Instructions to Authors

Science & Christian Belief

(The full instructions for potential contributors to Science & Christian Belief are available as a Rich Text Format (RTF) document here. Rich Text documents can be read by most versions of Microsoft Word.)

Five kinds of material are accepted for publication in Science & Christian Belief:

• Articles are significant, fully referenced, original contributions to the academic literature, normally 8-20 journal pages in length (3500-9000 words), although there is some flexibility. Lectures are also accepted for publication providing they are edited to make them appropriate for journal publication. The Articles section also includes reviews providing an overview of a particular field.
• Debate contributions represent shorter articles, normally in the range 2-6 journal pages (900-2600 words), that respond to material previously published in the journal.
• Essay Reviews are extended Book Reviews typically 8-12 pages long (3500-5300 words) focusing on one particular newly published book, but in addition placing its arguments and claims within the context of a wider body of related literature. Essay Reviews are handled by the Articles Editor and are subjected to the same review process as articles.
• Letters are published in the Correspondence section and are normally less substantial contributions than Debate. The length of letters is typically 1-2 pages (440-900 words).
• Book-Reviews are arranged with the Reviews Editor (see below).

Articles are accepted on the understanding that they are not on offer to any other journal. The Editor should be informed if any substantial part has already appeared, or is likely to appear elsewhere. All articles submitted that fall within the remit of the journal are reviewed by at least two referees whose expertise lies in fields relevant to the material. Anonymous referees' comments will be returned to authors in the event of rejection or requests for revision. Articles that fall outside of the remit of the journal are returned without review. If in doubt as to potential suitability, send an Abstract of your proposed Article to the Editor.

The readership of Science & Christian Belief is international and interdisciplinary, so please avoid technical language that would make the material inaccessible to readers from other disciplines. Where technical terms are unavoidable, please define them clearly when first used.

Submissions should be emailed as an attachment to Prof. Keith Fox (k.r.fox@soton.ac.uk). Please correspond with the Editor by e-mail prior to the mailing of large electronic Figures.

If electronic submission is not possible the three copies of Articles or Debate Items (but only two copies of Correspondence) should be submitted, typed with double spacing, on one side of A4 or American quarto paper, with a reasonable margin. Authors are advised to retain a copy in case of loss in the post for which the Editor can take no responsibility. Also ensure that the hard copy contains your full mailing address. Copies should be sent to:

Prof. Keith R. Fox,
Articles Editor, Science & Christian Belief
c/o Centre for Biological Sciences
University of Southampton
Southampton SO17 1BJ,
U.K.

Please do not send Book Reviews, or books for review, to the Articles Editor. These should be sent to the Book Reviews Editor (see below).

An abstract of 100 to 200 words should be included and will be published at the start of the article.

Keywords. Please indicate immediately after the abstract the main keywords from your article (no more than 10 words). These keywords are important because they are used by the web-site search engine to locate your article.

Affiliations. A suitable note of the author's position for addition at the end of the article is also needed in not more than 25 words.

Quotations. When long (66+ words, or 6 lines), these should be inset but not enclosed in quotation marks. When short, put in single quotation marks with double quotation marks for quotations within a quotation. The final full stop comes inside quotation marks when preceded by a complete sentence.

Acronyms. All acronyms should be fully written out the first time they occur, putting the abbreviated form in brackets. Subsequently they can of course be abbreviated.

References. Detailed instructions about references are given below. All references must be typed on a separate sheet and numbered consecutively with a separate number for each reference. The same reference style should be used irrespective of whether they appear in Articles, Debate or Correspondence items.

Note that Copyright for all articles and reviews published will be retained by the authors, but the author is expected to obtain any necessary permissions for the use of illustrations and extensive quotations. If the article is re-published elsewhere, mention of its first publication in Science and Christian Belief should be made. If it is to be re-published within twelve months of publication in Science and Christian Belief, permission should be obtained from the Editor.

Reprints. Authors of main articles only will be supplied with 5 free copies of the journal in which their article appears. Individual reprints of articles may of course be down-loaded from the web-site.

References

With the exception of the Biblical references category below (which should be placed in brackets within the main text), all references should be numbered consecutively and typed on separate sheets at the end of the paper.

Where there are subsequent citings of the same reference, they should give the author's name, op.cit., the first reference number (in brackets), and, where appropriate, volume and/or page numbers. Where, however, a second citation immediately follows the first, simply put ibid followed by the page number(s) where necessary. Do not use the same number for more than one reference, even when these are identical and occur on the same page. Use op.cit. or ibid., as indicated above.

