Submissions

Submitting an Article Online

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Author Guidelines

Submissions should be made electronically through this website. Once submitted, the author can track the submission and communicate with the editors via the online journal management system.

Please ensure that you consider the following guidelines when preparing your manuscript. Failure to do so may delay the processing of your submission.

Once a submission has been completed, the submitting author is able to fully track the status of the paper and complete requested revisions via their online profile.

Article types

Research articles must describe the outcomes and application of unpublished original research. These should make a substantial contribution to knowledge and understanding in the subject matter and should be supported by relevant figures and tabulated data. They should explain their methodology and explain the evaluation of the research. Research articles should be no more than 8,000 words in length.
Survey articles should provide an account of an aspect of the journal’s coverage, possibly by topic, by time period, or other criteria. Normally, survey articles will be commissioned by the editors, but short proposals, by email to the editors, are also welcome, prior to submission of full articles. The length of survey papers depends on the area to be covered, and should be discussed with the editors. Normally, 12,000 words will be the limit.
Position papers should reflect upon or analyse and criticise specific issues that are important to computational creativity. For example, a position paper might state a challenging problem for computational creativity research, or contain a polemic intended to incite discussion and reaction among the computational creativity community. Commentary articles should be no longer than 3,000 words in length.

All word limits include referencing and citation.

Structure

Title page

The names of all authors, affiliations, contact details, biography (optional) and the corresponding author details must be completed online as part of the submission process.

Author names should include a forename and a surname. Forenames cannot include only initials.

J. Bloggs is not preferred. The full name, Joe Bloggs is required (this will enhance the 'findability' of your publication)

The affiliation should ideally include ‘Department, Institution, City, Country’, however only the Institution and Country are mandatory.

Abstract
Research articles must have the main text prefaced by an abstract of no more than 300 words summarising the main arguments and conclusions of the article. This must have the heading ‘Abstract’ and be easily identified from the start of the main text.

A list of up to six key words may be placed below the abstract (optional).

The Abstract and Keywords should also be added to the metadata when making the initial online submission.

Main text
The body of the submission should be structured in a logical and easy to follow manner. A clear introduction section should be given that allows non-specialists in the subject an understanding of the publication and a background of the issue(s) involved. Methods, results, discussion and conclusion sections may then follow to clearly detail the information and research being presented.

Up to three level headings may be present and must be clearly identifiable using different font sizes, bold or italics. LaTeX's \section, \subsection commands should be used.

Supplementary Files (optional)
Any supplementary/additional files that should link to the main publication must be listed, with a corresponding number, title and option description. Ideally the supplementary files are also cited in the main text.

e.g. Supplementary file 1: Appendix. Scientific data related to the experiments.

Note: additional files will not be typeset so must be provided in their final form. They will be assigned a DOI and linked to from the publication.

Ethics and consent (if applicable)
Research involving human subjects, human material, or human data, must have been performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Where applicable, studies must have been approved by an appropriate ethics committee and the authors should include a statement within the article text detailing this approval, including the name of the ethics committee and reference number of the approval. The identity of the research subject(s) should be anonymised whenever possible. For research involving human subjects, informed consent to participate in the study must be obtained from participants (or their legal guardian).

Experiments using animals must follow national standards of care. For further information, click here.

Acknowledgements (optional)
Any acknowledgements must be headed and in a separate paragraph, placed after the main text but before the reference list, using LaTeX \section* command. Should the research have received a funding grant then the grant provider and grant number should be detailed here.

Funding Information (optional)
Should the research have received a funding grant then the grant provider and grant number should be detailed.

Competing interests
If any of the authors have any competing interests then these must be declared. A short paragraph should be placed before the references. Guidelines for competing interests can be found here. If there are no competing interests to declare then the following statement should be present: The author(s) has/have no competing interests to declare.

Authors' contributions (optional)
A sentence or a short paragraph detailing the roles that each author held to contribute to the authorship of the submission.

References
All references cited within the submission must be listed at the end of the main text file. Citations must be in apalike style, and use of biblatex is strongly recommended.

Language & Text

Capitalisation
For the submission title:

Capitalise all nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs and subordinate conjunctions (i.e. as, because, although). Use lowercase for all articles, coordinate conjunctions and prepositions.

Slip-Sliding on a Yellow Brick Road: Stabilization Efforts in Afghanistan

Headings within the main text:

First level headings in the text should follow the same rule as the main title.

For lower-level subheadings, only capitalise first letter and proper nouns.

Headings should be under 75 characters.

Spelling
Submissions must be made in English. Authors are welcome to use American or British spellings as long as they are used consistently throughout the whole of the submission.

Colour (UK) vs. Color (US)

When referring to proper nouns and normal institutional titles, the official, original spelling must be used.

