Submissions

Author Guidelines

Content and style writing

Length: Papers submitted to Humanity should ideally be between 4500 and 5500 words including all references, headers and graphics.  It is unlikely that papers shorter than 4000 words would be accepted, but papers a little longer than 5500 words may be considered providing the content is relevant and interesting, and adheres to the journal theme.

Microsoft Word: Manuscripts should be prepared using Microsoft Word or a compatible word processing system.

Readability: Humanity editors will require a high level of readability. The most important factors in attaining this are

Headings and sub-headings: Please keep your headings and sub-headings very plain and simple. The journal articles will all need to look the same. Please do not use headers, footers or any pagination, and please justify your work.

Short sentences: Long sentences containing several clauses become hard to understand. Readability is nearly always improved by breaking long sentences into two or more shorter sentences. As a rough guide, sentences over 25 words will tend to lower the readability of your paper. Microsoft Word's spelling checker has a grammar checker as well. Turn this on and it can alert you to many points affecting your readability.

Spelling: Configure your spelling checker to use English (Australian) spelling.

Avoid using jargon: Readers of Humanity come from several different disciplines and may not understand words peculiar to your own discipline. However, sometimes it may be more appropriate to use technical terms. Take care to explain these to the reader. 

Simple words with no jargon: Use the more common, well used word

For example, rather than saying: 

ascertain             say        find out

aggregate                        total    
prior to                            before
point in time                    time
endeavour                       try
commence                       begin or start
terminate                         finish

Active rather than passive voice: Usually it is better to say: "The surveyor asked the respondent" (active voice) rather than "The respondent was asked by the surveyor" (passive voice). Passive voice is stiff and stilted. Active voice is more direct and lively.

Verb form rather than noun form: Don't kill your verbs by turning them into nouns.

Don't say: "My intention is to perform problem definition and resolution."
Rather say: "I intend to define the problems and resolve them."

Don't say: "We carried out a review of the arrangements in order to effect improvements in the reporting  of complaints."
Rather say: "We reviewed our arrangements to improve how complaints are reported."

Images: We are happy to include illustrations such as photos, charts and diagrams. Where possible these should be reduced to VGA (96dpi) resolution before sending.

Citation style: All citations must be in the MLA, APA or Harvard styles as these are common referencing styles.