The Open Criminology Journal
ISSN: 1874-9178 Volume 1, 2008
Instructions for Authors
The Open Criminology Journal is an Open Access online
journal, which publishes research articles, reviews and letters
in the field of Communication, aiming at providing the most
complete and reliable source of information on current developments
in the field.
Manuscripts may be submitted directly to tocrij@benthamopen.org.
Each peer-reviewed article that is published in a Bentham
OPEN Journal is universally and freely accessible via
the Internet in an easily readable and printable PDF format.
ONLINE MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSION: An online
submission and tracking service via Internet facilitates a
speedy and cost-effective submission of manuscripts.1
The full manuscript has to be submitted using our online submission
service available via FTP at www.bentham-ftp.org/open/?tocrij
Manuscripts must be submitted by one of the authors of
the manuscript, and should not be submitted by anyone on their
behalf. The principal/corresponding author will be required
to submit a Covering Letter along with the manuscript, on
behalf of all the co-authors (if any). The author(s) will
confirm that the manuscript (or any part of it) has not been
published previously or is not under consideration for publication
elsewhere. Furthermore, any illustration, structure or table
that has been published elsewhere must be reported, and copyright
permission for reproduction must be obtained.
For all online submissions, please provide your complete manuscript
in the form of a single zipped folder containing soft copies
of all the materials (main text in MS word format, figures
/ illustrations in TIFF, PDF or JPEG and tables in MS Word,
as separate files, while a PDF version of the entire manuscript
must also be included, embedded with all the figures / illustrations
/ tables etc.
It is imperative that before submission, authors should carefully
proofread the files for special characters, mathematical symbols,
Greek letters, equations, tables and images, quantitative
evidence and analysis, to ensure that they appear in proper
format.
A successful electronic submission of a manuscript will be
followed by a system-generated acknowledgement to the principal/corresponding
author within 72 hours of the dispatch of
the manuscript. Any questions with regards to the preparation
of and submission of your manuscript to the journal should
be addressed to tocrij@benthamopen.org
and copied to ilyas@benthamscience.org
NOTE: Any queries therein should be addressed
to oa@bentham.org and
copied to Jalil@bentham.org
Manuscript Preparation:
The manuscript should be written in English in a clear, direct
and active style. All pages must be numbered sequentially,
facilitating in the reviewing and editing of the manuscript.
For further convenience, the customer support team available
at Bentham Publication Services (www.benthampublishingservices.com)
can provide assistance to authors for the preparation of manuscripts.
Manuscript Length:
Letters: The maximum total page length for
Letter type articles published in the journal is nine journal
pages. Each journal page is on average 900 words.
Research Articles: The minimum total page
length for Research articles is ten journal pages, and the
maximum thirty pages. Each journal page is on average 900
words.
Review Articles: The maximum page length
limit for comprehensive Review articles is forty pages. For
Mini-Review articles, the maximum page length is nine journal
pages. Each journal page is on average 900 words.
There is no restriction on the number of figures, tables or
additional files e.g. video clips, animation and datasets,
that can be included with each article online. Authors should
include all relevant supporting data with each article.
Manuscripts Published:
The Journal accepts letters/ short communications, original
research articles, and mini- and full-length review articles
written in English. Supplements and proceedings of conferences
may also be considered for publication.
Supplements: The journal will consider for
publication supplements. A supplement will be a collection
of articles (6 to 10 articles) based on a theme or topic of
great importance to the field. A short summary proposal for
editing a supplement should be submitted to the Editor at
e-mail tocrij@benthamopen.org
with a copy to oa@bentham.org
Conference Proceedings: The journal will
consider for publication proceedings of relevant conferences
in the field. Proposals for publishing conference proceedings
should be submitted to the Editor at e-mail tocrij@benthamopen.org
with a copy to oa@bentham.org
MANUSCRIPT SECTIONS FOR PAPERS: Manuscripts
for research articles and letters submitted to the respective
journals should be divided into the following sections; however,
there can be an extension in the number of sections in review
articles in accordance with the requirements of the topic.