World Health Organization, not World Health Organisation

Grammar
American or English grammar rules may be used as long as they are used consistently and match the spelling format (see above). For instance, you may use a serial comma or not.

red, white, and blue OR red, white and blue

Font

The font used is determined by the LaTeX style file. It should not be changed.

Underlined text should be avoided whenever possible.

Bold or italicised text to emphasise a point is permitted, although should be restricted to minimal occurrences to maximise their efficiency. Newly used technical terms should be italicized the first time they are used.

Lists

Use bullet points to denote a list without hierarchy or order of value (LaTeX itemize). If the list indicates a specific sequence then a numbered list must be used (LaTeX enumerate).

Lists should be used sparingly to maximise their impact.

Quotation marks

Use single quotation marks except for quotes within another speech, in which case double quotation marks are used.

Quotations that are longer than three lines in length must be in an indented paragraph separate from the main text, without quotation marks (LaTeX quote environment).
The standard, non-italicised font must be used for all quotes.

It must be clear from the text and/or citation where the quote is sourced, in cluding page number. If quoting from material that is under copyright then permission will need to be obtained from the copyright holder, and a footnote should be added to say so.

Acronyms & Abbreviations
With abbreviations, the crucial goal is to ensure that the reader – particularly one who may not be fully familiar with the topic or context being addressed – is able to follow along. Spell out almost all acronyms on first use, indicating the acronym in parentheses immediately thereafter. Use the acronym for all subsequent references.

Research completed by the World Health Organization (WHO) shows …

A number of abbreviations are so common that they do not require the full text on the first instance. Examples of these can be found here.

Abbreviations should usually be in capital letters without full stops.

USA, not U.S.A

Common examples from Latin origin do not follow this rule and should be lower case and can include full stops.

e.g., i.e., etc.

Use of footnotes/endnotes
Use footnotes rather than endnotes (we refer to these as ‘Notes’ in the online publication). These will appear at the foot of the current page.

Data & Symbols

Symbols
Symbols are permitted within the main text and datasets as long as they are commonly in use or have explanatory definition on their first usage.

Hyphenation, em and en dashes

There is no set rule on the use of hyphenation between words, as long as they are consistently used.

Em dashes (LaTeX --- or 3 hyphens) should be used sparingly. If they are present, they should denote emphasis, change of thought or interruption to the main sentence and can replace comas, parentheses, colons or semicolons.

The president’s niece—daughter of his younger brother—caused a media scandal when…

En (LaTeX – or 2 hyphens) dashes can be used to replace ‘to’ when indicating a range. No space should surround the dash.

10-25 years
pp. 10-65

Numbers
For numbers zero to nine please spell the whole words. Please use figures for numbers 10 or higher.

We are happy for authors to use either words or figures to represent large whole figures (i.e. one million or 1,000,000) as long as the usage is consistent throughout the text.

If the sentence includes a series of numbers then figures must be used in each instance.

Artefacts were found at depths of 5, 9, and 29 cm.

If the number appears as part of a dataset, in conjunction with a symbol or as part of a table then the figure must be used.

This study confirmed that 5% of…

If a sentence starts with a number it must be spelt, or the sentence should be re-written so that it no longer starts with the number.

Fifteen examples were found to exist…
The result showed that 15 examples existed…

Do not use a comma for a decimal point.

2.43 NOT 2,43

Numbers that can only range between 0 and 1 (e.g. probabilities) should omit their leading 0. Otherwise, leading 0 should be included.

.24 NOT 0.24

Units of measurement
Symbols following a figure to denote a unit of measurement must be taken from the latest SI brochure. See http://www.bipm.org/utils/common/pdf/si_brochure_8_en.pdf for the full brochure.

Formula
Formulae must be proofed carefully by the author. Editors will not edit formulae. If special software has been used to create formulae, the way it is laid out is the way they will appear in the publication.

Figures & Tables

Figures
Figures, including graphs and diagrams, must be professionally and clearly presented. If a figure is not easy to understand or does not appear to be of a suitable quality, the editor may ask to re-render or omit it.

All figures must be cited within the main text, in consecutive order using Arabic numerals (e.g. Figure 1, Figure 2, etc.: use LaTeX figure or figure*).

Each figure must have an accompanying descriptive main title. This should clearly and concisely summarise the content and/or use of the figure image. A short additional figure legend is optional to offer a further description.

Figure 1: 1685 map of London.
Figure 1: 1685 map of London. Note the addition of St Paul’s Cathedral, absent from earlier maps.

Figure titles and legends should be placed within the text document, either after the paragraph of their first citation, or as a list after the references.

The source of the image should be included, along with any relevant copyright information and a statement of authorisation (if needed).

