Information for Authors
Submitting authors should bear in mind that the journal is a multidisciplinary journal, intended to be read by lawyers, mathematicians and statisticians.
- Please include an abstract of no more than 200 words, and up to six keywords.
- The bulk of material must not be too technical; place technical details in footnotes.
- Some formulae are permitted: general formulae in the text, particular formulae in footnotes.
- Papers should contain some explanation of what they are about that can be understood by everyone. However, the Editors accept that not all papers need to entirely intelligible to all readers.
- References: Name and year in the text, in the text. Full references given at the back in alphabetical order by first named author. An alternative is acceptable with footnotes, numbered (with a superscript) by place of first appearance in the text. Look at earlier issues for examples.
- Footnotes: These should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text. Footnotes in text, tables and legend should be identified by arabic numbers appearing in the text in superscript, for example 5 or 5- 7 or 5,16 for unrelated footnotes.
Submission of papers
Manuscripts may be submitted electronically using Microsoft Word, Wordperfect, LaTeX or on paper, in which case the original and three copies should be submitted. In either case (paper or electronic submission) before a paper is finally accepted, a signed letter from the corresponding author is required specifying the name, full mailing address and telephone/fax numbers and e-mail address of the person who will act as corresponding author. The covering letter should also specify, if applicable, information about possible duplicate publication problems, financial or other relationships that could give rise to conflicts of interest and any other information the editors may need to make an informed decision in accordance with established policies and practices.
Manuscripts may be submitted to any one of the five editors:
1. Prof. C. G. G. Aitken, School of Mathematics, The King's Buildings, The University of Edinburgh, Mayfield Road, Edinburgh EH9 3JZ, UK. Tel: +44 (0) 131 650 4877; Fax: +44 (0) 131 650 6553; E-mail: C.G.G.Aitken@ed.ac.uk
2. Prof. J. Franklin, School of Mathematics, University of New South Wales, Sydney 2052, Australia. Tel: +61 2 93857093; Fax: +61 2 93857123; E-mail: jim@maths.unsw.edu.au
3. Prof. J. Gastwirth, Department of Statistics, George Washington University, Washington, DC, 20052, USA. Tel: 202 994 6356; Fax: 202 994 6917; E-mail: jlgast@gwu.edu
4. J. Koehler, Schools of Business & of Law, University of Texas, Austin, USA. Tel: 001 (512) 471-7856: Fax: 001 (512) 471-0587; E-mail: koehler@mail.utexas.edu
5. Prof. F. Taroni, Ecole des sciences criminelles, University of Lausanne, B.C.H. 1015, Lausanne-Dorigny, Switzerland. Tel: +41 21 692 4646; Fax: +41 21 692 4605; E-mail: franco.taroni@esc.unil.ch
6. Prof. P. Tillers, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University, 55 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10003, USA. Tel: 001 212 790 0334; Fax: 001 212 790 0205: E-mail: peter@tillers.net
However, it would ease processing of submissions if the following general rules were followed: all submissions of a legal nature should go to Professor Tillers; those of a behavioural nature to Professor Koehler; those of a mathematical or statistical nature should go to Professor Gastwirth (North American submissions), Professor Aitken or Dr. Franklin; those of a forensic science nature to Professor Taroni. In doubt, send the submission to Professor Aitken who will decide how to process it.
Books for review should be sent to Dr. D. Lucy, School of Mathematics, the King's Buildings, The University of Edinburgh, Mayfield Road, Edinburgh EH9 3JZ, UK. Tel: +44 (0) 131 650 5086; E-mail: d.lucy@ed.ac.uk
Manuscript Layout
Manuscripts must be written in English. The manuscript should be typed double-spaced, including the title page, abstract, text, acknowledgements, footnotes, tables and legends.
Tables and figures
For paper submissions an original and three complete copies of all tables and figures (including photographs and line drawings) must be included.
Language Editing
Particularly if English is not your first language, before submitting your manuscript you may wish to have it edited for language. This is not a mandatory step, but may help to ensure that the academic content of your paper is fully understood by journal editors and reviewers. Language editing does not guarantee that your manuscript will be accepted for publication. If you would like information about one such service please click here. There are other specialist language editing companies that offer similar services and you can also use any of these. Authors are liable for all costs associated with such services.
Funding
Details of all funding sources for the work in question should be given in a separate section entitled 'Funding'. This should appear before the 'Acknowledgements' section.
The following rules should be followed:
- The sentence should begin: ‘This work was supported by …’
- The full official funding agency name should be given, i.e. ‘National Institutes of Health’, not ‘NIH’ (full RIN-approved list of UK funding agencies) Grant numbers should be given in brackets as follows: ‘[grant number xxxx]’
- Multiple grant numbers should be separated by a comma as follows: ‘[grant numbers xxxx, yyyy]’
- Agencies should be separated by a semi-colon (plus ‘and’ before the last funding agency)
- Where individuals need to be specified for certain sources of funding the following text should be added after the relevant agency or grant number 'to [author initials]'.
An example is given here: ‘This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health [AA123456 to C.S., BB765432 to M.H.]; and the Alcohol & Education Research Council [hfygr667789].
Licence to Publish, and Offprints
It is a condition of publication in Law, Probability and Risk that authors grant an exclusive licence to Oxford University Press. This ensures that requests from third parties to reproduce articles are handled efficiently and consistently, and will also allow the article to be as widely disseminated as possible. In granting an exclusive licence, authors may use their own material in publications provided that the Journal is acknowledged as the original place of publication, and Oxford University Press is notified in writing and in advance. Authors can download the Licence to Publish form here. In consideration of this provision, the publisher supplies the first named author with free online access to the article. If authors wish to order any offprints or copies of the issue in which their paper will appear, they can download the Offprint form here. It is the author's responsibility to obtain permission to reproduce verbal or visual material from copyright source.
Author Self-Archiving/Public Access policy
For information about this journal's policy, please visit our Author Self-Archiving policy page.