Guidelines for Journal Manuscripts

All manuscripts must strictly adhere to the formatting guidelines below and be free of spelling and grammatical errors. Authors should ensure their work is thoroughly proof-read prior to submission.
Once manuscripts are received, the Editorial Board will check and ensure conformity to the specified requirements. Conforming manuscripts will undergo blind review two reviewers; those that do not meet the requirements will be returned without review.

Manuscripts should not have been published previously. If this is the case then, a note should be added that a preliminary, short version of the article was previously published in this journal. It is the author's responsibility to obtain copyright clearance for reproduction of any figures, diagrams or charts from published works. Authors will retain copyright ownership of any published material and are encouraged to further develop their manuscript into a fuller form and to submit it to other journals.

Each person may submit only one sole authored (or 2-3 co-authored) manuscripts per annual volume. Submissions may be jointly authored by research students and academics in the School.

By submitting, the author(s) confirm to sole authorship, originality, and assurance of absence of libellous, illegal or copyright-infringing content to the best of their knowledge.

About Image

Manuscript Formatting

Category Requirements
Spacing Double spacing
Margin Inner margin 1.5 inch Outer margin 1 inch
Notes Endnotes only
Pagination Number all pages consecutively with the page number in the bottom centre. Arrange the pages of the manuscript in the following order: (1) Title, author(s) name (2) Abstract (3) Text (4) References (5) Appendices (6) Author biographical data (max 150 words) including email address
Abstract Insert the heading Abstract (12 point bold left-aligned). Leave one blank line beneath this heading. Maximum 150 words
Text Text, endnotes and references should be fully justified. Do not skip a line between paragraphs. The first line of each paragraph should be indented.
Final Submission Submitted as PDF Document.

• Ethics

Useful sources of information regarding ECLS ethics


All submission must conform to the ethical standards set forth by ECLS ethics.

University guidance: at Newcastle - Research - Newcastle University (ncl.ac.uk)

Also relevant is the guidance produced by professional bodies and associated organisations. Of particular relevance within ECLS, these include:

• Referencing Format

ARECLS requires authors to submit manuscripts with a complete reference list and/or bibliography in a consistent referencing format. Further information regarding referencing styles can be accessed through Newcastle University library: https://libguides.ncl.ac.uk/managing/referencing_styles

• Graphical Representation

All tables and figures should be processed as images.
We suggest that you convert figures and tables from their original format to TIFF, PNG, GIF or JPG format.
You can create your table in MS-Word. Use horizontal lines but no vertical lines. Then go to Table and select Hide Gridlines.
When you finish the representation with your table or figure, move your cursor away from the table then press "PrtSc" on your keyboard.
This allows you to make a copy of the screen image to the Windows clipboard.

  1. Now open Microsoft Photo Editor or any image processors (such as PhotoShop, Photo Impact or HySnapDX) and go to Edit, then click Paste as New Image.
  2. To capture and resize your table image, you click the Select button and select the part you want, choose Image and Crop.
  3. Save the file by click File and Save As in TIFF or GIF format without any compression.
  4. There are many graphing programs which allow you to export your graphics in TIFF or other formats such as *.png, *.gif or *.jpg.
  5. Once you have done the above, please put the tables or figures back into your document as images by clicking Insert/Picture/From Files in MS-Word.
  6. If you put the text or caption referred to any graphical representations (tables or figures), please do not make the link to them.
  7. Please ensure you include a brief explanatory heading and number figures using Arabic numerals.
No matter how you convert your images, make sure you do not compress your images and nothing is lost during your conversion. It is good if you can keep the size of image files as small as possible. It is also not necessary to put borders around the outside of your tables and figures. Note we may not able to extract the tables in your document