Notes for Contributors to The Journal of Industrial Economics

[Submission of Manuscripts] [Content and Style] [Presentation and Layout]

I. SUBMISSION OF MANUSCRIPTS

Manuscripts should be uploaded electronically to the JIE submissions page. Submission of a paper is taken to imply that the material is unpublished and is not being considered for publication elsewhere. The Editors expect that the refereeing process will usually take no more than three months, and on average it will be substantially less.

II. CONTENT AND STYLE

Authors are asked to consult recent issues of the Journal to gain an impression of the style of articles normally published. All papers should be written in clear, unambiguous and grammatically correct English. In exceptional cases the Editors may provide assistance in preparing a final version of a paper for authors whose first language is not English. Authors are expected to take every care to avoid the inclusion of material which might be considered defamatory.

III. PRESENTATION AND LAYOUT (ACCEPTED SUBMISSIONS ONLY)

(i) Papers accepted for publication should be typewritten on one side of the paper, with wide margins all round. Original typescript or clear photocopies are essential. Pages must be numbered consecutively throughout the typescript.
(ii) The title page should give the paper's title, the names, affiliations, and addresses (including e-mail) of all authors, the text of the Abstract (strictly limited to 100 words -- see §V Abstracts) and any acknowledgments (which will be printed as an unnumbered, asterisked footnote to the title on the first page of the published article).
(iii) Headings should be kept short and used to indicate the major sections of the paper. They should be numbered consecutively in Roman numerals. Try to avoid sub-sections. Where they cannot be avoided they should be numbered numerically, for example, II(i), II(ii),....
(iv) All illustrations should be referred to in the text as Figures. They should be numbered consecutively in the text in Arabic numerals. Illustrations should be carefully prepared in black ink on separate sheets of paper so that final versions can be prepared for printing without any fear of ambiguity. Each figure should take advantage of the space on the entire sheet. Authors should indicate in the text the approximate positioning of illustrations with the directive "Place Figure __ approximately here."
(v) Tables should be numbered consecutively in the text in Roman numerals. They should be typed on separate sheets. Each table should have a title, and any necessary explanatory notes. Please indicate in the text where tables should appear with the directive "Place Table __ approximately here." Authors should remember that tables take up a great deal of space, and can deter readers, so only essential tables should be included. Ancillary tables may be better suited for placement on the Journal's editorial Web site.
(vi) Footnotes should be numbered consecutively throughout the text with superscript Arabic numerals. The footnotes should be gathered together in double-spaced typescript at the end of the paper: they will be printed at the foot of the appropriate page in the text.
(vii) Appendices are useful in two circumstances: (a) to provide mathematical derivations which have no intrinsic interest in themselves, but are essential to substantiate results reported in the text; (b) to describe data, their sources, and incidental calculations used by the author in deriving them from primary sources. The Editors may ask authors, in the interests of making the best use of the Journal's page space, to remove appendices and substitute a statement to the effect that "The information is available on the Journal's editorial Web site (or from the author(s) on request, as applicable)".
(viii) Textual references to sources should show the year within square brackets. The References themselves should be listed together at the end of the manuscript in alphabetical order, typed double-spaced. Full details of sources should be given. The following style should be adopted, please:

Scherer, F. M., 1970, Industrial Market Structure and Economic Performance (Rand McNally, Chicago).
McGee, J.S., 1975, 'Efficiency and Economies of Scale', in Goldschmid, H., Mann, H. M. and Weston, J. F. (eds.), Industrial Concentration: The New Learning (Little, Brown, Boston).
Curry, B. and George, K. D., 1983, 'Industrial Concentration: A Survey', The Journal of Industrial Economics, 31, pp. 203-255

Please note that journal titles should not be abbreviated. References to unpublished works are unhelpful to readers and should be avoided if at all possible.

(ix) A diskette containing all applicable word-processing files (in whatever format the author(s) used) should be included with the (three copies of the) final accepted version of the paper.  Illustrations (figures) should be included in Tagged Image File (TIF) or Encapsulated PostScript (EPS) format.
(x) Any accepted typescript which does not conform to the above instructions will be returned to the author(s) for revision before proceeding to publication.

IV. MATHEMATICS
A valuable source in the preparation of these notes on presentation of mathematics was The London Mathematical Society [1982].

