paper; (iv) a statement concerning possible conflicts of interest (either “[Author’s name] declares no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article” or “[Author’s name] declares the following potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article”, then specify the conflict(s); and (v) the author’s ORCID iD (see https://orcid.org/), if applicable.
Abstract Maximum length 250 words.
The Abstract should specify (i) what was done; (ii) why it was done; (iii) the findings/conclusions; and (iv) the implications of the findings/conclusions. Use short, direct sentences. On no account should the abstract exceed 250 words.
Keywords Up to 5 keywords
Keywords are tools to help indexers and search engines find relevant papers. Keywords can be phrases of two to four words. They should be specific to the field or sub-field of the paper.
Body of the Text
The text should be justified, multiple spacing 1.2 pts, Arial 11pt. The first word of each paragraph should be indented, except immediately following headings, graphs or tables, where there should be no indentation. Only one space should be left after the end of end sentence. Do not add spaces between paragraphs.
Headings
Headings should be in bold text and left justified, using the same point size as the rest of the text (Arial 11pt). The spacing used for headings should be 12pt before, 6pt after.
Footnotes
The use of footnotes to elaborate on points make in the text should be kept to a minimum, and when footnotes are used they should be short and to the point. Footnote numbers in the text should be placed at the end of a sentence after the final punctuation mark. The text of each footnote should be justified, single spaced and in Arial 10 pt.
The citation section below contains advice on the use of footnotes to cite references that are not included in the references section of the paper.
Abbreviations
On first use of a term that is to be abbreviated both the term and the abbreviation should be presented, with the abbreviation in parentheses. Abbreviations that are commonly used and understood (eg. GDP, AIDS, IQ) can be used without the term itself being presented.
If a term is used only one or twice in the paper, do not use an abbreviation but present the full term on each occasion.
If the paper uses ten or more abbreviations include an abbreviations list at the end of the paper, immediately before the references section (see below).
Tables and graphs
Keep tables and graphs as simple as possible. Do not use formatting tools that make editing of tables or graphs difficult. Avoid coloured text unless this is necessary to make the meaning of the table or graph clear.
Photographs
Do not include photographs unless they make a clear and significant contribution to the argument of the paper.
- References
Except in the limited cases specified in the citations section below, each work cited in the text must have a corresponding entry in the references section. Entries in this section should be in alphabetical order and presented in accordance with the style shown in the examples below. Please pay attention to the placement of full stops/periods, commas and colons, the use of italicised and normal text and the use of capitals. Ensure accuracy in the presentation of the names of authors and the titles of referenced texts. If web references are included, ensure they are accurate and lead the reader as directly as possible to the referenced text. If a web reference is likely to change over time, include the date the relevant site was last accessed.
Reference to a whole authored book:
Pogge, T. (2008). World Poverty and Human Rights. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Reference to a whole edited book:
Selgelid M. J., & Pogge, T. (Eds.) (2010). Health Rights. Farnham & Burlington: Ashgate.
Reference to a chapter in an edited book:
Gawlik, A., Apollo, M., Andreychouk, W., & Wengel, Y. (2021). Pilgrimage tourism to sacred places of the high Himalaya. In G. Nyaupane & D. Timothy (Eds). Tourism and Sustainable Development in the Himalayas: Social, Environmental, and Economic Encounters (88-105). New York: Routledge.
Reference to a journal article:
Ahmad, N., Du, L., Tian, X. L., & Wang, J. (2019). Chinese growth and dilemmas: modelling energy consumption, CO2 emissions and growth in China. Quality & Quantity, 53(1), 315-338.
If the article has a DOI (Digital Object Identifier), include this at the end of the reference. If there is no DOI, include a URL wherever possible. Do not use punctuation marks after DOIs/URLs. Note the following examples.
Tittonell, P., & Giller, K. E. (2013). When yield gaps are poverty traps: The paradigm of ecological intensification in African smallholder agriculture. Field Crops Research, 143, 76–90. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fcr.2012.10.007
Shay, S. E., Fleming, J. C. Jr., & Peroni, R. J. (2002). The David R. Tillinghast Lecture - What’s Source Got to do With It? Source Rules and U.S. International Taxation. Tax Law Review, 56(81), 81-155. https://papers.ssrn.com/Sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2704604
Reference to government, international agency or NGO reports:
If there are named authors, present the reference as follows, with a URL wherever possible. Ensure the name of the organisation under whose auspices the article appears is included after the article’s title.
