Submissions

Author Guidelines

Download Author Guidelines (PDF)

General Notes

Please comply with outlined requirements. We reserve the right to reject your submissions if they do not meet the requirements.

The file is in OpenOffice or Microsoft Word document file format. We provide templates [see template for cover page and template for text file]. Please use styles for formatting and refrain from formatting your text manually.

The style guide is based on the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (Seventh Edition). For more information about the APA style, visit APA Style and APA Style Blog.

What to include

Paper submissions should contain:

• Cover page:  providing the title of the article, contact information for each author (i.e. mailing address, phone number and email), article type (research paper or miniature), number of characters including spaces of the paper and the number of tables and/or figures, acknowledgements, research ethics statement (e. g., regarding data protection and anonymity of the participants in the study), conflicts of interest statement, funding details (For single agency grants: This work was supported by the [Funding Agency] under Grant [number xxxx]. For multiple agency grants: This work was supported by the [Funding Agency #1] under Grant [number xxxx], [Funding Agency #2] under Grant [number xxxx], and [Funding Agency #3] under Grant [number xxxx].), short curriculum vitae of approximately 100 words for each author (including an ORCID if existent), affiliations [see template for cover page]
• The blinded paper including title, abstract (max. 150 words), five key words and main paper including references and literature [see template for text file]
• Figures and illustrations (if applicant)
• Appendixes documenting research instruments, practical materials and methods of analysis are highly recommended.

Except from the cover page any file sent to the journal must be anonymized when submitted to guarantee the confidentiality of the process.

How to ensure all files are anonymized

• The authors of the document have deleted their names from the text, with ‘Author’ and year used in the references and footnotes, instead of the authors’ name, article title, etc.
• Project names must be anonymized as well.
• The titles of the documents do not contain the names of the authors or project names.
• The authors of the document have removed personal information from the file properties by taking the following steps:
  
  Microsoft word for windows:
  — Go to File.
  — Select Info.
  — Click on Check for Issues.
  — Click on Inspect Document.
  — In the Document Inspector dialog box, select the check boxes to choose the type of hidden content that you want inspected.
  — Click Remove All.
  — Click Close.
  — Save the document.
  
  Microsoft Word for MacOS:
  — Go to Tools.
  — Click Protect Document.
  — Select Remove personal information for this file on save.
  — Click OK and save the file.
  
  Adobe Acrobat (PDF):
  — Go to File.
  — Select Properties.
  — Remove any name in the author field.
  — Click OK.
  — Save the document.

Style Guide

Titles may not be longer than 15 words. Subtitles may be used.

Create tables according to the specifications of the APA Manual of Style. See sample tables for more details.

Mark figures and illustrations in the text with a placeholder and include them separately in one of these file formats: EPS, PDF, JPEG, or TIFF. The resolution of the file may not be smaller than 300 DPI. Authors are responsible for obtaining image rights.

Use day-month-year format for dates (16 March 2022).

Use the metric system for length specifications.

In general, use numerals to express numbers 10 and above, and use words to express numbers zero through nine. However, use numerals to express numbers in the following cases: Numbers that immediately precede a unit of measurement; statistical or mathematical functions; fractions or decimals (except common fractions); percentages; ratios, percentiles and quartiles; times and dates (including approximations of time); ages; scores and points on a scale; exact sums of money; numerals as numerals. Use an en dash to indicate intervals (e.g. pages: pp. 9–99).

Use italics for the following cases:

• First use of key terms or phrases, often accompanied by a definition
• Titles of books, reports, webpages, and other stand-alone works
• Titles of periodicals and periodical volume numbers (but not the comma between them)
• English letters used as statistical symbols or algebraic variables (e.g. M, SD, t, Cohen’s d)
• Anchors of a scale (but not the associated number. E.g., ‘ranged from 1 (poor) to 5 (excellent)’)
• First use of words, phrases, or abbreviations from another language when readers may not be familiar with them and the word is not featured in a dictionary of the language you write in.

Refrain from using italics for emphasis. If you add emphasis to a direct quotation, place the words ‘[emphasis added]’ after the italicized words. Do not use italics for the following cases:

• Titles of book series
• The punctuation mark after an italicized word or phrase or between elements of a reference list entry
• Words, phrases, and abbreviations of foreign origin that appear in a dictionary for the language in which you are writing.

