1. SUBMISSION OF MANUSCRIPTS

All manuscripts must be submitted online. Once you have prepared your manuscript according to the instructions below please visit the online submission web site. Instructions on submitting your manuscript online can be viewed here.

Manuscripts should relate to the field of public opinion research as indicated in the Aims and Functions pages. The manuscripts should be in English, as should the abstract, title of the manuscript and the authors's affiliations. Manuscripts should be submitted via Manuscript Central, which can be accessed by clicking here.

Please note: All manuscripts are double-blinded for peer review. The title page containing the author's details must therefore be submitted as a separate file to the manuscript.

Submission for an original paper to the journal will be taken to imply that it represents original work not previously published. Authors are requested not to submit manuscripts that are under consideration for publication elsewhere. The editors hope to provide authors with a decision on whether a manuscript will be accepted within ten weeks of receipt.

2. PREPARATION OF MANUSCRIPTS

All manuscripts must be typed or letter-quality printed, double-spaced on A4 paper or equivalent sizes with at least 1 inch/2.5 cm margins on all four sides. The length of the submitted papers should be 15 to 20 pages including tables and graphs, but longer manuscripts will be considered for publication. The manuscripts can contain text headings on a maximum of two levels. First-level headings should be typed in capitals with the text beginning on the following line. Second-level headings should be typed in small letters with all main words capitalized and the whole heading underlined. A statement giving the author's present position and an address sufficient for him/her to be contacted by editors and readers should be provided on a separate page. An abstract of the article containing a maximum of 200 words should also be supplied on a separate page.

Authors whose work is accepted will be expected to correct proofs of their own article.

3. TABLES AND ILLUSTRATIONS

Tables and copies of illustrations should be appended to text, numbered and their position in the text clearly marked. They should be comprehensible without reading the text. Tables containing results from survey research should contain the following information:

• (1) the exact wording of the questions asked;
• (2) the exact wording of precoded answers (if applicable);
• (3) the population under study;
• (4) the year of the survey;
• (5) the sample size and the number of the respondents in breakdown- columns;
• (6) the total of percentages in each column.

For further information in the text, please consult the 'Code of Professional Ethics and Practices' of the American Association for Public Opinion Research. Response rates have to be reported according to that organization's 'Standard Definitions'.

4. FOOTNOTES AND REFERENCES

Footnotes should be avoided or at least kept to a minimum, containing relevant information that cannot otherwise be accommodated in the manuscript. The footnotes are indicated in the text by superscript figures and collected on a single page at the end of the article in numerical order. All references should appear at the end of the manuscript in alphabetical order and contain all bibliographical information. The reference list and citations of references in the text should follow the Publication Manual of the Americal Psychological Association, Fifth Edition (July 2001).

5. COPYRIGHT/OFFPRINTS

Please download and complete the Licence to Publish form. It is a condition of publication in the journal that authors assign an exclusive licence to the World Association for Public Opinion Research. This ensures that requests from third parties to reproduce articles are handled efficiently and consistently and will also allow the article to be as widely disseminated as possible. In assigning copyright, authors may use their own material in other publications provided that the journal is acknowledged as the original place of publication, and Oxford University Press is notified in writing and in advance. The publisher will supply the author or the first named author with free online access to his/her paper free of charge. Print offprints may also be purchased. Orders from the UK will be subject to a 17.5% VAT charge. For orders from elsewhere in the EU you or your institution should account for VAT by way of a reverse charge.  Please provide us with your or your institution’s VAT number.

6. LANGUAGE EDITING

Particularly if English is not your first language, before submitting your manuscript you may wish to have it edited for language. This is not a mandatory step, but may help to ensure that the academic content of your paper is fully understood by journal editors and reviewers. Language editing does not guarantee that your manuscript will be accepted for publication. If you would like information about one such service please click here. There are other specialist language editing companies that offer similar services and you can also use any of these. Authors are liable for all costs associated with such services.

7. FUNDING

Details of all funding sources for the work in question should be given in a separate section entitled 'Funding'. This should appear before the 'Acknowledgements' section.

The following rules should be followed:

• The sentence should begin: ‘This work was supported by …’
• The full official funding agency name should be given, i.e. ‘National Institutes of Health’, not ‘NIH’ (full RIN-approved list of UK funding agencies) Grant numbers should be given in brackets as follows: ‘[grant number xxxx]’
• Multiple grant numbers should be separated by a comma as follows: ‘[grant numbers xxxx, yyyy]’
• Agencies should be separated by a semi-colon (plus ‘and’ before the last funding agency)
• Where individuals need to be specified for certain sources of funding the following text should be added after the relevant agency or grant number 'to [author initials]'.

An example is given here: ‘This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health [AA123456 to C.S., BB765432 to M.H.]; and the Alcohol & Education Research Council [hfygr667789].’

AUTHOR SELF-ARCHIVING/PUBLIC ACCESS POLICY FROM MAY 2005

For information about this journal's policy, please visit our Author Self-Archiving policy page.