Spanjers, J. & Foss, H. F. (2015). Illicit Financial Flows and Development Indices: 2008-2012. Global Financial Integrity. http://www.w-t-w.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Illicit-Financial-Flows-and-Development-Indices-2008-2012.pdf
If there are no named authors, identify the organisation preparing the report as the author.
Where the name of an organisation is short (two to three words) and the organisation is not widely known under an abbreviation, use the organisation’s full name as the author.
Transparency International. (2017). Corruption perceptions index 2017. https://images.transparencycdn.org/images/2017_CPI_Brochure_EN_200406_140253.PDF
Where an organisation is widely known under an abbreviation (e.g. OECD, IMF, UNDP), the abbreviation can be used as the author’s name without further elaboration.
OECD. (2013). Action Plan on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting. https://www.oecd.org/ctp/BEPSActionPlan.pdf
In the case of less well-known abbreviations, e.g. UNCTAD, use the abbreviation as the author’s name but ensure the organisation’s full name appears after the title of the report/article.
UNCTAD. (2020). Tackling Illicit Financial Flows for Sustainable Development in Africa. UN Conference on Trade and Development. https://unctad.org/system/files/official-document/aldcafrica2020_en.pdf
For advice about referencing documents that are not covered above, see
https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples
- Citations
In-text citations
Most citations will be in text, referring the reader to a work or works in the reference list at the end of the paper. In-text citations can be either in narrative or parenthetical form. In narrative form the author is named in the text, and the citation should take the following form: “As stated by the Ahmad et al. (2019), [further text]”. In parenthetical form, the author’s name and the date appear in parentheses after the relevant text, e.g. [relevant text] (Pogge, 2002) or [relevant text] (UNCTAD, 2020).
Where a work has more than two authors, use the form (Stuster et al., 2018) in the citation. The names of all authors must be included in the reference.
Provide page numbers or other useful identifiers (eg table or graph numbers) for direct quotes or where specific parts of a work are referred to, e.g. “This sort of respect is owed to all persons” (Darwall, 1995, p. 183).
You may use ‘ibid’ (meaning ‘in the same place’ or ‘in the same source’) instead of the author’s name in an in-text citation where (i) no other work has been cited subsequently; and (ii) the citation is on the same page as the previous citation. Do not use ‘op.cit’ in citations.
If a directly quoted passage contains more than 40 words, present it in block form that starts on a separate line and is indented to clearly separate it from the surrounding text. Do not use quotation marks. Cite the source document at the end of the quotation. For example:
In ‘The Dark Side of Human Rights’ (Chapter 6), Onora O’Neill takes on the idea that international human rights law creates universal, enforceable obligations to provide goods and services. She divides rights into two claims: liberty rights and rights to goods and services (often called welfare rights). The former are universal: their objects are of necessity all other human beings. The latter are special rights that are created by ‘voluntary actions and transactions’ (p. 86) such as the conclusion of international treaties. (Selgelid & Pogge, 2010, p. xiii)
If part of a direct quotation is omitted, this should be marked by the use of spare brackets and an ellipsis: […].
Footnoted citations
Non-scholarly source works such as newspaper articles, press releases and webpages can be omitted from the reference list and cited in a footnote rather then in-text, particularly if these works are short (one or two pages). If in doubt about a particular work, include it in the reference list and cite it in-text in line with the above instructions. Footnoted citations should include URLs if at all possible.
Where there is a named author, the footnoted citation should take the form of the following example. Note that the title of the cited work is placed in quotation marks, and the name of the publication where the article appears comes after the article’s title.
John Harris (2021, 7 March). “Homeworking sounds good – until work takes over your life.” The Guardian (UK Edition). https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/07/homeworking-job-takes-over-life-office-grind-remote-working
Where there is no named author, the following form should be used.
The Guardian (UK edition) (2021, 7 March). “At least 20 killed in huge blasts at barracks in Equatorial Guinea.”
Do not cite URLs alone, unless full information about the content of the webpage is provided in the text. Where the contents of a webpage are likely to change over time, include the date on which the webpage was last accessed, in parentheses after the URL, e.g., (last accessed 7 February 2022).
June 2022
