Information for Authors

Please note that the journal now encourages authors to complete their copyright licence to publish form online

Parliamentary Affairs publishes original academic articles of around 7000 words that will be of interest to a range of academic, practitioner and more general audiences. Its principal remit since being established in 1948 has been to publish research articles based upon legislative and parliamentary studies, as well as commentary pieces designed to inform its readership of current issues in the field and stimulate debate on these topics. Given its link with the Hansard Society the journal has mainly focused on British politics and government, although it has always included articles on other parliamentary systems where they provide information that contextualises the British case or contribute to our wider understanding of representative politics in general.

The Editors seek to sustain Parliamentary Affairs's established character and so continue to welcome submissions from those interested in these established themes and subjects. In addition they seek contributions that further our understanding of contemporary representative politics by more explicitly:

Adopting an historical perspective;
Situating political processes in their cultural and/or social context;
Employing a rigorous comparative framework; and
Assuming a theoretical perspective.

Parliamentary Affairs also includes a review article section, to which authors may submit contributions.

All articles published in the journal will be submitted to a process of independent peer-review in order to ensure the highest standards of rigour and appropriateness in its output. Given the journal's role as a source of up-to-date information on British politics and government, the Editors are committed to rapid turn-around of submissions and rapid publication of accepted articles. With that end in mind, all accepted articles will be published in electronic format on the Parliamentary Affairs website within approximately six weeks of acceptance of the final version, in advance of print publication.

1. Article Submittal
Manuscripts for Parliamentary Affairs should be submitted online. Once you have prepared your manuscript according to the instructions below please visit the online submission website. Instructions on submitting your manuscript online can be viewed here.

2. Preparation of Manuscripts
Abstract
An Abstract of approximately one hundred words is to be included for publication.

Style Conventions
Please refrain from using italics unless emphasis is really necessary. The following should not be italicised: phrases, e.g. ad hoc or coup d'état; party names, i.e. foreign partners; foreign phrases. Single quotation marks are used with double quotes only within a quotation. Quotations should be run-on within the paragraph, long quotes only should appear separately. Avoid short paragraphs. Run-on text in paragraphs, e.g. the report covered four issues: ... ; ... ; ... ; ... (rather than separate lines). Sometimes separate line lists are useful but no bullets. Capital letters should only be used where a real title is involved, e.g. Minister of Finance, Permanent Secretary not for ministers without such a description, i.e. civil service, government. Numerals one to ten should appear in words, higher figures to be in numerical form. However, orders of magnitude should be written as i.e. more than a hundred people were present. Use the % symbol, percentages should be rounded up in both the text and tables where small samples are involved.

Headings
These should be employed to help clarify a section and generally break up the text although there should be no introductory heading at the start of the article.

Tables and Illustrations
Tables should be kept simple without vertical lines and they should be headed, e.g.: Table 1 Votes cast at 1996 election.

Diagrams must be drawn in black on a white background and labelled with the figure number and the author's name.

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].

References

New for 2012: all articles submitted from August 2011 should use the following reference style:
Use the author-date (Harvard Reference) system for in-text citations (e.g.: Smith, 2007), and list references alphabetically at the end of the article in a reference list (see below). Court cases and other documents that do easily not fit into the Harvard referencing system should be referenced in full in footnotes.

Notes
Footnotes, not endnotes, are used. Footnotes should be used sparingly, and only for explanatory information, or reference to e.g. Acts of Parliament, Government papers etc. They should be marked clearly in the text in numerical order after a point of punctuation.

Reference List
The reference list should only contain sources cited in the text. Authors are asked to pay particular attention to the accuracy and correct presentation of references.

Book:
Smith, A. (2012) Politics and Politicians. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Chapter in edited volume:
Jones, B. (2012) ‘Britain and Democracy’, in Smith, A. and Evans, C. (eds), Politics and Politicians, Oxford: Oxford University Press: 450–64.

Article in a journal:
Smith, A. (2005) 'British Government', Parliamentary Affairs, 58, 171–88.

Newspaper article:
Smith, A. (2009, 18 May) ‘MPs Expenses Row Hurts Major Parties, Telegraph Poll Suggests’, Daily Telegraph.

Conference paper:
Cronin, J. (1999) ‘A Luta Dis-continua? The TRC Final Report and the Nation Building Project’, paper presented at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission: Commissioning the Past conference, Johannesburg, 11–14 June.

Internet reference:
Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) (2005) ‘A Call for Justice: A National Consultation on Past Human Rights Violations in Afghanistan’. Available at http://www.aihrc.org.af (last accessed 10 September 2007).

Interviews and e-mails:
Doe, J. (2007, 31 October) E-mail message to the author.
Naidoo, P. (2005, 15 May) Interview with the author.

3. Preparation of Manuscripts for Book Section
Please follow instructions as above and refer to recent issues for style of listing books reviewed. Initials only should be used, no forenames; the book title to appear in italics with initial capitals; colon to separate main from subtitle; publisher (not place of publication); year; pages (pp.); price (£21.95, pb. £10.95); books run-on, separated by a semi-colon.

4. Proofs
Authors will receive PDF files of their page proofs by email. Only essential corrections should be made at this stage. If vital additions or deletions have to be made, please compensate by adding or deleting the same number of words. You may be charged if there are a large number of corrections.

5. Offprints
Contributors will receive one gratis copy of the issue and free online access to the text version of their articles. Hardcopy offprints may be obtained in multiples of 25, 50, 100, 200 (rates and additional information are indicated on the Oxford Journals Author Services site). Further details can be obtained from Journals Subscriptions Department, Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6BD, UK (jnl.orders@oupjournals.org, tel: +44 (0)1865 267907, fax: +44 (0)1865 267485). Orders from the UK will be subject to the current UK VAT charge. For orders from elsewhere in the EU you or your institution should account for VAT by way of a reverse charge.  Please provide us with your or your institution’s VAT number.

6. Copyright
Upon receipt of accepted manuscripts at Oxford Journals authors will be invited to complete an online copyright licence to publish form.

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 licensing copyright, authors may use their own material in other publications provided that the Journal is acknowledged as the original place of publication, and Oxford University Press is notified in writing and in advance.

Please note that by submitting an article for publication you confirm that you are the corresponding/submitting author and that Oxford University Press ("OUP") may retain your email address for the purpose of communicating with you about the article. Please notify OUP immediately if your details change. If your article is accepted for publication OUP will contact you using the email address you have used in the registration process. Please note that OUP does not retain copies of rejected articles.

7. For further information:

Please contact the Editorial Office.

You may also contact the editors directly:

Professor Philip Cowley
Department of Politics
University of Nottingham
Nottingham NG1 7RD
0115 846 6230

Professor Jonathan Tonge
Department of Politics
University of Liverpool
Liverpool L69 7ZT
0151 794 2899

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