International Review of Public Policy

Instructions for authors

Please note that manuscripts that do not conform to these guidelines will be returned.

a) Authorship 

By submitting your manuscript to the IRPP, you guarantee that it is original and it is your own work. All researchers involved in the study are either listed as authors or given proper credit. Principal authorship, authorship order, and other publication credits should be based on the relative scientific or professional contributions of the individuals involved not on their status. Those who contributed to the work but do not meet the authorship criteria can be mentioned in the Acknowledgments once the manuscript is accepted for publication.

b) Formatting and Length

Only electronic files conforming to the journal’s guidelines will be accepted. Manuscripts must be submitted in one of the accepted formats and they should be written in a standard font (size 12). All text, including abstract, footnotes, citations, and appendix material should be double spaced while tables and graphs should be single-spaced and each on a separate page. Do not format your text in multiple columns. Include page numbers. The hierarchy of sections should be limited to 3 heading levels sections and sub-sections. Make sure heading levels are clearly indicated in the text.
Abbreviations should be defined at the first occurrence and introduced only where multiple uses is made. Authors should not use abbreviations in headings.
All tables should be on separate pages and accompanied by a title, and footnotes where necessary. The tables should be numbered consecutively using Arabic numerals. Units in which results are expressed should be given in parentheses at the top of each column and not repeated in each line of the table. Ditto signs are not used. Avoid overcrowding the tables and the excessive use of words. The format of tables should be in keeping with that normally used by the journal; in particular, vertical lines, colored text and shading should not be used.

c) Abstract 

The manuscript Abstract must not exceed 200 words. The Abstract should be comprehensible to readers before they have read the paper, and reference citations must be avoided.

d) Peer-reviewed manuscripts

Peer review is at the core of the journal’s approach to publication. It is the policy of the journal that submitted manuscripts will in the first instance be reviewed by the editors and then if appropriate forwarded anonymously for peer review. Manuscripts are blind reviewed by at least two experts in the field.

IRPP platform enables authors to track their manuscript - once it has been accepted - through the production process to publication online and in print. Authors can check the status of their manuscripts online.

How to cite ?

Full references should be provided. International Review of Public Policy follows the APA reference style. Citations should follow the Seventh Edition of APA Reference Style (Publication manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th ed.).

The APA referencing style follows an "author-date" format, requiring citations in the text to include the author(s) and the year of publication enclosed in round brackets. In this style, only the surname of the author(s) should be mentioned, followed by a comma and the publication year. If necessary, you may include specific page, chapter, or section numbers when quoting, paraphrasing, or summarizing.

·       In text-citation: (Author, Year); or (Author, year, p. XX) or (Author, year, pp. XX-XX).

·       The full details of the source are given in a reference list at the end of the document.

·       Book and journal titles should be in italics.

·       Spell out all acronyms in the first instance.

Example of book reference:

• Zittoun, P. (2014). The political process of policymaking: A pragmatic approach to public policy. Palgrave Macmillan.

Example of journal reference:

• Peck, J., & Theodore, N. (2010). Mobilizing policy: Models, methods, and mutations. Geoforum, 41(2), 169-174.

Example of chapter within edited / multi-authored publication:

• Zahariadis, N. (2014). Ambiguity and Multiple Streams. In P. Sabatier & C. Weible (Eds.), Theories of the policy process (3rd ed.) (pp. 25-59). Westview Press.

Example of website reference:

• National Association of Social Workers. (2005). NASW standards for clinical social work in social work practice. https://www.socialworkers.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=YOg4qdefLBE%3d&portalid=0/

Plagiarism

International Review on Public Policy seeks to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the journal against malpractice. Submitted manuscripts will be checked with duplication-checking software. Whenever a manuscript is found to have plagiarised other works or included third-party's copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or whenever the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); withdrawing the article; or taking appropriate legal action.