SECOND LANGUAGE RESEARCH

Notes to authors on the preparation of typescripts

Editorial policy
SLR will publish theoretical and experimental papers in second language acquisition and second language performance.  Preference will be for contributions that explore the links between these areas and related, non-applied fields such as theoretical linguistics, neurolinguistics and first language development psycholinguistics.  Relevant books in these areas will also be reviewed in SLR.  The editors are interested in both long and short contributions, including responses to work previously published in SLR.  Potential contributions will be reviewed by members of the editorial board or other referees. 

Submission
Contributions and correspondence on editorial matters should be addressed to:
The Editors
Second Language Research
Department of Languages
School of Management and Languages
Heriot Watt University
Riccarton
Edinburgh EH14 4AS
UK  
email: slr@hw.ac.uk
 
Articles should normally be between 4000 and 8000 words in length. 

Where possible, in the first instance, an electronic copy of the manuscript should be submitted as an e-mail attachment in PC-compatible format. Manuscripts should have a separate title page with the author's name, full postal address and e-mail address. The first page of the text should carry the title of the article without the name of the author. The author's name should not be included in headers or footers. This is to allow anonymous reviewing of the manuscript. Use double spacing throughout, including notes, appendices and references. Each article must be accompanied by an abstract of about 200 words. (If you cannot send an electronic copy, send three hard copies of the manuscript, typed on one side of the paper only, to the above address.)

All books for the review articles should be sent to the review editor:
Margaret Thomas
Program in Linguistics
Lyons Hall
Boston College
Chestnut Hill MA 02467
USA
email: thomasm@bc.edu

The disk

Following review, if the manuscript is accepted for publication, you will be asked to send a final version on disk in PC-compatible format, together with two hard copies, to the editors. The hard copies must match the file on the disk.

Microsoft Word is the preferred word processor, but files can be accepted from any of the common Macintosh, Windows or MS-DOS word processing programs.  RTF or ASCII files can also be accepted.  No artwork should be included in the text files. Any artwork provided on disk should be in either TIFF, or EPS format.  Each piece of artwork should be saved as a separate file.  When preparing your paper:

	•	Use  the minimum formatting.
	•	Roman, bold and italic type can be used, but use only one typeface and 			size.
	•	Capitals should be used only where they are to appear in the finished text.
	•	The text should be ranged left and unjustified, with hyphenation cancelled.
	•	Indents, underlining and tabs should be avoided unless absolutely 				necessary.
	•	Headings and paragraphs should be separated by two carriage returns.
	•	There should be only one space between words and only one space after
		any punctuation.

The title page

Give the title of the paper and a running title if the main title is very long.  Authors should include their names and initials, their posts at the time they did the work and their current appointments and qualifications.  The name and address of the author to whom correspondence, proofs and offprint order are to be sent should be given, together with telephone and fax numbers if possible.

Style

Please follow (or ask your typist to follow) these notes:

(i)	Use 'z' not 's' where there is an alternative, and in general follow the first variant given by the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (e.g. realize, idealize, analyse, advertise).

(ii)	Use SI units.

(iii)	Dates: '16 January 1992' not 'January 16, 1992'.

(iv)	Numbers:  adopt a rule that all number under 10 should be spelt out in letters except where attached to a unit of quantity (e.g., 1 mm or 3 kg), and that all number of 10 or more should be rendered in digits except where the context makes this awkward (e.g., use spelt-out forms at the beginning of a sentence).

(v)	Capitalization:  avoid excessive capitalization.  For titles of books and articles, capitals should be used for the initial letter of the first word only.  For the titles of journals and series, the initial letter of all principal words should be capitalized.

(vi)	Italics: use italics for emphasis very sparingly.

(vii)	Abbreviations:  the initial letter of abbreviations should be typed with no full point (e.g., UK, UNESCO, BBC).  Abbreviations in which the last letter of the abbreviation is the same as the last letter of the word should also have no full point (e.g., Mr, St, but no., Str., etc.).

