The manuscript preparation requirements for Sociological Science are different at the submission and acceptance stages.
Upon Submission
Manuscripts should be submitted as Portable Document Format (PDF) files with 11 or 12 pt font, a minimum 1.5 line spacing and with all identifying information removed.
Sociological Science does not enforce stylistic requirements at the submission stage, provided that the manuscript adheres to general scientific norms regarding citation and the presentation of evidence. Except in extreme circumstances, reference format, font, margins, and other such trivia will not affect a manuscript’s duration in the editorial review process or its chances of acceptance. In extreme circumstances, however, the editorial staff reserves the right to ask authors to resubmit work.
Authors who wish to submit non-standard material (e.g., videos, animations) should contact the editorial staff for guidance.
In summary, at the submission stage manuscripts should be submitted as PDF files, with:
- 11 or 12 pt font.
- a minimum 1.5 line spacing.
- all identifying information removed.
Upon Acceptance
Authors of accepted manuscripts are asked to follow the following guidelines.
Technical preparation:
In order to keep production costs low, Sociological Science will typeset papers in LaTeX, a free, high-quality typesetting system. Authors of accepted manuscripts will be asked to submit their final version in LaTeX format. As a general matter, Sociological Science views it as the responsibility of authors to convert manuscripts to LaTeX format when necessary, and to bear any costs involved in doing so.
Authors may convert their manuscript to LaTeX themselves, and will be provided with conversion guidelines upon acceptance of their manuscript. Alternatively, because the editorial staff realizes that many sociologists do not use LaTeX, Sociological Science will convert the manuscript for authors who do not wish to convert it themselves.
Beginning with papers accepted after April 1, 2015, Sociological Science will charge a conversion fee for this service. Fees vary between $50 and $200, depending on complexity, with the cost for most manuscripts being under $100. The complexity of conversion is typically a function of the number, size and complexity of tables. Conversion of text is typically straightforward; a manuscript with no equations or tables would likely incur a $50 fee.
Sociological Science encourages all authors to eliminate unnecessary complexity from their manuscripts. Some tips for doing so:
- Reduce the number of ceremonial and gratuitous references.
- For papers presenting quantitative estimates, simplify tables by presenting only the most relevant estimates and statistics. Estimates for control variables can often be moved to an online supplement. Similarly, you may wish to present the estimates of interest graphically, and reserve full tables of coefficient estimates for an online supplement.
- Move data of secondary importance (e.g., descriptive statistics, correlation tables) to an online supplement. (Online supplements are not typeset in Latex and hence do not incur conversion fees.)
Format requirements:
1. Abstract
All manuscripts should include an abstract of 150 words or less.
2. Citations and References
Sociological Science requires that accepted papers use in-text citations that provide the last name of the author(s) and year of publication.
Citations and references should be formatted according to the style used by the American Sociological Association journals (see also the ASA Style Guide). LaTeX will automatically create the correct in-line references and reference lists for those who use BibTex.
All citations should have a corresponding entry in the list of references, and all works listed in the references should be cited in the body of the paper.
3. Tables and Figures
All tables should be numbered sequentially (Table 1, Table 2…) as they appear in the text. Figures should also be numbered sequentially as they appear in the text.
Tables and figures should appear in-line in the manuscript, placed near the portion of text where they are first referenced. They should not be placed at the end of the manuscript.
Sociological Science strongly prefers that no single table span more than one page.
Sociological Science encourages the use of color in figures where appropriate.