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Final Manuscript Preparation Guidelines for Forensic Scholars Today

This document provides details on typesetting and layout requirements pertaining to final manuscript submission to Forensic Scholars Today.

Formatting Requirements

The final manuscript should follow APA guidelines. You may use this APA template to assist in formatting your submission.

  • Do not include a title page or abstract. (Begin the document with the introduction; a title page, including the abstract, will be added to your paper by the editors.)
  • Do not include page numbers, headers, or footers. These will be added by the editors.
  • Write your article in English.
  • Submit your manuscript, including tables, figures, appendices, etc., as a single file (Word, RTF, or PDF files are accepted).
  • Page size should be 8.5 x 11-inches.
  • Use a single column layout with both left and right margins justified.
  • If figures are included, use high-resolution figures, preferably encoded as encapsulated PostScript (eps).
  • Copyedit your manuscript.
  • When possible, there should be no pages where more than a quarter of the page is empty space.

Additional Recommendations

Language & Grammar

All submissions must be in English. Except for common foreign words and phrases, the use of foreign words and phrases should be avoided. Authors should use proper, standard English grammar.

Article Length

Articles should be a minimum of 500 words. Because this journal publishes electronically, page limits are not as relevant as they are in the world of print publications. We are happy, therefore, to let authors take advantage of this greater "bandwidth" to include material that they might otherwise have to cut to get into a print journal. This said, authors should exercise some discretion with respect to length.

Colored text

Set the font color to black for the majority of the text. We encourage authors to take advantage of the ability to use color in the production of figures, maps, etc., however, you need to appreciate that this will cause some of your readers problems when they print the document on a black & white printer. For this reason, you are advised to avoid the use of colors in situations where their translation to black and white would render the material illegible or incomprehensible.

Please ensure that there are no colored mark-ups or comments in the final version, unless they are meant to be part of the final text. (You may need to "accept all changes" in track changes or set your document to "normal" in final markup.)

Emphasized text

Whenever possible use italics to indicate text you wish to emphasize rather than underlining it. The use of color to emphasize text is discouraged.

References

It is the author's obligation to provide complete references with the necessary information. After the last sentence of your submission, please insert a line break—not a page break—and begin your references on the same page, if possible. References should appear right after the end of the document, beginning on the last page, if possible. Follow APA 7th edition guidelines to format your references list. You can consult your copy of the APA 7th edition manual or the CSP APA 7th edition page, or APA Style and Grammar Guidelines.