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Submissions for the Social Policy Journal of New Zealand
The Social Policy Journal of New Zealand welcomes submissions on social policy issues across the social sector, both from New Zealand and overseas. All submissions to the journal must be sent in electronic format to the Editor: marlene.levine001@msd.govt.nz . The Editor may also be reached by telephone (+64 4 916 3809) or post (Marlene Levine, Ministry of Social Development, PO Box 1556, Wellington 6140, New Zealand).
Submissions for the Social Policy Journal of New Zealand may include:
- social policy papers, which contribute to ongoing debate and high-quality advice, and provide critical analysis and argument
- social policy development papers, which should cover recent social policy changes or work in progress
- research papers, which should focus on the social policy implications of the research, briefly summarising methods and findings
- reviews of books, conferences and seminars relevant to social policy.
All submissions are examined initially by the Editorial Committee in terms of their relevance to social policy issues, the importance of their implications for social policy development and the degree to which their conclusions are supported by systematic analysis and rational argument. (Authors are welcome to discuss ideas for prospective submissions with any member of the Editorial Committee.)
Papers that have passed the Editorial Committee are sent to at least two external specialist referees for double-blind peer review. Decisions regarding publication will take into account the referees’ assessments and the incorporation of referees’ comments into revisions. Nonetheless, the decision to publish will be made entirely at the discretion of the Editor and the other members of the Editorial Committee, who reserve the right to refuse any material for publication.
Guide for Submissions
Submissions should be sent to marlene.levine001@msd.govt.nz as attachments in Word or rich text format. The cover message should include:
- the title of the paper
- the names of the authors and any positions and affiliations with which they wish to be identified
- contact details for correspondence.
The attached submission should be made anonymous (authors’ names removed or replaced by “Author”), ready for forwarding to referees.
Submissions with figures (charts, graphs and diagrams) must be accompanied by Microsoft Excel (.xls) files that include the data from which the figures were generated. All published content, including figures and tables, will be presented in greyscale or black and white.
Generally, papers should be kept to around 5,000 words (and must include an abstract of 100 to 200 words). Reviews should be approximately 1,500 to 2,000 words. Manuscripts should be written in a direct and readable style, avoiding technical language wherever possible.
Referencing should follow the format used in the Social Policy Journal of New Zealand.
Submissions should not have been published before or be under consideration for publication elsewhere; should not contravene any laws, including those of defamation and privacy; should disclose any conflict of interest; and should meet any applicable ethical or research standards. Submissions should not violate a third party’s intellectual property rights and the authors will have obtained any permissions, should these be required for material sourced from other copyrighted publications, etc.
Submissions will be proofread and style-edited, and returned to authors to obtain their approval of any such changes. Please note that the Ministry of Social Development endeavours not to make, or license any other party to make, any changes to your submission other than editorial changes required or such technical changes as may be required to facilitate publication, in whole or part, of the Social Policy Journal of New Zealand as an electronic product or otherwise, including through information service providers.
Copyright
Where you are the author and copyright owner of your submission, you retain copyright in your submission. However, in order to publish your submission, the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) needs to obtain a licence from you and, if relevant, any other authors of the submission before MSD can use the submission for the purposes of the Social Policy Journal of New Zealand. Where you are the author, MSD also acknowledges that you assert your moral right to be identified as the author of the submission and that MSD will acknowledge you as the author of the submission.
Where you do not own the copyright in your submission, for example where your employer owns the copyright, you must ensure that the copyright owner has authorised you to license the submission under the terms set out in these guidelines.
By putting forward your submission to MSD for publication in the Social Policy Journal of New Zealand, you, and any other authors of your submission (if applicable), agree to license MSD to publish your submission on the following terms:
- You agree to comply with these guidelines
- You warrant that you have the right, or have obtained such authorisation or the relevant licence/s, as may be required, including from any co-authors of the submission
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You grant a non-exclusive and perpetual licence to MSD in order for MSD to:
o reproduce, publish, communicate or disseminate your submission in any media format including in hard copy, on MSD’s website, electronic library databases, or via information service providers, as part of the Social Policy Journal of New Zealand
o reproduce your submission free of charge for the non-commercial purposes of education, study, and/or research without requiring specific permission from you. Such reproduction will be conditional upon your submission being reproduced accurately including acknowledgement of your authorship and not being used in a misleading context
o allow your submission to be disseminated as a whole or part of the text, image and other content contained within your submission in text, image, other electronic format or such other format or on such other medium as may now exist or hereafter be discovered, as part of electronic products distributed by information service providers.
Please note that MSD will not pay you for the licence or right to publish your submission. MSD will not benefit from any financial gain whatsoever as a result of you granting such a licence.
Guidelines for Manuscripts
Manuscript elements
- Title of paper
- Author's name, position, organisational affiliation (i.e., how you would like to be identified)
- Abstract: This is a paragraph of 100 to 200 words describing your paper.
- Introduction: In general it is useful to begin your paper with an explanation of its purpose and what it covers, and a brief statement of the conclusions that you have come to.
- The body of your paper may be divided into any number of sections and sub-sections focusing on the policy implications of your work. A research paper might have a very brief section on methods, and have some discussion of the research findings, but even a research paper should focus on policy implications.
- Concluding remarks (Conclusions, Discussion, or Summary): It is always helpful to provide a clearly defined section that pulls together your conclusions or summarises the points that you have made and the policy implications of your work.
- Acknowledgements, if required, should appear in the first footnote.
- Any references should be listed at the end of the paper. Their format is described below.
Format
- Footnotes should appear at the bottom of the page and numbered consecutively throughout the paper. They should be restricted to remarks of a clarifying, qualifying or informative nature -- not citations or bibliographical entries.
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References: Referencing is very similar to the Harvard system, with citations (author and date) embedded in the text, and full bibliographical entries at the end of the paper.
- In the text: The citation appears as (James 1995), or (James 1995:24) if page numbers are specified. Two authors appear as (Smith and Jones 1994) and more than two authors as (Westbrook et al. 1993). If the author's name appears in the text, it is not necessary to repeat it in the citation (only the date and/or page numbers).
- In the list of references (at the end of the paper): The following bibliographic entries should provide examples to cover most contingencies (note that only the first author is entered surname first):
James, R. (1995) "The New Society" Journal of Modern Social Policy, 8(2)22-47.
Smith, Ann and P.J. Jones (1994) "Post-Modern Social Policy" in F. Chandler and T.P. Briggs (eds.) Discourses in Social Policy, Thames Press, London.
Westbrook, L., P.J. Jones and M.K. Brown (1993) Social Policy for Beginners, Maple Press, Toronto.