Biblical references. These should be in abbreviated form, e.g. Gen.2:4, 1 Jn 4: 1b. Indicate the version if different from the New International Version (e.g. KJV, GNB, RSV). Books from the Apocrypha are cited as 'standard works' (see below). If a sentence ends with a biblical or other reference in parenthesis, the sequence is: quotation mark, reference in brackets, full stop, e.g. '... everlasting life' (Jn. 3:16).

Books. These should be cited in the order: author, author's initials, title (in italics or underlined), place of publication, publisher if after 1900, date (in brackets) and, if appropriate, page numbers.

Periodicals/Journals. These should be cited as shown in examples 5-7.

Standard works. These are identified as 2 Macabees; Plato, Republic; or Shakespeare, Macbeth .

It is customary to:

1. have initial capitals for all main words in book but not chapter or paper titles. An exception is proper nouns and German adjectives or adverbs which must have initial capitals.
2. use p. or pp. for books but not for journals.
3. italicise op.cit. and ibid. (i.e. indicate by underlining); foreign words are also usually in italics.

Examples

N.B. Please note style of punctuation.

1. Graham, L.R. Between Science and Values, New York: Columbia University Press (1981), pp. 159-160.
2. Granberg-Michaelson, W. (ed.) Tending the Garden: Essays on the Gospel and the Earth, Grand Rapids: Wm.B.Eerdmans (1987).
3. Habgood, J.S. 'The uneasy truce between science and theology', In Vidler, A.R. (ed) Soundings: Essays Concerning Christian Understanding, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1962), pp. 21-41.
4. Poggendorf, J.C. Geschichte der Physik, Leipzig (1879).
5. MacKay, D.M. 'What makes a contradiction?', Faith and Thought (1968) 10, 124-150.
6. Wilson, D.B. 'Kelvin's scientific realism: the theological context', Phil.J. (1974) 11, 41-60 (p. 55).
7. Maddox, J., Wilson, E.O., Quinton, A., Turner, J. & Bowker, J. 'Genes, mind and culture', Zygon (1984) 19(2), 213-232.
8. ibid., p.214.
9. op.cit., Vidler, pp. 31-32.
10. Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, I, v.

Book-Review submissions

Book-Reviews, as well as books for review, should be sent to:

Prof. Meric Srokosz,
Book Reviews Editor,
c/o National Oceanography Centre,
Room no. 254/43,
Southampton SO14 3ZH
mas@noc.ac.uk

Before submitting reviews, it is worth corresponding with the Book Reviews Editor to determine whether the book in question may already be under review. Books sent out for review may be retained on the understanding that a review is actually forthcoming.

Content

While a description of the book's contents is helpful, a review should do more than reproduce what readers can find out for themselves by casual inspection. Readers of Science & Christian Belief will be particularly interested in any issues that are of relevance to the dialogue between science and religion. It may be important to comment on the religious stance of the author, if any. You may also wish to comment upon its academic level and style.

Reviews are normally about 600 words in length, although there is flexibility as some books deserve a longer assessment. If you think that the book might be suitable for an Essay Review, please correspond with the Articles Editor.

Presentation

Please lay out the heading as in the following example:

John Polkinghorne
Science & Theology: An Introduction
London: SPCK, 1998. 144 pp. pb. £10.99. ISBN 0-281-05176-3

Please do not indent the first line of the opening paragraph, but do indent the first line of subsequent paragraphs.

Single quotation marks should be used for all quotations, double quotation marks being reserved for quotes within quotes.

References to a particular page should be given as a number only within brackets, e.g. 'There are hints (85, 92) that other perspectives exist'.

Please do not use footnotes. Any references to sources other than the book under review should be put in brackets within the text of the review.

The following style should be used for biblical references: 1 Jn. 1:10, Ps. 22:9f, 2 Tim. 1:8; 2:14, 22ff.

Please provide a one sentence description of yourself.

Electronic submissions

Reviews may be e-mailed to the Reviews Editor at rodney.holder@virgin.net. An attachment in MS Word is preferred but Wordperfect 9.0 is also acceptable. Please also attach an ASCII (plain text) version if the file is in neither of these - single spaced without hard returns at the end of lines and with line breaks between paragraphs.

If you choose to put the text in the body of the email, rather than send it as an attachment, please keep the formatting simple (highlighted text may be indicated by using asterisks, e.g. *wombat* for wombat).

Alternatively, reviews may be submitted on disk. Computer disks will be returned.

Science & Christian Belief style manual

Please note that these are examples only, the list is not exhaustive.