Use parenthetical citations (e.g. ‘(Muller, 2016)’) or narrative citations (e.g. ‘Muller (2016) noted …’) for in-text citations. For a work with one or two authors, include the author name(s) in every citation. For a work with three or more authors, include the name of only the first author plus ‘et al.’ in every citation. However, spell out as many surnames as needed to disambiguate references when two works in a paper would both abbreviate to the same ‘et al.’ form. Append letters to the years when multiple works in a paper have an identical author (or authors) and publication year. For works with no date, use ‘n.d.’ in the in-text citation. For works that have been accepted for publication but have not yet been published, use ‘in press’. When repeating a citation, show the entire citation. Do not include only a page number or other abbreviations. Do not use ‘ibid’.

Place short quotations (fewer than 40 words) in quotation marks and incorporate the quote into your own text. Always include a full citation (parenthetical or narrative) in the same sentence as the quotation, including the page number (or other location information, e.g., paragraph number).

Format long quotations (40 words or more) as block quotations. Do not use quotation marks to enclose a block quotation. Either cite the source in parentheses after the quotation’s final punctuation or cite the author and year in the narrative before the quotation and place only the page number in parentheses after the quotation’s final punctuation. Do not add a period after the closing parenthesis in either case.

Follow the reference examples for formatting an entry in the reference list. Use sentence case for titles of articles, books, reports, webpages, and other works in reference list entries, even if title case was used in the original work. Where available, provide URLs for the references.

• Book: Jackson, L. M. (2019). The psychology of prejudice: From attitudes to social action (2nd ed.). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000168-000
• Edited book: Kuhn, K. J., Nitsche, M., Thyroff, J., & Waldis, M. (Eds.). (2021). ZwischenWelten: Grenzgänge zwischen Geschichts- und Kulturwissenschaften, Geschichtsdidaktik und Politischer Bildung: Festschrift für Béatrice Ziegler. Waxmann.
• Book chapter: Hedegaard, M. (1999). Activity theory and history teaching. In Y. Engeström, R. Miettinen, & R.-L. Punamäki (Eds.), Perspectives on activity theory (pp. 282–297). Cambridge University Press.
• Journal article: Paxton, R. J. (1999). A deafening silence: History textbooks and the students who read them. Review of Educational Research, 69(3), 315–339. https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543069003315
• Conference paper: Nokes, J. D., & Kesler-Lund, A. (2016). Historians’ social literacies: How historians collaborate and write  during a document-based activity. College and University Faculty Assembly Annual Conference, Washington, DC. http://cufa2016.socialstudies.org/modules/request.php?module=oc_program&action=summary.php&id=77
• Translated work: Foucault, M. (1977). Nietzsche, genealogy, history (D. F. Bouchard & S. Simon, Trans.). In D. F. Bouchard (Ed.), Language, counter-memory, practice: Selected essays and interviews (pp. 139-164). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. (Original work published 1971)
• Report (Government Agency, NGO etc.): Reuters Institute. (2020). Digital News Report 2020. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2020-06/DNR_2020_FINAL.pdf
• Newspaper article: Dwoskin, E. (2019, January 25). YouTube is changing its algorithms to stop recommending conspiracies. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/01/25/youtube-is-changing-its-algorithms-stop-recommending-conspiracies/
• Blog post: Morozov, E. (2009, May 19). The brave new world of slacktivism. Foreign Policy. https://foreignpolicy.com/2009/05/19/the-brave-new-world-of-slacktivism/
• Webpage (organizational group author): World Health Organization. (2018, May 24). The top 10 causes of death. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/the-top-10-causes-of-death
• Webpage (individual author): Schaeffer, K. (2021, October 1). What we know about online learning and the homework gap amid the pandemic. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/10/01/what-we-know-about-online-learning-and-the-homework-gap-amid-the-pandemic/
• Published Dissertation or Thesis: Buehl, M. M. (2003). At the crossroads of epistemology and motivation: Modeling the relations between students’ domain-specific epistemological beliefs, achievement motivation, and task performance [PhD Thesis, University of Maryland]. https://drum.lib.umd.edu/handle/1903/317

The following rules apply lexically to the arrangement of entries in the reference list:

• Entries are ordered alphabetically by the first authors’ surnames or by the first authors’ given-name initials if two or more authors share the same surnames.
• Entries featuring the same full author lists are ordered chronologically by their publication dates.
• Entries featuring the same full author lists and the same publication dates are ordered alphabetically by their titles, with introductory articles ignored. Lowercase alphabetical designators are affixed to the publication years of entries in this subset of references.
• Reference entries with no credited authors are ordered alphabetically among the other entries by their titles.