Covering letter
Title page
Abstract
Text organization
List of abbreviations (if any)
Conflict of interest (if any)
Acknowledgements (if any)
References
Figures/illustrations (if any)
Tables and captions (if any)
Supportive/supplementary material (if any)
COVERING LETTER: For e-mail submission of
a manuscript , it is a mandatory requirement that a covering
letter be also submitted, delineating the scope of your submitted
article, declaring any potential competing interests, acknowledging
contributions from authors and funding agencies, and certifying
that the paper is prepared according to the ‘Instructions
for Authors’. All inconsistencies in the text and in
the reference section, and any typographical errors must be
carefully checked and corrected before submission of the manuscript.
The covering letter, however, is not required for FTP submission
of manuscripts to the journal.
Download the
Covering letter
TITLE: The title should be precise and brief
and must not be more than 120 characters. Authors should avoid
the use of non-standard abbreviations. The title must be written
in title case except for articles, conjunctions and prepositions.
Authors should also provide a short ‘running title’.
ABSTRACT: The abstract should not exceed
250 words for review and research papers and should be limited
to only 150 words for letters, summarizing the essential features
of the article. The use of abbreviations should be reduced
to a minimum and the references should not be cited in the
abstract.
TEXT ORGANIZATION: The main text should begin
on a separate page and should be divided into separate sections.
For Research articles, the preparation of the main text must
be structured into separate sections as Introduction,
Materials and Methodology, Results, Discussion, and Conclusion.
For Review and Letter articles, the manuscript should be divided
into title page, abstract and the main text. The text may
be subdivided further according to the areas to be discussed,
which should be followed by the Acknowledgement (if any) and
Reference sections. The review article should mention any
previous important reviews in the field and contain a comprehensive
discussion starting with the general background of the field.
It should then go on to discuss the salient features of recent
developments. The authors should avoid presenting material
which has already been published in a previous review.
If your manuscript contains quantitative evidence and analysis,
you should describe your procedures in sufficient detail to
permit reviewers to understand and evaluate what has been
done and -- in the event the article is accepted for publication
-- to permit other scholars to carry out similar analyses
on other data sets. For example, for surveys, at the least,
sampling procedures, response rates, and question wordings
should be given; you should calculate response rates according
to one of the standard formulas given by the American Association
for Public Opinion Research, Standard Definitions: Final Dispositions
of Case Codes and Outcome Rates for Surveys (Lenexa, KS: AAPOR,
2006). This document is available on the Internet (http://www.aapor.org/standards.asp).
For experiments, provide full descriptions of experimental
protocols, methods of subject recruitment and selection, subject
payments and debriefing procedures, and so on. Articles should
be self-contained, so you should not simply refer readers
to other publications for descriptions of these basic research
procedures.
Please indicate variables included in statistical analyses
by capitalizing the first letter in the variable name and
italicizing the entire variable name the first time each is
mentioned in the text. You should also use the same names
for variables in text, tables, and figures. Wherever possible,
avoid the use of acronyms and computer abbreviations when
discussing variables in the text. All variables appearing
in tables and figures should have been mentioned in the text
and the reason for their inclusion discussed.
As part of the review process, you may be asked to submit
additional documentation if procedures are not sufficiently
clear; the review process works most efficiently if such information
is given in the initial submission. If you advise readers
that additional information is available, you should submit
copies of that information with the manuscript as “attached
materials” on our website. If the amount of this supplementary
information is extensive, please inquire about alternate procedures.
Ethical Approval of Studies and Informed Consent:
For human or animal experimental investigations, it is a prerequisite
to provide a formal review and approval, or review and waiver,
by an appropriate institutional review board or Communicationcommittee
and should be documented in your paper. For investigations
undertaken on human subjects, state in the Methods section
the manner in which the informed consent was obtained from
the study participants (i.e, oral or written), where there
is an unavoidable risk of breach of privacy- e.g., in a clinical
photograph or in case details- the patient’s written
consent or that of the next of kin, to publication must be
obtained. We will ask you to send a signed consent form before
publication. Consent must be obtained for all Case Reports
and Clinical Pictures.