Figure 1: Firemen try to free workers buried under piles of concrete and metal girders. Photo: Claude-Michel Masson. Reproduced with permission of the photographer.

If your figure file includes text then please present the font as Ariel, Helvetica, or Verdana. This will mean that it matches the typeset text.

NOTE: All figures must be uploaded separately as supplementary files during the submission process, if possible in colour and at a resolution of at least 300dpi. Each file should not be more than 20MB. Standard formats accepted are: JPG, TIFF, GIF, PNG, EPS. For line drawings, please provide the original vector file (e.g. .ai, or .eps).

Tables
Tables must be created using a word processor's table function, not tabbed text.

Tables should be included in the manuscript. The final layout will place the tables as close to their first citation as possible.

All tables must be cited within the main text, numbered with Arabic numerals in consecutive order (e.g. Table 1, Table 2, etc.).

Each table must have an accompanying descriptive title. This should clearly and concisely summarise the content and/or use of the table. A short additional table legend is optional to offer a further description of the table. The table title and legend should be placed underneath the table.

Tables should not include:

Rotated text
Colour to denote meaning (it will not display the same on all devices)
Images
Vertical or diagonal lines
Multiple parts (e.g. ‘Table 1a’ and ‘Table 1b’). These should either be merged into one table, or separated into ‘Table 1’ and ‘Table 2’.

NOTE: If there are more columns than can fit on a single page, then the table will be placed horizontally on the page. If it still can't fit horizontally on a page, the table will be broken into two.

References

In-text citations
Every use of information from other sources must be cited in the text so that it is clear that external material has been used.

If the author is already mentioned in the main text then the year should follow the name within parenthesis, as with LaTeX apalike style.

Both Jones (2013) and Brown (2010) showed that …

If the author name is not mentioned in the main text then the surname and year should be inserted, in parenthesis, after the relevant text. Multiple citations should be separated by semi-colon and follow alphabetical order.

The statistics clearly show this to be untrue (Brown 2010; Jones 2013).

If three or fewer authors are cited from the same citation then all should be listed. If four or more authors are part of the citation then ‘et al.’ should follow the first author name.

(Jones, Smith & Brown 2008)
(Jones et al. 2008)

If citations are used from the same author and the same year, then a lowercase letter, starting from ‘a’, should be placed after the year.

(Jones 2013a; Jones 2013b)

If specific pages are being cited then the page number should follow the year, after a colon.

(Brown 2004: 65; Jones 2013: 143)

For publications authored and published by organisations, use the short form of the organisation’s name or its acronym in lieu of the full name.

(ICRC 2000) NOT (International Committee of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies 2000)

Please do not include URLs in parenthetical citations, but rather cite the author or page title and include all details, including the URL, in the reference list.

Avoid the useage in which the citate refers to the publication and not the authors. For example, use “The proposal of Jones (2000)…” and not “The proposal in Jones (2000)…”, or use “Jones and Jeeves (1990) say that…” and not “Jones and Jeeves (2000) says that…”.

Avoid unnecessary use of “see” in parenthetical citations: use “(Jones, 2000)” and not “(see Jones, 2000)”.

Do not nest parenthetical citations; replace the inner brackets with appropriate alternative punctuation. For example: “(The correct solution was found earlier: Jones, 2000)” and not “(The correct solution was found earlier (Jones, 2000).

Reference list
All citations must be listed at the end of the text file, in alphabetical order of authors’ surnames.

All reading materials should be included in ‘References’ – works which have not been cited within the main text, but which the author wishes to share with the reader, must be cited as additional information in endnotes explaining the relevance of the work. This will ensure that all works within the reference list are cited within the text.

NOTE: If multiple works by the same author are being listed, please re-type the author’s name out for each entry, rather than using a long dash.

NOTE: DOIs, but not URLs, should be included for all reference entries, where possible.

The format produced by BibTeX should be left unchanged.

Reference format
Reference format should be LaTeX apalike.

Submission Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.

The submission has not been previously published, in part of in whole, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
Any third-party-owned materials used have been identified with appropriate credit lines, and permission obtained from the copyright holder for all formats of the journal.
All authors qualify as authors, as per the authorship guidelines, and have given permission to be listed on the submitted paper.
The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines, which is found in About the Journal. Every effort has been made to ensure that author names are removed from the manuscript (following the instructions to ensure blind peer review).
Tables are all cited in the main text and are included within the text document.
Figures are all cited in the main text and are uploaded as supplementary files. Figures/images have a resolution of at least 150dpi (300dpi or above preferred). The files are in one of the following formats: JPG, TIFF, GIF, PNG, EPS or PDF (to maximise quality, the original source file is preferred, and vector images are preferred over bitmap where content permits).

Copyright Notice

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).

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