Submission Guidelines

The Western Criminology Review (WCR) is a forum for the publication and discussion of theory, research, policy, and practice in the rapidly changing and interdisciplinary fields of criminology and criminal justice. The journal is intended to reflect local (Western), national, and international concerns. Historical and contemporary perspectives are encouraged, as are diverse methodological approaches. Although manuscripts that rely upon text and tables are invited, authors who use other resources permitted on the internet (e.g., graphics, hypertext links, etc.) are also welcome. The publication and distribution of articles will also be accompanied by electronic commentary and discussion.

[Please Note: This is NOT a law review.]

Authors interested in submitting to WCR should do so either on a disk (and mailed through the postal service) or e-mail (as an attachment). Include a title page, abstract, institutional affiliation, brief biographical sketch, and an e-mail address. Read below for more details. Questions about style and format of the manuscript should be addressed to the Editors (EditorWCR@gmail.com).

How to submit
Preparation and Citation Style
Citation Examples
Reference Example
Table Examples

WCR strongly encourages electronic submission of scholarly work. For most authors this can be accomplished by either sending it via postal delivery on a floppy disk or by including it as an attachment to an e-mail. WCR can also accommodate file transfer protocol (FTP) submissions (please contact the Editors at EditorWCR@gmail.com in advance to do so). Individuals who cannot submit their work via e-mail or postal delivery with a floppy should e-mail the WCR (EditorWCR@gmail.com ) or write to the address provided below to consider possible alternatives.

The electronically submitted manuscript should be sent to WCR in the original word processing format (preferably MSWord). Alternative formats, such as Word Perfect, RTF (Rich Text Format), or ASCII, may be acceptable. See below if your document is in html (hypertext markup language) format. Submitted manuscripts in word processing or ASCII form may contain hypertext links to other web sites, graphics, sounds, and related files.

Send all new submissions via e-mail as an attachment to EditorWCR@gmail.com or via postal mail service on a floppy disk or flash drive to:

Numerous e-mail programs exist to send manuscripts as attachments. Gmail, Mozilla Thunderbird, and Outlook Express are pc and Macintosh compatible shareware e-mail clients available for download through numerous archives (e.g. http://www.zdnet.com, or http://www.shareware.com).

In general, manuscripts should not be submitted in html (hypertext markup language) format. However, if the document exists in html format and/or the author believes that it is appropriate to submit it as such, please contact the WCR.

Graphics, sound, and files other than the narrative of the document, if included, should be stored and sent as a separate file or files on the same floppy or as separate files in the attachment to an e-mail. If your paper includes graphics/tables that can be printed please send a printed version via postal delivery if you feel that formatting or other content could be lost in transfer. Please make graphics available in .gif, .jpg, .pict or .tiff formats unless you are sure they can be read through transfer in rich text format. Please write to the Editor if you have questions about this. Our concern is that the graphics we receive for review and/or publication look the same as you intend to send. On some occasions hard copy is useful to check on this.

The title page of all manuscripts submitted must be accompanied by a descriptive title and an abstract of no more than 250 words. The abstract should summarize the problem, methods, and results. Please include up to ten keywords to describe the content of the manuscript.

Authors should also include a brief (100 word) biographical sketch, including institutional affiliation, postal address, acknowledgments, research interests, an e-mail address and web page address, if any.

After the Reference List, please include a section called “About the Author” The format should be as follows:

Contact Information: Author 1 Full Name, Address, City, Zip; Phone: XXX-XXX-XXXX; Fax: XXX-XXX-XXXX; Email: author@university.edu Author 2 Full Name, Address, City, Zip; Phone: XXX-XXX-XXXX; Fax: XXX-XXX-XXXX; Email: author@university.edu

The order of the main document should be: title, author(s), abstract, keywords, the text, references, figures/tables, and endnotes, biographical sketch, e-mail and mailing addresses

Readers will be able to respond to articles published in WCR. Reader comments are subject to peer review. Authors will be able to respond to reader criticisms or comments. Commentary will be archived along with the original article.

The WCR uses a modified version of the American Sociological Association (ASA) style and formatting guidelines. Some of the most common style and citation formats are noted below. Please note that we have adapted these slightly for use in the electronic context. (A PDF version of these instructions can be obtained by clicking here.)

Articles may be of any length but a thirty page double-spaced upper limit is suggested. This excludes graphics, tables, sound, etc.