The authors are advised to present and discuss their observations
in brief. The manuscript style must be uniform throughout
the text and 10 pt Times New Roman fonts should be used. The
full term for an abbreviation should precede its first appearance
in the text unless it is a standard unit of measurement. The
reference numbers should be given in square brackets in the
text. Italics should be used for Binomial names of organisms
(Genus and Species), for emphasis and for unfamiliar words
or phrases. Non-assimilated words from Latin or other languages
should also be italicized e.g. in vivo, in vitro, per
se, et al. etc.
Greek Symbols and Special Characters: Greek
symbols and special characters often undergo formatting changes
and get corrupted or lost during preparation of manuscript
for publication. To ensure that all special characters used
are embedded in the text, these special characters should
be inserted as a symbol but should not be a result of any
format styling (Symbol font face) otherwise they
will be lost during conversion to PDF/XML.2
Authors are encouraged to consult reporting guidelines. These
guidelines provide a set of recommendations comprising a list
of items relevant to their specific research design. All kinds
of measurements should be reported only in International System
of Units (SI). Chemical equations, chemical names, mathematical
usage, unit of measurements, chemical and physical quantity
& units must conform to SI and Chemical Abstracts or IUPAC.
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS: If abbreviations
are used in the text either they should be defined in the
text where first used, or a list of abbreviations can be provided.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST: Financial contributions
to the work being reported should be clearly acknowledged,
as should any potential conflict of interest.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Please acknowledge anyone
(individual/company/institution) who has contributed to the
study by making substantial contributions to conception, design,
acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data,
or who was involved in drafting the manuscript or revising
it critically for important intellectual content. Please list
the source(s) of funding for the study, for each author, and
for the manuscript preparation in the acknowledgements section.
REFERENCES: References must be listed in
the APA style. APA style requires you to list your sources
with full bibliographic information at the end of the paper.
The bibliographic should include standard bibliographic information:
author, title, place of publication, publisher, and year of
publication. The references are not to be numbered in the
reference section but listed in alphabetical order.
Journal Articles:
Zhao, S. (2000). Chinese nationalism and its international
orientations. Social Sciences Quarterly 115, 1-33.
Klimoski, R., & Palmer, S. (1993). The ADA and the hiring
process in organizations. Consulting Psychology Journal:
Practice and Research, 45(2), 10-36.
Book Reference:
Baddeley, A. D. (1999). Essentials of human memory.
Hove, England: Psychology Press.
Essays or Chapters in Edited Books:
References to an essay or chapter in an edited book must include
the following elements: essay or chapter authors, date of
publication, essay or chapter title, book editor(s), book
title, essay or chapter page numbers, place of publication,
and the name of the publisher.
Massaro, D. (1992). Broadening the domain of the fuzzy logical
model of perception. In H. L. Pick Jr., P. van den Broek,
D. C. Knill (Eds.), Cognition: Conceptual and methodological
issues (pp. 51-84). Washington, DC: American Psychological
Association.
Bjork, R. A. (1989). Retrieval inhibition as an adaptive mechanism
in human memory. In H. L. Roediger III & F. I. M. Craik
(Eds.), Varieties of memory & consciousness (pp.
309-330). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Edited book:
Gibbs, J. T., & Huang, L. N. (Eds.). (1991).
Children of color: Psychological interventions with minority
youth. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Technical and Research Reports:
References to a report must include the following elements:
author(s), date of publication, title, place of publication,
and name of publisher. If the issuing organization assigned
a number (e.g., report number, contract number, or monograph
number) to the report, give that number in parentheses immediately
after the title. Additional information is included when a
report is published by the Government Printing Office (GPO)
or when it is available from a document deposit service such
as NTIS or ERIC.
Government report:
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (1992).
Pressure ulcers in adults: Prediction and prevention
(AHCPR Publication No. 92-0047). Rockville, MD: Author.
Government report, GPO Publisher :
National Institute of Mental Health. (1990). Clinical
training in serious mental illness (DHHS Publication
No. ADM 90-1679). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing
Office.
Article in an Internet-only journal:
Fredrickson, B. L. (2000, March 7). Cultivating positive
emotions to optimize health and well-being. Prevention
& Treatment, 3, Article 0001a. Retrieved November
20, 2000, from http://journals.apa.org/prevention/volume3/pre0030001a.htm
Website:
Goldberg, I. (2000). Dr. Ivan's depression central.