(i) Great care should be taken with mathematical writing since ambiguity and confusion can easily creep in. It is essential to organise your writing so that sentences read naturally even when they incorporate formulae. The following rules may help:

-- Sentences should always begin with words, not symbols. Formulae should never be separated merely by punctuation marks except in lists: it is nearly always possible to arrange for at least one word to come between two different formulae.
-- Use abbreviations sparingly. Never use standard abbreviations such as e.g., i.e. adjacent to formulae or symbols. The abbreviation iff is better not used in print. In text the full form, if and only if, is easier to read (and looks less like a misprint). Never use symbols such as = or < as abbreviations in text. The scope of a binary relation such as = or < should be immediately recognisable as consisting of formulae on either side.
-- Try to avoid inverted commas (quotation marks) adjacent to formulae. Do not use 'apostrophe s' with symbols: even the printed form of f_i's is uncomfortably similar to f'_is and in manuscript or typescript these can be indistinguishable. Where this usage indicates a plural it is grammatically dubious and is better replaced by something like 'the functions f_i' and where it indicates a possessive form it can often be avoided by re-organising the appropriate sentence to use 'of'.

(ii) Important formulae should be displayed and numbered consecutively throughout the manuscript as (1), (2), ... on the left-hand-side of the page. Where derivation of the formulae has been abbreviated it is of great help to referees if the full derivation can be presented on a separate sheet (not to be published).
(iii) Take great care with the spacing and layout of typed formulae. Symbols that can be reproduced only approximately on the typewriter should be carefully written in by hand (for example, the printer might not realise that => (greater than or equal to) was intended to mean =» (implies)). Try to avoid complicated subscripts, superscripts and ranges of summation or integration by suitable adjustments to notation or wording. Superscript and subscript expressions involving fractions have to be printed using a solidus, except in the case of a few numerical fractions such as ½, ¼, ¾.
For example, the superscriptwould be printed as in.
(iv) Note that confusion very often arises between
1 (one) and l ("ell")
2 and z
×, x, and the Greek letter chi
¹ (superior "one") and ' (prime)
₁ (inferior "one") and , (comma)
p and the Greek letter rho
summation and the Greek capital letter sigma
product and the Greek capital letter pi
The capital and lower case forms of C, K, O, P, S, U, V, W, X, Y, Z can be indistinguishable in formulae when written by hand. Also, a comma following a subscript, as in a_k, is, in some typewriting, difficult to distinguish from 'prime' attached to the subscript, as in a_k'.

V. ABSTRACTS
(strictly limited to 100 words)

The editors of The Journal of Industrial Economics urge authors to devote careful attention to writing the abstract. In the printed Journal, abstracts are read far more often than the articles they summarize. Electronic search methods are frequently organized to search and reproduce only the abstract. Thus, an effective abstract is an essential tool to attract readers who will benefit from an author's research. We therefore offer the following guidelines for writing abstracts for the Journal.

Length. Abstracts must be no greater than one hundred (100) words in length, in conformance with the standard of The Journal of Economic Literature (JEL).

Content. The reader should be able to discern the central message of the article within the abstract, preferably in the first sentence. The author should identify key results, methods and data. Direct contrasts with particular previous articles should be avoided; contrasts with previous results are, of course, permitted. The abstract must not contain equations, diagrams or footnotes, but may contain numbers.

Style. Authors should consult common writing resources such as Strunk and White's Elements of Style or The Chicago Manual of Style for guidance on proper construction and usage. The editors discourage the editorial "we"; a single author should refer to himself or herself as "I". To promote clarity, proper attribution and economy of words, the editors encourage direct statement of results (e.g., "I find..." rather than "This paper finds...").

Geography. The Journal serves an international audience. Authors should briefly identify within the abstract the geographic scope of their institutional and empirical data (e.g., "American antitrust enforcement", "British electric power industry", "European Community rules"). This guideline is particularly important for authors' discussions of legal and regulatory matters.

The Journal of Economic Literature publishes the abstracts of all major articles (but not of Short Articles and Notes) published in The Journal of Industrial Economics. Abstracts will only be forwarded for publication if they conform to the following guidelines issued by the JEL.

VI. PUBLICATION

(i) Proofs will be sent to the author to check. The original typescript is regarded as definitive. Corrections, and alterations, other than printer's errors, may be charged to the author.
(ii) Twenty-five free offprints are provided, and additional offprints may be ordered at reasonable cost when the proofs are returned.
(iii) Authors of accepted articles are required to transfer copyright to the publishers. This transfer is intended to protect the authors' work by inhibiting unauthorised reproduction. It in no way prevents authors from making use of their own material in subsequent publications.
(iv) It is the intention of the Editors that articles accepted for publication will usually be published no more than one year after the date of acceptance of the final typescript. For many articles the lag should be substantially less.

REFERENCE

The London Mathematical Society, 1982, 'Notes for Contributors', The Bulletin of the London Mathematical Society, 14, pp. 573-576.

General Editor, November 1986

[Return to the JIE Author Instructions Page]