First-level subheadings should be formatted in all capital letters, bold, and left justified. Second-level subheadings should be in bold and left justified; capitalize words that are not prepositions, articles, or conjunctions. Third-level subheadings should be printed in bold italics and followed by a period; capitalize only the first word. The paragraph should continue immediately after the period.

In citing work, authors should include the last name of the author(s), year of publication, and the page number (if a direct quote is made) within the text. If there are three or fewer authors cite all authors' names in the text in the first citation; thereafter use 'et al.' in the citation if there are three or more authors. If there are four or more authors cite only the lead author followed by 'et al.' in all citations. For authors with multiple papers in a single year designate the year by "1995a," "1995b," and "1995c," etc. (See the examples below.) Separate multiple cites with a semicolon.

References should be collected alphabetically and placed at the end of the text in a section titled, "References." Only sources cited in the text should be placed in the references.

Use endnotes rather than footnotes. Keep endnotes to a minimum by incorporating them into the text; this point is especially relevant to authors of law-related articles. Put endnotes at the end of the document, after the references. Do not put endnotes at the bottom of each page. Number endnotes consecutively.

Author(s) are responsible for clearing copyright on all information (e.g., visual, sound, and other data) found in the article, if needed.

Italic, bold, and underscore should be formatted as normally done in a word processing document. If hyperlinks are made to files these should be explicitly identified in the text, e.g., <link to "file.name">.

If .gif, .jpg, video, map, figure, sound, or other files are referenced they should be submitted on a disk (or as a separate attachment to an e-mail) in a standard format and in a file separate from the manuscript, as noted above. Standard formats should be used for video, sound, and graphical sources so that readers can access them through standard web browsers using available plug-ins. Reference to the source(s) of plug-ins should be provided to readers.

Note: after an article is accepted for publication, the author and Editor will reach agreement on editorial requirements and changes permitted prior to publication.

Article:		Copes, Heith and Richard Tewksbury. 2011. “Criminal Experience and Perceptions of Risk: What Auto Thieves Fear when Stealing Cars.” Journal of Crime and Justice 34: 62-79.
Book:		Moore, Joan W. 1978. Homeboys. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
Collections:		Manning, Peter K. 1978. "The Police: Mandate, Strategies and Appearances." Pp. 7-32 in Policing: A View From the Street, edited by P.K. Manning and J. Van Maanen. Chicago, IL: Goodyear. Johnson, Robert and Hans Toch, eds. 1988. The Pains of Imprisonment. Illinois: Waveland Press.
Legal:		U.S. v. Riveria, 595 F.2d 1095 (5th Cir. 1979).

Book:		Gonzalez, Rosalind. 1997. The Town the Crime Forgot: Decriminalization in Dalton. Retrieved February 2, 2010 http://www.fliblib.edu/bks/cr/gonzalez.html.
Periodical:		Currie, Elliott. 1999. "Reflections on Crime and Criminology at the Millenium." Western Criminology Review 2(1). Retrieved February 2, 2010 http://wcr.sonoma.edu/v2n1/currie.html.
Legal:		Law of Rights. (No date). United States Code. [Online]. Title 24, p. 71. Retrieved February 2, 2010 http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/24/71.html.

For further information about citation and formatting see the second edition of the American Sociological Association's Style Guide (1997), which includes only a brief section on electronic citation.

For electronic citation generally see Xia Li and Nancy B. Crane. 1996. Electronic Styles: A Handbook for Citing Electronic Information. 2d ed. Medford, NJ: Information Today.

Appropriate electronic citation of materials archived at WCR is provided at the beginning of each article.

Routinely, tables are poorly formatted and essential information needed to interpret data contained therein is often missing. Consequently, the editorial board developed a series of example tables to assist authors when preparing data for publication. Click here for PDF examples. Please also refer to recent issues for more examples of appropriate table formatting.

Generally, tables should be created with an "insert table" function available in most word processing programs. Information should be arranged and labeled appropriately in separate columns and rows. Figures in each column should be arranged so that when glancing down the column all decimal points line up.

Tables should be numbered consecutively as they appear in the manuscript and authors should draw their readers' attention to the tables with appropriate language in the body of the manuscript.

Note: the citation style was revised on 8/3/98, 3/15/11and last updated on 11/15/12.