Retrieved November 21, 2001, from http://www.psycom.net/depression.central.html.
Conference:
Bickman, L., & Ellis, H. (Eds.). (1990). Preparing
psychologists for the 21st century: Proceedings of the National
Conference on Graduate Education in Psychology, 1988,
University of Utah. Hillsdale, NJ: L. Erlbaum.
Thesis:
Milnes, G. M. (1998). Adolescent depression:
The use of generative instruction to increase rational beliefs
and decrease irrational beliefs and depressed mood. Unpublished
M.Appl.Psy. thesis, Murdoch University, Perth, Western Australia.
Patent:
Smith, I. M. (1988). U.S. Patent No. 123,445.
Washington, D.C.: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
* In the reference section all authors of referenced papers
must be cited and there must be no use of the short hand version
of et al.
APPENDIXES:
In case where there is a need to present lengthy, but essential
methodological details, use appendixes, which can be given
at the end of the article. The information should be provided
in a condensed form, ruling out the need of full sentences.
Tables should not be included in appendixes. A single appendix
should be titled APPENDIX, while more than one can be titled
APPENDIX A, APPENDIX B, and so on.
FIGURES / ILLUSTRATIONS: The authors should
provide the illustrations as separate files, as well as embedded
in the text file, numbered consecutively in the order of their
appearance. Each figure should include a single illustration.
No charges will be levied on the use of color figures except
in the reprints. Each figure should be closely cropped to
minimize the amount of white space surrounding the illustration.
If a figure consists of separate parts, it is important that
a single composite illustration file be submitted, containing
all parts of the figure.
Photographs should be provided with a scale bar if appropriate,
as well as high-resolution component files.
Scaling/Resolution
For Line Art image type, which is generally an image
based on lines and text and does not contain tonal or shaded
areas, the preferred file format is TIFF or EPS, with colour
mode being Monochrome 1-bit or RGB, in a resolution of 900-1200
dpi.
For Halftone image type, which is generally a continuous tone
photograph and contains no text, the preferred file format
is TIFF, with colour mode being or RGB or Grayscale, in a
resolution of 300 dpi.
For Combination image type, which is generally an image containing
halftone in addition to text or line art elements, the preferred
file format is TIFF, with colour mode being or RGB or Grayscale,
in a resolution of 500-900 dpi.
Formats
For illustrations, the following file formats are
acceptable:
• Illustrator
• EPS (preferred format for diagrams)
• PDF (also especially suitable for
diagrams)
• PNG (preferred format for photos
or images)
• Microsoft Word (version 5 and above;
figures must be a single page)
• PowerPoint (figures must be a single
page)
• TIFF
• JPEG (conversion should be done using
the original file)
• BMP
Bentham OPEN does not process figures submitted
in GIF format.
If the large size of TIFF or EPS figures acts as an obstacle
to online submission, authors may find that conversion to
JPEG format before submission results in significantly reduced
file size and upload time, while retaining acceptable quality.
JPEG is a 'lossy' format, however. In order to maintain acceptable
image quality, it is recommended that JPEG files are saved
at High or Maximum quality.
Files should not be compressed with tools such as Zipit or
Stuffit prior to submission as these tools will in any case
produce negligible file-size savings for JPEGs and TIFFs,
which are already compressed.
Please do not:
1. Supply embedded graphics in your word processor (spreadsheet,
presentation) document;
2. Supply files that are optimized for screen use (like GIF,
BMP, PICT, WPG); the resolution is too low;
3. Supply files that are too low in resolution.
4. Submit graphics that are disproportionately large for the
content.
Image Conversion Tools
There are many software packages, many of them freeware or
shareware, capable of converting to and from different graphics
formats, including PNG.
Good general tools for image conversion include GraphicConverter
on the Macintosh, PaintShop Pro, for Windows, and ImageMagick,
which is available on Macintosh, Windows and UNIX platforms.
Note that bitmap images (e.g. screenshots) should not be converted
to EPS, since this will result in a much larger file size
than the equivalent JPEG, TIFF, PNG or BMP, with no increase
in quality. EPS should only be used for images produced by
vector-drawing applications such as Adobe Illustrator or CorelDraw.
