An interdisciplinary journal for all students of political studies with an interest in the geographical and spatial aspects of politics

Online Submission

Political Geography manuscripts must be submitted online using our Web-based submission tool. To submit your paper online, please go to http://ees.elsevier.com/jpgq and upload your article and its associated artwork. A PDF will be generated and the reviewing process will be carried out using that PDF. All correspondence between editors and author is performed by e-mail, and a printed copy of the manuscript is not required at any stage of the process.


Article Types


Editorial: Max 2,000 words by one or more editors of this journal. Example http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2009.01.001


Guest Editorial: Max 2,000 words by someone other than the editors. Example http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2008.12.002


Interventions: A themed set of entries in the format of editorials, but put together and listed as one entry, max 11,000 words total. Example http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2008.12.002


Articles: Full research pieces, max 11,000 words, inclusive.


Discussion: Commentaries on articles which have been published in this journal, or invited commentaries on plenary papers.


Book Reviews: These are review essays on multiple books on the same subject (max 2,000 words if two books are being reviewed and 4,000 words if more than two books are being reviewed) and review forums consisting of multiple single-author submissions on a single book (max 11,000 words total).


Contributions are received with the understanding that their contents are original, unpublished material and are not being submitted for publication elsewhere. Translated material, which has not been published in English, will also be considered. The Editors reserve the right to edit or otherwise alter contributions, but authors will receive proofs for approval before publication. The maximum acceptable length of an Article manuscript and Interventions is 11,000 words (including references, captions - and notes, which should be avoided). Guest Editorials are of maximum 2,000 words, including everything. Contributions to Interventions should have one shared bibliography in the end of the entries. Shorter submissions are encouraged. Manuscripts exceeding this limit will be returned to the authors for reduction and further editing. Either American or British spelling conventions may be followed. The style chosen must be consistent throughout the text.

Presentation

Manuscripts must be typed in journal style, double-spaced (including footnotes; abstracts and references should be triple-spaced) and with a wide margin (2.5cm or 1inch).

Manuscripts should be arranged in the following order of presentation. First page: short title, subtitle (if desired), acknowledgements (if any), corresponding author's name, affiliation, e-mail address, full postal address and telephone and fax numbers. Respective affiliations and addresses of co-authors should be clearly indicated. Second Page: a self-contained abstract of 150 to 250 words; keywords (up to six); article title abbreviated appropriately for use as a running headline. Subsequent pages: main body of text, list of references, Endnotes (if absolutely necessary), appendices; tables; necessary footnotes (numbered consecutively).

The text should be organized under appropriate section headings. Section headings should be marked as follows: PRIMARY HEADINGS should be typed in capitals and underlined; Secondary Headings should be typed with initial capital letters and underlined; Tertiary headings should be typed in lower case and underlined. Any subsequent headings should be preceded by a Roman numeral (I, ii, iii etc.) placed on the first line of text and underlined. All headings should be placed on the left-hand side of the text.

All measurements should be given in metric units. Abbreviations do not take a plural form and are not followed by a point.

Authors are urged to write as concisely as possible, but not at the expense of clarity. Do not use footnotes (bottom of the each page). Descriptive or explanatory pages, necessary as information but which tend to break up the flow of text, should be typed double-spaced and grouped together at the end of the manuscript as Endnotes. Generally these are to be avoided at all cost: essential information should be said in the text. Endnotes considered to be absolutely necessary must be designated in the text by superscript Arabic numerals in continuous sequence.

References

References must be indicated in text in Harvard style either by giving, in parentheses, the author's name followed by the date of the article, chapter or book; or with the date in parentheses, as in 'suggested by Fletching (1975)'. In the text use the form 'Olson et al. 1975' where there are more than two authors, but list all authors in the references. To aid anonymous refereeing authors should cite their own work impersonally. Quotations of more than one line of text from cited works should be indented and citation should include the page number of the quotation; e.g. (Thomas, 1979: 56). Please note that the publication year is followed by a colon and one empty space before the page number.

References should be listed in one alphabetical sequence at the end of the text. They should be typed triple-spaced in journal style, e.g.

for journal articles:
Thornwaite, C. W. and Mather, J. R. (1995). The water balance. Publications in Climatology, 8, 1-104.

for edited books (i.e. books that contain contributions from several authors):
Zeleny, M. (1982). ed. Multiple criteria decision making. New York: McGraw-Hill.

for non-edited books (also known as a monograph):
Bailey, A. (1978). Politics and planning: A new approach. London: Oliver Publications.

for papers from conference proceedings, chapters from a book, etc. Smith, I. J. K. (1977). Liberal theories of the state. In Alternative perspectives of the state ed., P. Shed, pp. 17-82. Boston: Back Bay Press.

