Guide for Authors
The aims of
The International Journal of Accounting are to advance the academic and professional
understanding of accounting theory, policies and practice from the international perspective and viewpoint. The Journal recognizes that
international accounting is influenced by a variety of forces, e.g., governmental, political and economic.
The Journal attempts to
assist in the understanding of the present and potential ability of accounting to aid in the recording and interpretating international
economic transactions and the economic consequences of such reporting. These transactions may be within a profit or non-profit environment.
The Journal deliberately encourages a broad view of the origins and development of accounting with an emphasis on its functions in an
increasingly interdependent global economy, and welcomes manuscripts that help explain current international accounting practices, with
related theoretical justifications, and identify criticisms of current policies and practice. Other than occasional commissioned papers
or special issues, all the manuscripts published in the Journal are selected by the editors after the normal refereeing process.
Contact Details for Submission
1. Manuscripts should be submitted to the Editor, Professor A. Rashad
Abdel-Khalik, The International Journal of Accounting. Electronic submission is preferable. Submitted manuscripts should be sent to
ciera@uiuc.edu.
Postal address is University of Illinois, 320 Wohlers Hall, 1206 S. Sixth Street, Champaign, IL 61820, USA.
2. All manuscripts must
be typewritten or word processed, double spaced on one side only and numbered consecutively, including an abstract of approximately 100
words, and relevant key words for indexing. Papers must be neither previously published nor submitted elsewhere previously. Authors are
responsible for obtaining permission from the copyright owner (usually the publisher) to use any quotations, illustrations, or tables
from another source.
3. The author's full name, affiliation, and when applicable, postal and e-mail addresses should appear on the
title page.
4. All tables, figures and illustrations should accompany the manuscript on separate sheets. Captions should clearly identify
all separate matter, and all figures must be submitted in camera ready copy. All should be called out in text and indication given to
location. For example.
Ethics in publishing
For information on Ethics in publishing and Ethical guidelines for journal publication see
http://www.elsevier.com/publishingethics
and
http://www.elsevier.com/ethicalguidelines.
Conflict of interest
All authors are requested to disclose any actual or potential conflict of interest including any financial, personal or other
relationships with other people or organizations within three years of beginning the submitted work that could inappropriately influence,
or be perceived to influence, their work. See also
http://www.elsevier.com/conflictsofinterest.
Submission declaration
Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously
(except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis), that it is not under consideration for publication
elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was
carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere including electronically in the same form, in English or in any
other language, without the written consent of the copyright-holder.
Changes to authorship
This policy concerns the addition, deletion, or rearrangement of author names in the authorship of accepted manuscripts:
Before
the accepted manuscript is published in an online issue: Requests to add or remove an author, or to rearrange the author names,
must be sent to the Journal Manager from the corresponding author of the accepted manuscript and must include: (a) the reason the name
should be added or removed, or the author names rearranged and (b) written confirmation (e-mail, fax, letter) from all authors that they
agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement. In the case of addition or removal of authors, this includes confirmation from the
author being added or removed. Requests that are not sent by the corresponding author will be forwarded by the Journal Manager to the
corresponding author, who must follow the procedure as described above. Note that: (1) Journal Managers will inform the Journal Editors
of any such requests and (2) publication of the accepted manuscript in an online issue is suspended until authorship has been agreed.
After
the accepted manuscript is published in an online issue: Any requests to add, delete, or rearrange author names in an article published
in an online issue will follow the same policies as noted above and result in a corrigendum.
Copyright
Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to complete a 'Journal Publishing Agreement' (for more
information on this and copyright see
http://www.elsevier.com/copyright). Acceptance of the agreement will ensure the widest
possible dissemination of information. An e-mail will be sent to the corresponding author confirming receipt of the manuscript together
with a 'Journal Publishing Agreement' form or a link to the online version of this agreement.
Subscribers may reproduce tables of
contents or prepare lists of articles including abstracts for internal circulation within their institutions. Permission of the Publisher
is required for resale or distribution outside the institution and for all other derivative works, including compilations and translations
(please consult
http://www.elsevier.com/permissions). If excerpts from other copyrighted works are included, the author(s)
must obtain written permission from the copyright owners and credit the source(s) in the article. Elsevier has preprinted forms for use
by authors in these cases: please consult
http://www.elsevier.com/permissions.
Retained author rights
As an author you (or your employer or institution) retain certain rights; for details you are referred
to:
http://www.elsevier.com/authorsrights.
Role of the funding source
You are requested to identify who provided financial support for the conduct of the research and/or preparation of the article
and to briefly describe the role of the sponsor(s), if any, in study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data;
in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the article for publication. If the funding source(s) had no such involvement
then this should be stated. Please see
http://www.elsevier.com/funding.
Funding body agreements and policies
Elsevier has established agreements and developed policies to allow authors whose
articles appear in journals published by Elsevier, to comply with potential manuscript archiving requirements as specified as conditions
of their grant awards. To learn more about existing agreements and policies please visit
http://www.elsevier.com/fundingbodies.