Most vector-drawing applications can be saved in, or exported
as, EPS format. In case the images have been originally prepared
in an Office application, such as Word or PowerPoint, then
the original Office files should be directly uploaded to the
site, instead of being converted to JPEG or another format
that may be of low quality.
TABLES:
* Data Tables should be submitted in Microsoft Word table
format.
* Each table should include a title/caption being explanatory
in itself with respect to the details discussed in the table.
Detailed legends may then follow.
* Table number in bold font i.e. Table 1,
should follow a title. The title should be in small case with
the first letter in caps. A full stop should be placed at
the end of the title.
* Tables should be embedded in the text exactly according
to their appropriate placement in the submitted manuscript.
* Columns and rows of data should be made visibly distinct
by ensuring that the borders of each cell are displayed as
black lines.
* Tables should be numbered in Arabic numerals sequentially
in order of their citation in the body of the text.
* If a reference is cited in both the table and text, please
insert a lettered footnote in the table to refer to the numbered
reference in the text.
* Tabular data provided as additional files can be submitted
as an Excel spreadsheet.
SUPPORTIVE/SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: We strongly
encourage to append supportive material, for example a PowerPoint
file containing a talk about the study, a PowerPoint file
containing additional screenshots, a Word, RTF, or PDF document
showing the original instrument(s) used, a video, or the original
data (SAS/SPSS files, Excel files, Access Db files etc.).
Published/reproduced material should not be included unless
you have obtained written permission from the copyright holder,
which should be forwarded to the Editorial Office in case
of acceptance of your article for publication.
Supportive/Supplementary material intended for publication
must be numbered and referred to in the manuscript. In-text
citations (for example "see PowerPoint Appendix 1")
as well as a section with the heading "Supportive/Supplementary
Material" before the "References" section should
be provided. Here, list all Supportive/Supplementary Material
and include a brief caption line for each file describing
its contents.
Any additional files will be linked into the final published
article in the form supplied by the author, but will not be
displayed within the paper. They will be made available in
exactly the same form as originally provided. Please also
make sure that each additional file is a single table, figure
or movie (please do not upload linked worksheets or PDF files
larger than one sheet). Supportive/ Supplementary material
must be provided in a single zipped file.
Authors must clearly indicate if these files are not for publication
but meant for the reviewers'/editors' perusal only.
PERMISSION FOR REPRODUCTION: Published/reproduced
material should not be included unless you have obtained written
permission from the copyright holder, which should be forwarded
to the Editorial Office in case of acceptance of your article
for publication.
For obtaining permission for reproducing any material published
in a paper by a Bentham Science, please fill in the request
FORM
and send to tocrij@benthamopen.org
for consideration.
PERMISSION FOR REPRODUCTION: Published/reproduced
material should not be included unless you have obtained written
permission from the copyright holder, which should be forwarded
to the Editorial Office in case of acceptance of your article
for publication.
For reproducing any materiel published by any other journal
in a paper for a Bentham Science journal, please submit the
permission FORM 2 to tocrij@benthamscience.org
AUTHORS AND INSTITUTIONAL AFFILIATIONS: The
author will be required to provide their full names, the institutional
affiliations and the location, with an asterisk in front of
the name of the principal/corresponding author. The corresponding
author(s) should be designated and their complete address,
business telephone and fax numbers and e-mail address must
be stated to receive correspondence and galley proofs.
REVIEWING AND PROMPTNESS OF PUBLICATION:
All manuscripts submitted for publication will be immediately
subjected to peer-reviewing, usually in consultation with
the members of the Editorial Advisory Board and a number of
external referees. Authors may, however, provide in their
Covering Letter the contact details (including e-mail addresses)
of four potential peer reviewers for their paper. Any peer
reviewers suggested should not have recently published with
any of the authors of the submitted manuscript and should
not be members of the same research institution.