Headings

In dividing articles under headings, please weight your headings by writing A, B, C etc. in the margin of the page:

A:	subheading			numbered	I,   II,   III   etc.
B:	subsubheading			numbered	1,   2,     3  etc.
C:	subsubsubheading		numbered	a,   b,     c   etc.

Please avoid using more than three weights of subheading.

Illustrations

All maps, diagrams figures and graphs should be submitted in the form of completed artwork suitable for reproduction.  they should be separate from the typescript, with a list of captions on a separate sheet, but their place in the text should be marked.

(i)	Line diagrams:  no illustration (including caption) will be given more space than the text area of the journal page i.e., 185 mm x 115 mm.  Where possible, all figures should be drawn for the same reduction.

	Drawings should be on stiff white paper, white card or a drawing material such as kodatrace.

	All lines in a drawing should be of even weight.  If tints are required the letraset range is the most suitable.  Do not use too fine a tint as this may result in a blotchy appearance after reduction.  Lettering should be of a draughtsman standard.  It should also be of even weight and should follow the usual typographical style.

(ii)	Photographs:  photographs do not have to be of a constant reduction.  The degree of reduction should, however, be marked on the back, and any areas which are not required should also be marked.  The limitations as to size are the sam for diagrams.  The prints should be high-quality glossy prints, showing as much contrast as possible.

For information on creating electronic versions of your figures please contact Arnold via arnoldjournals@hodder.co.uk for our separate information sheet “Electronic Graphics Files”.

Tables

Tables should be typed on separate sheets.  Indicate in the margin of the text where the tables should be placed.

Footnotes

Footnotes should be kept to a minimum.  They should be numbered consecutively with superior numbers and should be typed double-spaced on separate pages, following the main text.  A title-page footnote is used to give the address for correspondence.

References

References should follow the Harvard system.  In the typescript references should be indicated by giving the author's name and the year of publication (with page references where necessary).  For example:

'...according to Koster (1987: 144)...'

'There is empirical evidence for the semantic attraction hypothesis, coming from English (Emonds, 1978) and French (Chomsky, 1988; Pollock, 1988)...'

The references should be listed in full at the end of the article double-spaced, in alphabetical order and in the following form:

(a)	Journal article:
	Sportiche, D. 1988: A theory of floating quantifiers and its corollaries for constituent structure.  Linguistic Enquiry 19, 425-49.

	(i.e. no quote marks round the title of the article and minimum capitalization).

(b)	Book:
	Liceras, J.M. 1986: Linguistic theory and second language acquisition. Tubingen: Gunter Narr.

(c)	Article in a book:
	Wexler, K. and Manzini, R. 1987: Parameters and learnability in binding theory. In Roper, T. and Williams, E., editors, Parameter setting, Dordrecht: Reidel, 221-39.

Notes
(i)	Please indicate in brackets at the end of the references the number of pages in mimeographed articles and publications.

(ii)	If several papers by the same author and from the same year are cited, a, b, c etc. should be added to the year of publication (e.g., 1972a; 1972b etc.).

(iii)	The use of the phrase et al. (= et alia) to indicate multiple authorship is permissible in the text, but not in the list of references, where all names should be given.
(iv)	No journal titles should be abbreviated.  If in exceptional circumstances any abbreviations are used, then they should be listed at the beginning of the references.

Copyright

Authors must obtain permission to reproduce all copyright material.  EU copyright
extends to 70 years after the death of the author or 70 years after publication of a
scholarly edition.

Proofs

Proofs will be supplied only once in the form of page proofs.  Please remember that:

(i)	Proof corrections are disproportionately expensive.  For example, the insertions of three commas on a page will frequently cost as much, or more than, the original setting cost of the entire page.

(ii)	If you return proofs even a few days after the date stipulated, it may be too late to include your corrections in the final version of the journal.

Offprints

The author (or principal author for multi-authored papers) will receive 25 free offprints of his/her article.  Extra copies can be ordered from the publisher at proof stage for a small charge.