Language and language services
Please write your text in good English (American or British usage is accepted,
but not a mixture of these). Authors who require information about language editing and copyediting services pre- and post-submission
please visit
http://webshop.elsevier.com/languageservices
or our customer support site at
http://support.elsevier.com
for more information.
Use of wordprocessing software
It is important that the file be saved in the native format of the wordprocessor used.
The text should be in single-column format. Keep the layout of the text as simple as possible. Most formatting codes will be removed and replaced on processing the article. In particular, do not use the wordprocessor's options to justify text or to hyphenate words.
However, do use bold face, italics, subscripts, superscripts etc. When preparing tables, if you are using a table grid, use only one
grid for each individual table and not a grid for each row. If no grid is used, use tabs, not spaces, to align columns. The electronic
text should be prepared in a way very similar to that of conventional manuscripts (see also the Guide to Publishing with Elsevier:
http://www.elsevier.com/guidepublication).
Note that source files of figures, tables and text graphics will be required whether or not you embed your figures in the text. See also
the section on Electronic artwork.
To avoid unnecessary errors you are strongly advised to use the 'spell-check' and 'grammar-check'
functions of your wordprocessor.
Essential title page information
•
Title.
Concise and informative. Titles are often used in information-retrieval systems. Avoid abbreviations and formulae
where possible.
•
Author names and affiliations.
Where the family name may be ambiguous (e.g., a double name),
please indicate this clearly. Present the authors' affiliation addresses (where the actual work was done) below the names. Indicate all
affiliations with a lower-case superscript letter immediately after the author's name and in front of the appropriate address. Provide
the full postal address of each affiliation, including the country name and, if available, the e-mail address of each author.
•
Corresponding author.
Clearly indicate who will handle correspondence at all stages of refereeing and publication, also
post-publication.
Ensure that telephone and fax numbers (with country and area code) are provided in addition to the e-mail address
and the complete postal address. Contact details must be kept up to date by the corresponding author.
•
Present/permanent
address.
If an author has moved since the work described in the article was done, or was visiting at the time, a 'Present address'
(or 'Permanent address') may be indicated as a footnote to that author's name. The address at which the author actually did the work
must be retained as the main, affiliation address. Superscript Arabic numerals are used for such footnotes.
Electronic artwork
General points
• Make sure you use uniform lettering and sizing
of your original artwork.
• Save text in illustrations as 'graphics' or enclose the font.
• Only use the following
fonts in your illustrations: Arial, Courier, Times, Symbol.
• Number the illustrations according to their sequence in the text.
• Use a logical naming convention for your artwork files.
• Provide captions to illustrations separately.
•
Produce images near to the desired size of the printed version.
• Submit each figure as a separate file.
A detailed guide
on electronic artwork is available on our website:
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions
You are urged
to visit this site; some excerpts from the detailed information are given here.
Formats
Regardless of the application
used, when your electronic artwork is finalised, please 'save as' or convert the images to one of the following formats (note the resolution
requirements for line drawings, halftones, and line/halftone combinations given below):
EPS: Vector drawings. Embed the font or save
the text as 'graphics'.
TIFF: Color or grayscale photographs (halftones): always use a minimum of 300 dpi.
TIFF: Bitmapped line
drawings: use a minimum of 1000 dpi.
TIFF: Combinations bitmapped line/half-tone (color or grayscale): a minimum of 500 dpi is required.
If your electronic artwork is created in a Microsoft Office application (Word, PowerPoint, Excel) then please supply 'as is'.
Please
do not:
• Supply files that are optimised for screen use (e.g., GIF, BMP, PICT, WPG); the resolution is too low;
•
Supply files that are too low in resolution;
• Submit graphics that are disproportionately large for the content.
Color artwork
Submit color illustrations as original photographs, high-quality computer prints or transparencies,
close to the size expected in publication, or as 35 mm slides. Please make sure that artwork files are in an acceptable format (TIFF,
EPS or MS Office files) and with the correct resolution. If, together with your accepted article, you submit usable color figures then
Elsevier will ensure, at no additional charge, that these figures will appear in color on the Web (e.g., ScienceDirect and other sites)
regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in color in the printed version.
For color reproduction in print,
you will receive information regarding the costs from Elsevier after receipt of your accepted article. Please indicate your preference
for color: in print or on the Web only. For further information on the preparation of electronic artwork, please see
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.
Please note: Because of technical complications which can arise by converting color figures to 'gray scale'(for the printed version
should you not opt for color in print) please submit in addition usable black and white versions of all the color illustrations.
Figure captions
Ensure that each illustration has a caption. Supply captions separately, not attached
to the figure. A caption should comprise a brief title (
not on the figure itself) and a description of the illustration. Keep
text in the illustrations themselves to a minimum but explain all symbols and abbreviations used.
Reference management software
This journal has standard templates available in key reference management packages
EndNote (
http://www.endnote.com/support/enstyles.asp) and Reference Manager (
http://refman.com/support/rmstyles.asp).
Using plug-ins to wordprocessing packages, authors only need to select the appropriate journal template when preparing their article
and the list of references and citations to these will be formatted according to the journal style which is described below.