Authors will also be required to upload a minimum of two separate
files: a) an “anonymous” digital file of your
paper; this file should not include any information that identifies
the authors, or any other collaborators in the work (including
anyone responsible for creating tables or figures, if they
are also an author/collaborator); and, do not thank colleagues
in notes or elsewhere in the body of the paper or mention
institution names, web page addresses, or other potentially
identifying information.; b) a separate title page that includes
the full manuscript title, plus names and contact information
(mailing address, telephone, fax, e-mail address) for all
credited authors in the order their names should appear, as
well as each authors’ academic rank and institutional
affiliation. You may also include any acknowledgements or
other author notes about the development of the paper (e.g.,
previous presentations of the research) as part of this separate
title page.
To insure anonymity throughout the review process, if it is
important to the development of the paper that your previous
publications be cited, please do this in a way that does not
make the authorship of the submitted paper obvious. This is
usually most easily accomplished by referring to you and any
co-authors in the third person and including normal references
to the work cited in the list of references. Your prior publications
should be included in the reference section in their normal
alphabetical location. Assuming that in-text references to
your previous work are in the third person, you should not
include redacted selfcitations and references (i.e., do not
delete the names of your manuscript’s authors). If you
are unsure as to the best use of these or any other procedures
in rendering manuscripts anonymous, contact the editorial
office at tocrij@benthamscience.org
prior to submission.
All peer-reviewing will be conducted via the Internet to facilitate
rapid reviewing of the submitted manuscripts. Every possible
effort will be made to assess the manuscripts quickly with
the decision being conveyed to the authors in due course.
LANGUAGE AND EDITING: Manuscripts must be
written in good English in a clear and correct style. In order
to maintain uniformity throughout the text, the manuscript
should be written in either American or British English. Submitted
manuscripts will not be edited for style or language, and
reviewers may advise rejection of a manuscript if it is compromised
by grammatical errors. Non native speakers of English may
choose to make use of a copyediting and language editing service
such as that provided by Bentham Publication Service (please
contact at email: info@benthampublishingservices.com).
PROOF CORRECTIONS: Authors are required
to proofread the PDF versions of their manuscripts before
submission. To avoid delays in publication, proofs should
be checked immediately for typographical errors and returned
within 48 hours. Major changes are not acceptable
at the proof stage. If unable to send corrections within 48
hours due to some reason, the author(s) must at least
send an acknowledgement on receiving the galley proofs or
the article will be published exactly as received and the
publishers will not be responsible for any error occurring
in the manuscript in this regard.
The corresponding author will be solely responsible for ensuring
that the revised version of the manuscript incorporating all
the submitted corrections receives the approval of all the
authors of the manuscript.
COPYRIGHT: Authors who publish in Bentham
OPEN Journals retain copyright to their work. Submission
of a manuscript to the respective journals implies that all
authors have read and agreed to the content of the Covering
Letter or the Terms and Conditions (stated to the submitting
author on FTP submission) . It is a condition of publication
that manuscripts submitted to this journal have not been published
and will not be simultaneously submitted or published elsewhere.
Once submitted to the journal, the authors will not withdraw
their manuscript at any stage prior to publication. Plagiarism
is strictly forbidden.
PUBLICATION FEES: The publication fee details
for each article published in the journal are given below:
Letters: The publication fee for each published
Letter article submitted is $600.
Research Articles: The publication fee for
each published Research article is $800.
Mini-Review Articles: The publication fee
for each published Mini-Review article is $600.
Review Articles: The publication fee for
each published Review article is $900.
Once the paper is accepted for publication, the author will
receive by email an electronic invoice. The fee form is also
available on the Web site at www.bentham.org/open/feeform
Submissions from the Editorial Board Members of the journal
will receive a special discount of 50% on the total publication
fee. Submissions by authors from developing countries will
receive a discount of 30% on the total publication fee charge.
MEMBERSHIP: Join as a member of Bentham Open
today to obtain great discounts on your article publication
fees! For details click
here.
REPRINTS: High quality printed reprints
of published articles are available for purchase, if ordered,
with a minimum number of 100 reprints.
1 The submission process
is compatible with version 3.0 or later of Internet Explorer
and Netscape Navigator, and with most other modern Web browsers.
It can be used from PC, Mac, or Unix platforms.
2 In this connection, we
recommend the use of Microsoft Word version 2000 and above.
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