Citing and listing of Web references: The full URL should be given and any further information such as (author names, date accessed etc. should also be given. Multiple Web references should be listed separately (e.g., after the reference list) under a different heading, 2-3 websites can be included in the reference list.

The digital object identifier (DOI) may be used to cite and link to electronic documents. The DOI consists of a unique alphanumeric character string which is assigned to a document by the publisher upon the initial electronic publication. The assigned DOI never changes. Therefore, it is an ideal medium for citing a document, particularly "Articles in press" because they have not yet received their full bibliographic information. The correct format for citing a DOI is shown as follows (example taken from a document in the journal Political Geography): doi:10.1016/j.polgeo.2004.04.007

When you use the DOI to create URL hyperlinks to documents on the web, they are guaranteed never to change. To open, put the following DOI site in your browser: http://dx.doi.org Enter the entire DOI citation in the text box provided, and then click Go.

Tables

Tables must be prepared on separate sheets, be numbered consecutively in Arabic numerals and given a suitable caption. Notes and references within tables should be included with the tables, separately from the main text. Notes should be avoided, but those deemed necessary should be referred to by superscript letters. All table columns should have an explanatory heading. Tables should not repeat data available elsewhere in the article, e.g. in an illustration.

Figures

All graphs, diagrams, maps and other drawings should be referred to as Figures which should be large-size originals (each on a separate page) and produced using professional quality graphics software. They should have an Arabic number and a caption. In the text, figures must be referred to as: see Fig. 1; or Fig. 2 and 3, etc. Their approximate location in the text should be indicated as follows:

_________________

Insert Fig. 1 about here
___________________

Supplementary Material

Elsevier and Editors of Political Geography invite authors of articles submitted for publication to provide supplementary material in electronic form. Supplementary material that does not appear in the print version of an article can be found online on ScienceDirect (http://www.sciencedirect.com).

Supplementary material (even though not printed) is an integral part of a journal article and therefore will be sent to the reviewers along with the manuscript. Because this material will be mounted exactly as submitted by the author, we recommend that the material be presented in an electronic format that is readily accessible. To ensure that your submitted material is directly usable, please provide the data in one of our recommended file formats. Authors should submit material in electronic format together with the article and supply a concise and descriptive caption for each file. Please note, however, that supplementary material will not appear in the printed journal. For mote detailed instructions, please visit http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstruction, and then click on "Multimedia files."

Copyright

All authors must sign the 'Transfer of Copyright' agreement before the article can be published. This transfer agreement enables Elsevier Ltd to protect the copyrighted material for the authors, but does not relinquish the author's proprietary rights. The copyright transfer covers the exclusive rights to reproduce and distribute the article, including reprints, photographic reproductions, microform or any other reproductions of similar nature and translations. The copyright transfer includes the right to adapt the article for use in conjunction with computer systems and programs, including reproduction or publication in machine-readable form and incorporation in retrieval systems. Authors are responsible for obtaining from the copyright holder's permission to reproduce any figures for which copyright exists.

Proofs

Authors are responsible for ensuring that all manuscripts (whether original or revised) are accurately typed before final submission. Manuscripts will be returned to the author with a set of instructions if they are not submitted according to our style. One set of proofs will be sent to the author by PDF before publication, and corrections should be returned promptly. The publishers reserve the right to charge for any changes made at proof stage (other than typesetting errors).

Proofs will be sent to the author (first-named author if no corresponding author is identified on multi-authored papers) by PDF wherever possible and should be returned within 48 hours of receipt, by e-mail. Corrections should be restricted to typesetting errors; any other amendments may be charged to the author. Any queries should be answered in full. Elsevier will do everything possible to get your article corrected and published as quickly and accurately as possible. Therefore, it is important to ensure that all corrections are returned to us in one all-inclusive e-mail or fax. Subsequent additional corrections will not be possible, so please ensure that your first communication is complete. Should you choose to mail your corrections, please return them to: Log-in Department, Elsevier, Stover Court, Bampfylde Street, Exeter, Devon, EX1 2AH, UK.

Offprints

The corresponding author, at no cost, will be provided with a PDF file of the article via e-mail. The PDF file is a watermarked version of the published article and includes a cover sheet with the journal cover image and a disclaimer outlining the terms and conditions of use. Additional paper offprints can be ordered by the authors. An order form with prices will be sent to the corresponding author.

Author Enquiries

For enquiries relating to the submission of articles (including electronic submission where available) please visit this journal's homepage at http://www.elsevier.com/locate/polgeo. You can track accepted articles at http://www.elsevier.com/trackarticle and set up email alerts to inform you of when an article's status has changed, as well as copyright information, frequently asked questions and more.

Contact details for questions arising after acceptance of an article, especially those relating to proofs, are provided after registration of an article for publication.