Author guidelines

  1. Preparing for submission
  2. Acceptable use of AI-assisted technologies in articles
  3. Article types
  4. Preparing your manuscript
  5. Image permissions and copyright
  6. Figures, tables, file size and formatting
  7. Formatting your manuscript
  8. Formatting Revisions
  9. Referencing style
  10. House style

Preparing for submission

Please follow these author guidelines before submitting to the journal. It is the responsibility of the author to ensure adherence to this style guide. Please note that editors will not undertake any extensive formatting to this extent, and anything not adhering to the guidelines might be returned for revision.

All authors submitting to the journal must read and accept the UCL Press Journals Editorial Policy and consent to the Journal Contributor Agreement.

Any enquiries can be sent via email to the Executive Editor, Dr Graham Cairns, at gc [at] amps-research.com.

The primarily article type the journal publishes is Original Research Articles of 5,000-7,000 words. Following review, a formatting template will be provided for all papers accepted for publication and authors must ensure their paper conforms to this exactly, before publication.

When you are ready, please see here to submit:

Submit to the journal

Acceptable use of AI-assisted technologies in articles

Please refer to UCL Press's Principles on the use of AI-assisted technologies in articles here.

Broadly, the use of AI-assisted technologies and tools should not replace key authoring tasks and applying AI technology should be done with transparency and human oversight. All the work should be reviewed and edited carefully, because AI can generate authoritative-sounding output that can be incorrect, incomplete or biased.


Article types

Article type Description
Original research articles

Original research articles are detailed studies reporting original research classified as primary literature. We welcome critical and original engagement with different fields but always seek to connect those engagements back to the built environment.

On this basis, Architecture_MPS has published articles by artists, lawyers, planners, architects and sociologists, each of whom address the relationship of their disciplines with the built environment. Typical length: 5-6000 words.

Preparing your manuscript

Authors should format submission in accordance with these guidelines making note of the following specific instructions.

  • The citation style Architecture_MPS uses is the Chicago Manual of Style Notes-Bibliography System (NB) 18th edition.
  • A formatting template will be provided for all papers accepted for publication. Authors must ensure their paper conforms to this exactly.
  • To help authors, Architecture_MPS will accept papers for review that do not correspond to its citation system and formatting requirements. However, if a paper is accepted after review the author must commit to using AMPS’ citation style and formatting requirements.
  • For a full version, refer to the Chicago Manual of Style website: https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/home.html

Anonymisation

Architecture_MPS operates double anonymised peer review, where both the reviewers and authors are anonymised to each other during review. Authors should submit an anonymous version of the manuscript, stripped of all identifying references to the author(s) for peer review. The word count should be clearly indicated. All submissions must be in .doc or .docx format to facilitate the peer-review process.

The journal aims to inform potential contributors of a decision within three months. All decisions by the peer-review/editorial team are final.


English language

All publications are in English (UK). In order to facilitate rigorous and high quality peer-review, all manuscripts should be submitted to a high and coherent level of English language. Should you require help when writing your manuscript, a native English language colleague may be well suited to help edit the level of English language in the manuscript. You may also want to consider using a professional English language editing service to improve the level of English language.

Please note that by using professional English language editing services does not guarantee manuscript acceptance in the journal, and you may be charged for these services.


ORCiD

ORCiD helps researchers record and report their work by providing researchers with a personal unique identifier that can be kept throughout their career. UCL Press journals now implement ORCiD in publications and authors are encouraged to register with ORCiD and enter their ORCiD details into their submission as a URL link or ORCiD number. To register, follow the instructions on the ORCiD web pages at https://orcid.org, or for UCL authors please visit the UCL Open Access pages http://www.ucl.ac.uk/library/open-access/ORCID.


Image permissions and copyright

Please ensure that where the copyright of any image or figure is used in the manuscript, appropriate permission to reuse in an open access journal publication has been obtained in writing and signed by the copyright holder. Please contact UCL Press for any questions, at uclpresspublishing@ucl.ac.uk.


Figures, tables, file size and formatting

No single file should exceed 20Mb. Should you require submitting a file exceeding this size, please contact the Editor-in-Chief for further advice.


Figures
  • Figures should be included within the main text file in sequential order and should be set in the document as a .png file.
  • For large figures (e.g. larger than a single page), see the below heading on Very large figures and tables.
  • Figures such as graphs and charts should also be submitted as separate files during submission as an Excel file with the original data (if they were created in Excel).
  • Line art: where specialist software was used to produce any line art (e.g. diagrams, flow-charts) authors are requested to additionally submit these as individual figures as vector files (e.g. .eps or .ai).
  • Please provide a caption to label and explain each figure. If the figure is sourced from elsewhere, please provide reference to the source in the caption and reference list.

