Submissions

Spontaneous submissions to the IJCV are no longer possible. The IJCV has suspended its Open Section where previously general contributions on conflict and violence could be submitted. Instead, the IJCV’s editorial team has decided to concentrate on the journal’s Focus Sections which deal with specific aspects of the IJCV’s scope.

For authors interested in publishing their scientific work in the IJCV, this means that they can submit manuscripts only in response to calls for papers which will be regularly published on https://www.ijcv.org/index.php/ijcv/callforpapers by the guest editors of the focus sections. Other submissions will not be considered.

The following instructions apply only to focus section manuscripts.

Submission Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.

• The submission is original and has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in the submission e-mail).
• The submission file is in Microsoft Word or RTF or ODT file format. The submitted manuscript does not exceed a length of 6,000 words (excluding References and Figures). The text is double-spaced, uses a 12-point font, employs italics rather than underlining (except with URL addresses), and all illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text at the appropriate points, rather than at the end.
• Where available, URLs, URNs or DOIs for the references have been provided.
• The text adheres to the formatting, content, stylistic, and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines.
• Complete personal information on all authors (i.e., full names, affiliations, and contact adresses) has been provided on a separate Title Page that is submitted as a separate document along with the anonymized manuscript.
• All references to authors names have been removed from the anonymized manuscript.
• I am aware that submitting a manuscript that does not meet the above mentioned criteria may lead to rejection without further evaluation.

Author Guidelines

Please thoroughly read and follow the author guidelines. Submitting a manuscript that was prepared without following these guidelines, or making incorrect statements regarding the points in the Submission Preparation Checklist below will lead to the manuscript being rejected without further evaluation.

To submit a manuscript, please send an e-mail to ijcv@uni-bielefeld.de. In this e-mail, submitting authors must explicitly state that all the points listed in the Copyright Agreement below do apply. The anonymized manuscript itself should be attached to the e-mail as a Microsoft Word or RTF or ODT file (for further information on formatting, see below), along with a separate title page containing all author information. The manuscript should be written in English. We accept American or British spelling and terminology, with either one or the other being followed consistently throughout the manuscript. Manuscripts must not exceed 6,000 words.

Submitting authors may also recommend potential reviewers; obviously, this should be colleagues who may provide an impartial assessment of the manuscript and who are not closely associated with the authors.

Review Criteria

Each submission will initially be screened by the editorial staff to see whether it meets the journal's aims, scope, and standards. For manuscripts that are eligible for review, a handling editor will seek advice from external reviewers who are experts in the field addressed by the manuscript. The reviewers will evaluate the manuscript according to the following criteria:

• Pertinence to the focus of IJCV
• Importance of findings (is there a significant contribution to knowledge?)
• Adequacy of literature review
• Methodological adequacy
• Clarity of presentation (concepts, objectives, argumentation, organisation)
• Validity of conclusions

Reviewer Suggestions

Authors are invited to suggest 5 to 8 international reviewers of their manuscript. Suggested reviewers should have authored publications pertinent to the subject of the submitted manuscript. They must be impartial: Co-authors and scholars with whom close cooperations exist do not qualify as reviewers.

Authors should state the names, affiliations and contact data of suggested reviewers in a separate file.

Manuscript Presentation and Structure

Manuscripts should be submitted in Microsoft Word or RTF or ODT file formats. Please do not submit PDF files.

Manuscripts must be submitted anonymized for review purposes. Thus, the title page should contain only the title of the manuscript, but no information on authors. Furthermore, any personal information about the authors should be removed from the text. This may include place names or references to the authors' own work. The latter should be replaced with placeholders such as "author reference".

Along with the anonymized manuscript, please submit a separate title page that does contain the full names (first and last names, and middle initials where applicable), institutional affiliations, and contact information for all involved authors. The corresponding author should be identified, and an e-mail address should be provided at which the corresponding author may be reliably contacted.

The text should be prepared double-spaced, using a 12-point font, and employing italics rather than underlining (except with URL addresses). All illustrations, figures, and tables should be positioned within the text at the appropriate places, and should be referred to in the text.

Manuscripts should be formatted for printing on A4 size or US Letter paper.

Abstract

Please provide an abstract of 150–200 words giving a brief, precise overview of the manuscript, its content, methodology, and results, thus allowing readers to quickly assess its relevance for their own research. The abstract should not contain any information or judgments that are not contained in the article itself.

If your manuscript describes an empirical study, the abstract should include information on:

• Reseach question and theoretical considerations
• Period or geographical area investigated (where applicable)
• Methodology and data used
• Summary of findings
• Main results and important secondary findings
• Significance of the results, conclusions, applied implications

If your article is not based on an empirical study, please summarize its research question, logical structure, line of argumentation, conclusions, and implications.

Avoid repeating the information contained in the title. Get straight to the point in the first sentence, which should state the research question or the goal of the investigation. Use short, clearly structured sentences without superfluous idioms or jargon. Name the key terms of the study, and explain or define any new terms so that the abstract can be understood standing on its own. If necessary, references in the abstract should name authors with first name initial(s), the title of the work, and its year of publication.

Keywords

Please provide a list of up to five keywords below the abstract. The keywords should express the content of the manuscript, as they will be used for indexing purpose.

Sections

Number all sections and subsections as follows:

1. A-Level Subheading

1.1. B-Level Subheading

1.1.1. C-Level Subheading

We prefer the introduction to begin without a subheading.

Figures

All figures should be numbered in one consecutive series of Arabic numerals. Figures should contain all necessary information to be understood on their own without the need for readers to consult the text. Abbreviations should be explained in the Figure legend.

Tables

All tables should be numbered in one consecutive series of Arabic numerals. Tables should contain all necessary information to be understood on their own without the need for readers to consult the text. Abbreviations should be explained in a Table Note.

Quotes

Use double quotation marks for direct quotes and single quotation marks for quotes within quotes.

Citations and Reference List

We use the author-date system (also known as the Harvard system). Detailed instructions may be found in the Chicago Manual of Style (16th edition, sections 15:5).

Please follow the pattern of the following examples:

Book

Cohen, Albert K. 1955. Delinquent Boys: The Culture of the Gang. New York: Free Press.

Chapter of book

Link, Bruce G., and Ann Stueve. 1994. Psychotic Symptoms and the Violent/Illegal Behavior of Mental Patients Compared to Community Controls. In Violence and Mental Disorder, ed. John Monahan and Henry J. Steadman, 137–60. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Journal article

Farrington, David P. 1987. Predicting Individual Crime Rates. Crime and Justice: A Review of Research 9:53–101.

Please note that we have author first name written out in reference lists (rather than just the initial) and use headline case for all English titles of books, chapters of books, journals, and articles (other languages follow their own rules). If in doubt, please include more information rather than less.

Where available, URLs, URNs or DOIs for the references should be provided.

Text References

Without comma: (Cohen 1955)

Up to three authors, use all names: (Deane, Armstrong, and Felson 2005)

More than three authors, use et al.: (Link et al. 2009)