How to Make Your Contribution

ROAPE Guidelines for Authors

  1. First please check that your proposed submission falls within ROAPE’s remit:
    "Since 1974, ROAPE has provided radical analysis of trends, issues and social processes in Africa. It pays particular attention to the political economy of inequality, exploitation and oppression, whether driven by global forces or local ones such as class, race, ethnicity and gender), and to broadly materialist interpretations of change. It sustains a critical analysis of the nature of power and the state in Africa in the context of capitalist globalisation”.
    Aside from this substantive remit, we are looking for submissions which present new empirical material, rethink existing literature in a stimulating fashion, or coherently argue a fresh understanding of existing issues. We seek papers which are clearly organised, concisely expressed and free from unnecessary jargon, sexist or other discriminatory language. We may occasionally consider material in languages other than English.
  2. Submissions should be original contributions and not under consideration for any other publication.
  3. Copyright of articles is assigned to ROAPE.
    You will receive a Copyright Assignment Form for signature as the issue goes to press. Contributors are responsible for obtaining permission to reproduce any material to which they do not own copyright and for ensuring that appropriate acknowledgements are included in their manuscript.
  4. ROAPE publishes Articles, Debates and Briefings.
    Briefings are generally short, topical and informative pieces, including documents, with a ‘stop press’ policy for urgent items. Debates require an author to take a position on a controversial topic, either engaging with a previous piece or inviting response. The maximum length for Briefings and Debates is 4000 words.
    Articles are generally longer and aim both to inform the reader and to engage in debate around theory and/or political economy analysis. Our recommended length for an article is not longer than 8000 words, including footnotes and bibliography. We cannot accept article manuscripts longer than 8,000 words, unless exceptional reasons can be cited.
    We also publish reviews of academic and political books, fiction and film. The recommended length is 800 words or up to 2000 for a review article.
  5. Submission procedure
    Material can be submitted either as an email attachment in Word for Windows, or in hard copy (3 copies, double spaced and consecutively numbered to Graham Harrison, Department of Politics, University of Sheffield, Elmfield, Northumberland Road, Sheffield S10 2TU). Articles, Debate Pieces and Briefings should be sent to Graham Harrison (roape@sheffield.ac.uk); Book and other reviews to Branwen Gruffydd Jones (b.gruffyddjones@gold.ac.uk).
    Article, Briefings and Debate Pieces: These are dealt with by our Coordinating Editor (Graham Harrison) who selects another member of our Editorial Working Group to be Handling Editor through to a decision. All articles are anonymously peer-reviewed. You will be contacted by the Handling Editor in relation to the outcome of this process – whether your submission is to be accepted as it stands, revised in a major or minor way or rejected. Feedback will be offered as appropriate. Where revisions are in order, the Handling Editor will make suggestions using the comments of the independent reviewers, and will negotiate a time frame in which these should be carried out.
    Reviews are refereed by our Reviews Editor (Branwen Gruffydd Jones). She will send more detailed guidelines on request.
    Copy-editing process: Page proofs will be sent either by email, or by fax to the address supplied by the author. They should be corrected and returned within 48 hours. A final copy in Word format or 50 paper off-prints are supplied to the author, plus a copy of the issue of the journal.
  6. Style guidelines
    Whilst we are willing to help out with editing the work of authors whose first language is not English, we expect other manuscripts to come to us in a finally edited form. This entails following the guidelines below:
    1. Manuscripts in email attachment should be scanned for viruses before sending, and any track changes or headers and footers removed. Justify text to the left.
    2. Text should be in Microsoft Word for Windows (please check with us before submitting in any other format).
    3. All submissions must include a separate page with the author’s name, current affiliation and contact information (email and mailing address, phone and fax numbers) and some brief biographical details. The author’s name should not appear on any other page.
    4. A 150 word Abstract should accompany the text of an article
    5. A list of six key words should be suggested
    6. Notes should be short and kept to a maximum of ten, using your word processor’s endnote function.
    7. Single quotation marks should be used for quotations within text (with double quotes within these where necessary: e.g. ‘The ANC was particularly keen to promote black ownership and control of the “commanding heights” of the economy’). Where a longer passage is quoted, indent from margin (no quotation marks required).
    8. Paragraphs should be separated by a one line space but not indented.
    9. British rather than US spelling should be used – e.g. ‘civilise’ and ‘civilisation’ rather than ‘civilize’ and ‘civilization’.
    10. Ibid. is used to denote an immediately prior citation; otherwise the reference should be repeated, e.g. (Annan 2004: 6).
    11. Graphs, tables, figures, barcharts, maps etc should be numbered and submitted in a separate file, not embedded in the text. Line drawings and photographs are also welcome – please check with us in relation to format.
    12. Explain all acronyms.
    13. Dates should appear as follows: 8 December 2006; 1990s (no apostrophe); twentieth century.
    14. Numbers from one to nine in words; percentages and decimals written in figures; fractions spelt out as one-half, three-quarters etc.
    15. The Harvard system of referencing should be used.
      • In text this means bracketing the author’s surname, date of publication and page reference only: Example: (Mamdani 2004:34)
      • At the end of the article only material cited in the text should be listed:
        Examples:
        Mamdani, M. (2004), Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, Cold War and the Roots of Terrorism, Kampala: Fountain Publishers.
        Ponte, S. (2004), ‘The politics of ownership: Tanzanian coffee policy in the age of liberal reformism’, African Affairs, 103, pp23-49.
        Guyer, J. (1987), ‘Comparative Epilogue’, in J. Guyer (ed.): Feeding African Cities: Studies in Regional Social History, Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp 148-154.
      • Newspaper titles should be italicised (e.g. The Daily Graphic).
      • Web sites must be cited with a title and/or author, as well as the date viewed (e.g. www.info.usaid.gov/eg/econ.htm, accessed 10 July 2006)

We reserve the right to return material which is not sent to us in the preferred ROAPE style, or which has not been carefully edited by the author.

EWG 1 June 2009