Examples of captions

Figure 1. The three subsystems of the university and their third spaces (Source: based on Lauer, 2023: 144; see also: Schneider et al., 2022: 59).

Figure 2. Which competences are of particular importance in your area? – Word cloud based on 31 interviews with members of a higher education professional network (Netzwerk Wissenschaftsmanagement [Network for Science and Research Managers]) (Source: Rathke et al., 2023a).


Alt text

As part of our commitment to accessibility, we require authors to provide alternative text – ‘alt text’ – for all figures, graphs, and images, in their article (alongside captions). Alt text describes the content of an image for those who cannot see it. This text will be embedded in the article metadata so it can be accessed via assistive technology (such as screen readers).

Please include your alt text as an additional sentence/paragraph, below each figure caption and clearly labelled.

For more information about how to write alt text and to see examples of this, please see our alt text guidelines here. For any further help, please contact us at uclpressjournals@ucl.ac.uk.


Tables

Tables should be included within the main text file. For large tables (e.g. larger than a single page), see the below heading on ‘Very large figures and tables’.


Supporting or supplementary information and data

Data or information should not be submitted as supplementary information alongside the manuscript, but instead be included in the manuscript or deposited into a publicly available repository, depending on the type of data or information concerned.

Where supporting information is included in the article that has no persistent identifier (for example, a Google survey), authors may be requested to deposit the information into a relevant data repository to ensure persistent access, assign it a DOI and then cite the DOI in the article.

Please see the below heading on ‘Depositing your data’ for further guidance.


Very large figures and tables

Where figures and data sets/tables are very large and cannot be included in the main text file as above (e.g. are larger than a single page) authors are encouraged to deposit the figure/data set/table in its original file format to a relevant data repository to assign it a DOI that can then be cited in the main text article.


Data availability statement

UCL Press strongly encourages authors to make all data and datasets on which the conclusions of the manuscript rely to be publicly available either in publicly open repositories (where available and appropriate) or presented in the main paper in machine-readable format (such as formatted tables rather than flat images) whenever possible. Authors are encouraged to follow the FAIR data principles – to make data Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Re-usable. Further information and guidance on these principles is outlined at https://www.force11.org/group/fairgroup/fairprinciples.

Where applicable, authors must clearly state in their manuscript where their data are made available at time of submission. In circumstances where ethical and legal issues dictate any restrictions on sharing data (including research using personal data), a statement to this effect must be included for clarity. Where a widely established research community expectation for data archiving in public repositories exists, submission to a community-endorsed, public repository is mandatory. Persistent identifiers (such as DOIs and accession numbers) for relevant data must be provided in the manuscript.

To aid this process, please select and include one of the following statements:

  1. The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available in the repository: *[source]
  2. The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
  3. Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.
  4. All data generated or analysed during this study are included in this published article (and its supplementary information files).
  5. The data that support the findings of this study are available from * but restrictions apply to the availability of these data, which were used under license for the current study, and so are not publicly available. Data are however available from the authors upon reasonable request and with permission of * [source]

* You may add a link here to your data sets and/or software at a standard data repository. We also strongly encourage you to cite your data in the reference section according to the Joint Declaration of Data Citation Principles.


Depositing your data

Data has the power to revolutionise and disrupt the way societies are governed for the better. None more so than making data openly available for readers to access alongside the published research article.

Data are facts, observations or experiences on which an argument or theory is constructed or tested. Data may be numerical, descriptive, aural or visual. Data may be raw, abstracted or analysed, experimental or observational. Data include but are not limited to: laboratory notebooks; field notebooks; primary research data (including research data in hardcopy or in computer readable form); questionnaires; audiotapes; videotapes; models; photographs; films; test responses. Research collections may include slides; artefacts; specimens; samples.

Submitting authors are strongly encouraged to make freely available all data on which the conclusions of the manuscript rely on by depositing it in publicly available repositories whenever possible. General repositories – for all types of research data – such as Figshare may be used where appropriate.

In circumstances where ethical and legal issues dictate any restrictions on sharing data (including research using personal data) should always be considered before doing so, when storing and preserving research data. Archaeology International adheres to the statement: "as open as possible, as closed as necessary". For help finding relevant research data repositories please see https://repositoryfinder.datacite.org.


Formatting your manuscript

It makes a huge difference to the ease of production if you read and adhere to the author guidelines when preparing your manuscript. If your submission does not follow these guidelines it may be returned to you for modification.

  1. Title page
    The title page must be a single page and attached a the manuscripts first page and include all of the information below, in the same order. No further information should be included:
    1. Title of the manuscript
    2. Full name(s) of contributing authors including their institutions/affiliation and address, and their institutional email address (including ORCiD ID’s - see below note on ORCiD).
    3. The corresponding author(s) should be clearly identified and include their contact email address (normally this will be your university email address).