Reference style
Text: Citations in the text should follow the referencing style used by the
American Psychological Association. You are referred to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Sixth Edition,
ISBN 978-1-4338-0561-5, copies of which may be ordered from
http://books.apa.org/books.cfm?id=4200067 or APA Order Dept.,
P.O.B. 2710, Hyattsville, MD 20784, USA or APA, 3 Henrietta Street, London, WC3E 8LU, UK. Details concerning this referencing style can
also be found at
http://linguistics.byu.edu/faculty/henrichsenl/apa/apa01.html.
List: references should be arranged
first alphabetically and then further sorted chronologically if necessary. More than one reference from the same author(s) in the same
year must be identified by the letters 'a', 'b', 'c', etc., placed after the year of publication.
Examples:
Reference
to a journal publication:
Van der Geer, J., Hanraads, J. A. J., & Lupton, R. A. (2010). The art of writing a scientific article.
Journal of Scientific Communications, 163, 51–59.
Reference to a book:
Strunk, W., Jr., & White,
E. B. (1979).
The elements of style. (4th ed.). New York: Longman, (Chapter 4).
Reference to a chapter in an edited book:
Mettam, G. R., & Adams, L. B. (2009). How to prepare an electronic version of your article. In B. S. Jones, & R. Z. Smith
(Eds.),
Introduction to the electronic age (pp. 281–304). New York: E-Publishing Inc.
Submission checklist
The following list will be useful during the final checking of an article prior to
sending it to the journal for review. Please consult this Guide for Authors for further details of any item.
Ensure that the following
items are present:
One author has been designated as the corresponding author with contact details:
• E-mail address
• Full postal address
• Telephone and fax numbers
All necessary files have been uploaded, and contain:
•
Keywords
• All figure captions
• All tables (including title, description, footnotes)
Further considerations
•
Manuscript has been 'spell-checked' and 'grammar-checked'
• References are in the correct format for this journal
•
All references mentioned in the Reference list are cited in the text, and vice versa
• Permission has been obtained for use
of copyrighted material from other sources (including the Web)
• Color figures are clearly marked as being intended for color
reproduction on the Web (free of charge) and in print, or to be reproduced in color on the Web (free of charge) and in black-and-white
in print
• If only color on the Web is required, black-and-white versions of the figures are also supplied for printing purposes
For any further information please visit our customer support site at
http://support.elsevier.com.
Book Review Section
The
book review section is interested in works published in any language as long as they are comparative or international in character. The
author or publisher of such works should furnish the book review editor with two (2) copies of the work, including information about
its price and the address where readers may write for copies. Reviews will be assigned by the book review editor. No unsolicited reviews
will be accepted. suggestions of works that might be reviewed are welcomed. Send to the Book Review Editor: Professor Herve Stolowy,
1 Rue de la Liberation, 78351, Jouy-en-Josas, Cedex, France, E-mail
stolowy@hec.fr
Use of the Digital Object Identifier
The Digital
Object Identifier (DOI) may be used to cite and link to electronic documents. The DOI consists of a unique alpha-numeric 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
Physics Letters
B):
doi:10.1016/j.physletb.2010.09.059
When you use the DOI to create URL hyperlinks to documents on the web, the DOIs are
guaranteed never to change.
Proofs
One set of page proofs (as PDF files)
will be sent by e-mail to the corresponding author (if we do not have an e-mail address then paper proofs will be sent by post) or, a
link will be provided in the e-mail so that authors can download the files themselves. Elsevier now provides authors with PDF proofs
which can be annotated; for this you will need to download Adobe Reader version 7 (or higher) available free from
http://get.adobe.com/reader.
Instructions on how to annotate PDF files will accompany the proofs (also given online). The exact system requirements are given at the
Adobe site:
http://www.adobe.com/products/reader/tech-specs.html.
If you do not wish to use the PDF annotations function,
you may list the corrections (including replies to the Query Form) and return them to Elsevier in an e-mail. Please list your corrections
quoting line number. If, for any reason, this is not possible, then mark the corrections and any other comments (including replies to
the Query Form) on a printout of your proof and return by fax, or scan the pages and e-mail, or by post. Please use this proof only for
checking the typesetting, editing, completeness and correctness of the text, tables and figures. Significant changes to the article as
accepted for publication will only be considered at this stage with permission from the Editor. We will do everything possible to get
your article published quickly and accurately – please let us have all your corrections within 48 hours. It is important to ensure
that all corrections are sent back to us in one communication: please check carefully before replying, as inclusion of any subsequent
corrections cannot be guaranteed. Proofreading is solely your responsibility. Note that Elsevier may proceed with the publication of
your article if no response is received.
Offprints
The corresponding author,
at no cost, will be provided with a PDF file of the article via e-mail. For an extra charge, paper offprints can be ordered via the offprint
order form which is sent once the article is accepted for publication. 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.
For inquiries relating to the submission of articles (including electronic submission)
please visit this journal's homepage. Contact details for questions arising after acceptance of an article, especially those relating
to proofs, will be provided by the publisher. You can track accepted articles at
http://www.elsevier.com/trackarticle. You
can also check our Author FAQs (
http://www.elsevier.com/authorFAQ) and/or contact Customer Support via
http://support.elsevier.com.
