Editorial Style Guide

Manuscript submissions will be copy-edited for grammar, punctuation and consistency of spelling and style; in some cases they will be edited for length. All Longwoods publications use Canadian spelling and follow the Oxford Canadian Dictionary (first choice listed). Note, however, that "healthcare" is one word as both an adjective and a noun.

General Points of Style

  • use double quotation marks, with single quotation marks within the double as necessary
  • commas and periods always within the quotation marks
  • series or serial comma not used to separate final elements in lists (e.g., CEOS, directors, managers and supervisors)
  • articles and prepositions within titles and headings lowercased
  • that/which distinction made for restrictive/nonrestrictive clauses
  • Dates:
    • March 2020 (no comma)
    • March 12, 2020
    • The 1990s (no apostrophe)
  • Numbers:
    • numbers below 10 spelled out; 10 and above as numerals
    • percentages always expressed as numerals, with percentage sign
      (e.g., 2%, 37%
    • dollar amounts - $10 million; $2 billion
  • en dash used to set off phrases within sentences; space either side
  • ellipses set tight; space either side for three ellipses within sentence ( ... )

References - Updated for DOI

The use of footnotes and endnotes is strongly discouraged. Instead, short explanatory remarks should be placed parenthetically in the text.

Longwoods follows a modified APA (American Psychological Association) style for referencing source material. In-text references should be placed in parentheses and consist of last name of the author(s) and the year of publication of the work to which reference has been made. No punctuation separates the two items.

Longwoods has adopted the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) system (see: https://www.doi.org/ for more information). Please be sure to include DOI numbers in your citations where ever possible. See examples below in the In-text Referencing section. If accepted and published, your paper will also be identified by a unique DOI generated by Longwoods.

In-text References

One author:

The theory was first propounded in 1970 (Goodenough 1971).

 Alternatively, author surnames may be integrated into the text, followed immediately by the year of publication in parenthesis: 

Goodenough (1971) was the first to propound the theory.

Two authors:

EI has been proven to positively affect an organisation's success (Cooper and Sawaf 1997).

Multiple authors/citations:

Any health organization could potentially benefit from this type of approach (Madden et al. 1995).

Madden et al. (1995) propose the following solutions ...

This trend is reflected in recent surveys of healthcare organizations (Gaudine 2000; Pimentel 2000; Canadian Physiotherapy Association 2000; Parent et al. 2001)

In-text citations requiring page references to quoted material should be styled as follows:

 (Goodenough et al. 1979: 22-23; Simcoe 1980: 734-35.)

Reference List

Ensure that all sources cited in the text are included in a "Reference" list at the end of the article. The accompanying list should be in alphabetical order and include full publication details. For multiple entries by the same author, arrange citations in chronological order, earliest year first. In the examples shown here, the following rules are observed:

  • in citations with multiple authors, invert the first-name initial and surname only for the first author listed
  • no parentheses for year of publication
  • article titles in title case
  • In accordance with the most recent APA guidelines, location of publishers is not required.
  • journals and book titles in italics
  • volume number, issue number, page references styled as follows (all in romans - no italics): 15(3): 319-25

Sample References

Anis, A.H., D. Guh and X. Wang. 2001. A Dog's Breakfast: Prescription Drug Coverage Varies Widely across Canada. Medical Care 39(4): 315-26.

Evans, R. 2013. It Doesn't Have to Be This Way. Healthcare Policy 8(4): 10-18. doi:10.12927/hcpol.2013.23400.

Boyatzis, R., D. Goleman and K. Rhee. 2000. Clustering Competence in Emotional Intelligence: Insights from the Emotional Competence Inventory (ECI). In R. Bar-On and J.D.A. Parker, eds., The Handbook of Emotional Intelligence. Jossey Bass.

Drinka, T.J.K. and P.G. Clark. 2000. Healthcare Teamwork: Interdisciplinary Practice and Teaching. Auburn House

Citations of all material accessed on-line should be as complete as possible and include all the information that would normally be cited for a print source. In addition, the data of access/retrieval should be included. Place the full URL/Web site within angle brackets:

World Health Organization. 2003, October 23. Moscow Declaration on Prison Health as Part of Public Health. Retrieved February 4, 2020. <http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/98971/E94242.pdf>.

Tables and Figures

Tables and figures should follow the material they illustrate.

All illustrations consisting of line art (pie charts, bar graphs, etc.) should be labeled as "Figures" and numbered consecutively within the article (Figure 1, Figure 2, etc.). Include an appropriate title, legend and sourceline, where required, for each Figure.

Similarly, all Tables should be numbers consecutively within the article (Table 1, Table 2, etc.).

Tables

Number tables consecutively and supply a brief title for each. The table number should appear centered on the first line, while the table title should appear on the next line, also centered. Include explanatory footnotes for all nonstandard abbreviations. Cite each table in the text in consecutive order. They should be self-explanatory and not duplicate the text. If you use data from another published or unpublished source, obtain permission and acknowledge fully. Please include all Tables in one file, separate from the article text.

Figures

To ensure accurate reproduction of your figure, graph or picture in any Longwoods publication, please provide, in addition to the Word document, the original file you "placed" into your Word document (see below for examples). If the figure being used was not created by you, and therefore obtaining on original is not possible, please provide any text from the figure as a separate Word Document.

Acceptable file formats:

  • jpg, eps, tiff or psd (at a resolution of 300 dpi)
  • Adobe Illustrator (.ai or eps file)

Note: Powerpoint and Excel files are acceptable if you used these programs to create the original figure or graph.

How to submit graphs & figures(PDF)
More information on high resolution photos(PDF)

Appendices

For submission, appendices should be supplied as separate text files; and clearly labelled as Appendices. Appendices will be subjected to editorial review alongside the article. Decisions about whether to include supplemental material files will be made by the journal editors during the manuscript review process.

Once accepted, appendix files should be provided in pdf. format and will be uploaded online as supplied. They will not be checked for accuracy, copyedited, typeset or proofread. The responsibility for scientific accuracy, readability and file functionality remains with the authors. A disclaimer will be displayed to this effect with any appendix published. Longwoods Publishing does not provide technical support for the creation of supplemental material.

Permission

Data and/or figures reproduced from another published source must be properly cited and acknowledged. Authors are required to obtain written permission from the appropriate author and/or copyright holder to reproduce previously published or copyrighted material, including extensive quotations (longer than 500 words), tables, figures, graphs, etc. Authors must also obtain permission from at least 1 author when citing unpublished data, "in-press" articles, and/or personal communications. Permission should accompany the manuscript.

Editor

Address all correspondence to the Editorial Director:

Dianne Foster Kent
Editorial Director
Longwoods Publishing Corporation
260 Adelaide Street East, No. 8
Toronto, ON M5A 1N1
Telephone: 416 864-9667
Fax: 416 368-4443
Email: dkent@longwoods.com