  2. Abstract
    Present the abstract as an overview of your article (up to 250 words), giving a summary of the contents and major themes. (Note that this will ultimately be used by search engines, and it will form part of the meta-data that will be seen first by people searching your article.)

  3. Keywords
    All articles must list a maximum of up to ten key words.

  4. Main text
    The body of the submission should be structured in a logical and easy to follow manner. A clear introduction section should provide non-specialists in the subject with an understanding of the topic and a background to the issue(s) involved. Methods, results, discussion and conclusion sections may then follow to clearly detail the information and research being presented.

  5. Headings and sub-headings
    Up to three level headings may be present and must be clearly identifiable using different font sizes, bold or italics. We suggest using Headings 1, 2 and 3 in MS-Word’s ‘Style’ section.

  6. Notes
    The citation system used by this publication, requires the use of endnotes and a bibliography. Use endnotes rather than footnotes, for any additional notes and information. These appear at the end of the main text, before References. All notes should be used only where crucial clarifying information needs to be conveyed.

  7. Funding and Acknowledgement statements
    1. Funding: All sources of funding for the research reported should be declared, including any project and grant codes and details.
    2. Acknowledgements: mentions everyone whose contribution to the work you wish to recognise.

  8. Data availability statement please refer to the section on how to write your data availability, here.

  9. Declarations and conflicts of interest statements
    Clearly state the following in the article as sub-headings:
    1. Conflicts of interest
      Clearly declare any possible conflicts of interest, including but not limited to financial and non-financial competing interests. Where there are no conflicts of interests or competing interests, authors must clearly declare this under the same heading. For further information, please refer to the journal’s Editorial Policy at https://journals.uclpress.co.uk/site/editorial_policy.

    2. Ethics approval
      Authors are required to show in their articles that they have received ethical approval for their research from all relevant institutional review boards and that they have followed appropriate personal data protection regulations (e.g. EU General Data Protection Regulation and the UK Data Protection Act 2018) in the handling of personal data. Where such committees do not operate, authors are responsible for providing evidence of their adherence to relevant ethical guidelines for the subject. Where ethics approval is not applicable (e.g. due to the type of article) please indicate this as "N/A".

    3. Consent for publication
      For all articles involving human subjects, including any images, videos, and any other personal and identifiable information, authors must have secured informed consent to participate in the study and to publication before submitting to the journal, and a statement declaring this must be included in the article. Where consent for publication is not applicable (e.g. no such data is included) please indicate this as "N/A".


  10. References/bibliography
    A full references list should contain all the sources cited in the text.

Formatting Revisions

Should your manuscript be requested for revision to raise the acceptability for publication in the journal, please ensure that you follow below points when revising your manuscript and responding to peer review comments. Please provide your timely revisions along with a response letter to any reviewer reports, within the specified revision period to the Editor as instructed in your revision request email. Namely:

  • You should aim to address all points raised by the editor and reviewers, preferably sequentially and in a bullet point list.
  • Outline what revisions you made to your manuscript in your response letter.
  • Where applicable, perform any additional analyses or experiments the reviewers recommend (unless you feel that they would not make your paper better; if this is the case, explain why in your response letter).
  • Provide a polite objective rebuttal to any points or comments you disagree with.

Clearly show and/or highlight the revisions you have made in the text. This can be accommodated by making use of either a different colour text, highlighting the text, or by using Microsoft Word's Track Changes function.


Referencing style

All references should follow the Notes and Bibliography (https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide/citation-guide-1.html) of The Chicago Manual of Style (using British punctuation and spelling).


Notes and Bibliography

The Notes and Bibliography system of documentation presents bibliographic information in a reference list; notes should be excluded from the reference list and made available as endnotes. In this system, sources are cited in numbered endnotes. Each numbered note corresponds to a raised (superscript) number in the text. Sources are also usually listed in a separate bibliography. If the bibliography includes the full reference details, the note need not duplicate the complete information. It is acceptable to use the shortened form in the note, even at first use, e.g. ‘Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, 101’.

Avoid the use of ‘Ibid’, ‘As above’, etc. in endnotes when referencing. Please follow the examples below for style and punctuation (please note especially the use of capitals, italics and punctuation).

Important note: Please include the DOI for each referenced work as a full working link, for example:


Eichsteller, G., Cameron, C. ‘Editorial’. International Journal of Social Pedagogy, 2017, 6 (1), pp.1–5.https://doi.org/10.14324/111.444.ijsp.2017.v6.1.001


Book

Note

Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, 101.


Bibliography

Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A natural history of four meals. New York: Penguin, 2006.


Chapter or other part of a book

In the note, cite specific pages. In the bibliography, include the page range for the chapter or part.


Note

Kelly, ‘Seeing Red’, 81.

Bibliography


Kelly, John D. ‘Seeing Red: Mao fetishism, Pax Americana, and the moral economy of war’. In Anthropology and Global Counterinsurgency, edited by John D. Kelly, Beatrice Jauregui, Sean T. Mitchell, and Jeremy Walton, 67–83. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010.


E-book

For books consulted online, include a URL or the name of the database. For other types of e-books, name the format. If no fixed page numbers are available, cite a section title or a chapter or other number in the notes, if any (or simply omit).


Note

Austen, Pride and Prejudice, chap. 14.


Bibliography

Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. New York: Penguin Classics, 2007. Kindle.


House style

The following guidelines list our preferred conventions for spelling, punctuation, abbreviations, numbers/dates, etc. Please follow them closely.


Spelling

  • Authors should consistently adopt British spelling conventions (except in quotations from other sources, where the spelling convention of the original should be retained, or where stipulated specifically in by the journal – for example World Health Organization).

Punctuation

  • Systems should consistently follow British conventions (except in quotations from other sources, where the punctuation convention of the original should be retained). British style uses single inverted commas, except for quotations within quotations (which have double inverted commas).
  • Punctuation should follow closing inverted commas (except for grammatically complete sentences beginning with a capital).
  • Punctuation should precede closing quotation marks (except for dashes, colons and semicolons, unless these are part of the quoted matter).

Hyphenation

  • Use a hyphen when two words form a compound adjective: middle-class families.
  • Hyphenation must be used consistently throughout your text.
  • Please follow Collins English Dictionary for guidance.

Contractions and abbreviations

  • If you need to use them please write in full at the first appearance with the abbreviation in brackets. You may repeat an abbreviation if it reappears later in your article.
  • Abbreviations are usually expressed without full stops, e.g. GNP, USA, PhD
  • British style contractions will have no full points (e.g. Mr, St, edn), though abbreviated words, which do not end with their final letter, will (e.g. vol., vols., ed., eds.)

Commas

  • An Oxford comma (also known as a serial comma) is a comma used after the penultimate item in a list of three or more items, before ‘and’ or ‘or’. We do not use the Oxford comma – commas should be omitted before the final ‘and’ or ‘or’. E.g. red, white and blue. The exception is if the meaning is ambiguous without one, E.g. The menu choices were fish and chips, steak and chips, or pie and mash. E.g. The dog, Jack, and Sasha.

Dashes

  • Spaced en dashes – not em dashes or hyphens – should be used.
  • Use unspaced en dashes not hyphens for ranges of pages or dates, e.g.11–12, 22–9.

Semicolons and colons

  • A semicolon should be used to separate items in a complicated list (i.e. if the items in the list have internal commas or very long descriptions), or to separate two related but grammatically independent clauses.
  • Use semicolons sparingly in the main text.
  • Colons should primarily be used to introduce block quotations or lists.

Translations

  • If quoting from a non-English source, the quotation should usually be in the original language. Give translation (either author’s or from a published translation) if reader is unlikely to understand original language. The translation should usually appear in the text in parentheses immediately following the quotation but can be given in a numbered note if preferred. Alternatively, the translation can be given in the text and the original quotation in a numbered note. You can indicate in the Preface your general editorial policy in regard to translations.

Capitalisation

  • Keep capitalisation to a minimum and use only for proper nouns and formal names of organisations, etc.

Numbers and dates

  • Spell out numbers up to but not including 10.
  • Elide numbers to minimum digits, e.g. 233-4; dates, e.g. 1993-4. Do not elide in titles and headings.
  • Centuries should be written as words not numbers, e.g. eighteenth century. Hyphenate if used as an adjective, e.g. eighteenth-century masterpiece.
  • Dates as British usage: 18 August 2015.

Quotations

  • Quotations should be indicated by single quotation marks but use double quotation marks for quotations within quotations.
  • Indent quotations of more than 50 words.
  • Quotations should remain exactly as they are in the original.


Acceptable language

Please be sensitive to the use of terms that might cause offence or be interpreted as racist or sexist. Please also avoid gender-specific pronouns where possible. Here are some examples of how to do this:

  • Use plural rather than singular pronouns in examples, e.g. ‘when children play, they…’ rather than ‘when a child plays, he…’
  • Alternate ‘he’ and ‘she’ throughout the manuscript when using a singular pronoun in examples, such that the reader perceives no bias.
  • Use ‘they’ as a singular pronoun in examples, e.g. ‘when a child plays, they…’