Author Guidelines

Rural Society on behalf of the Centre for Rural Social Research, Charles Sturt University by eContent Management Pty Ltd. The editors welcome contributions on any aspect of rural social issues in the Asia Pacific, Indian Ocean, Australian and New Zealand regions, including: rural sociology, rural service delivery, rural health, technology transfer, rural policy issues, rural social work and rural social change.

Articles dealing with rural and regional issues in other societies are welcome but must demonstrate relevance and applicability to rural and regional themes in Australia and New Zealand. The overall quality of Rural Society is maintained by the Editorial Board.

Rural Society is listed in the DEST Register of Refereed Journals, DEST Higher Education Research Data Collection and is aggregated and indexed in Thomson Gale databases including Web of Knowledge, EBSCO Host databases, ProQuest, Informit and ERIC.

Author guidelines

There are no page charges and no monetary payments for contributors. Upon publication, the Publishers provide Author(s) with an electronic copy of the published article in PDF format, and discounts for requested print copies of the issue. The notes below are intended as a brief guide for contributors.

Article submission

Articles should be within the aims & scope of the journal, and of approximately 4000 to 8000 words, unless otherwise agreed with the Editors. All submissions must be based on original research or scholarship. The articles in this journal are fully refereed prior to acceptance. Prospective contributors are welcome to contact the editors, for advice on their submission. Materials should be prepared and submitted electronically according to the guidelines below. Authors are also advised to consult www.ruralsocietyjournal.com for sample articles, summaries, key words, reference lists, tables and figures. A statement must be included that indicates that the article has not been submitted elsewhere nor is it under consideration for publication elsewhere.

Initial submission

The publisher, eContent Management Pty Ltd, uses a semi-automated manuscript tracking system to receive and accept articles. Manuscripts submitted for publication are subject to a peer review process. To ensure prompt review of your manuscript, and to preserve anonymity in the review process, please observe the following steps:

Save your manuscript as a Microsoft Word file. This document file should contain: title of the manuscript, 100-150-word abstract, key words, article text, references, figures, and tables in that order, as one document. It is recommended that one of these key words/phrases contain 'rural' to ensure the article is identified in international citation indexes.
Please do not include any author information in this manuscript attachment. Please check the box 'Remove personal information from file properties on save' under Tools/Options/Security. It will be forwarded directly to reviewers and should not contain any identifying information.
Include all other information in a separate file, addressed to the Editors: Marion Bannister and John Connors at crsr@csu.edu.au. This file should contain: the manuscript title, key words, all author/s contact details, and acknowledgements. Please use an asterisk to identify the author to whom all correspondence should be sent.

Check that you have listed all of the authors in the order they would appear on the title page, in the body text of your email. Please ensure that acknowledgements are included under Author information in the email and not in the manuscript attachment. Do not attach any other documents to your email.

From 2008, please email the information required above with your Word file manuscript attachment to rsjeditorial@e-contentmanagement.com.

The above email requirements also apply to authors resubmitting revised manuscripts. Peer review recommendations are to be addressed and incorporated by authors before submitting a revised version to rsjeditorial@e-contentmanagement.com It is important that authors re-submitting revised manuscripts indicate how they have addressed the referees' comments, in summary form, accompanying the revised manuscript. This information may be sent with the revised manuscript back to the original reviewers before the manuscript proceeds to publication.

These requirements also apply to authors returning revised versions of manuscripts which have been accepted with minor revision.

Please refer to the 'Style Guide' below for references, citation and spelling conventions and to 'Tables and figures' below for acceptable file and photo types for print publishing.

Final submission

The Editors will then assess whether reviewers' comments have been addressed before the manuscript is accepted. When a manuscript is accepted, a Publishing Agreement will be emailed to the corresponding author for signature on behalf of all authors listed on the article. A final and complete version, including title page, all author names, attributions and acknowledgements will be required in electronic and hard copy.

Please email the final manuscript as an attachment with a cover note addressed to the Editors-in-Chief at rsjeditorial@e-contentmanagement.com.

For verification, please post one exact replica hard copy with the signed Publishing Agreement to:

The Publisher - Rural Society
eContent Management Pty Ltd
PO Box 1027
Maleny QLD 4552, Australia

Style guide

Acceptable style guides include the APA Publication Manual (5^th edn). 'American' or 'English' spellings are acceptable, provided they are used consistently within the article. Translations of articles from other languages into English are encouraged and must be provided by professional translators. Subheads should be kept concise, with subheading levels clearly differentiated, see notes on Heading levels - below. Endnotes are used instead of footnotes and are to be used sparingly, and not be used for citing references. The accuracy and format of reference citations are the authors' responsibility (see also 'Copyright' below); see sample references below.

Heading levels

Please use consistent typeface and case for respective Heading Levels - eg:
Heading 1: Bold
Heading 2: Upright - normal
Heading 3: Italics

Citations within text

The APA* Harvard system is used for referencing. In text references should take the following format:

(Smith 1998)
(Smith & Jones 1998, p.32)
Smith and Jones (1998) suggest that research ...

(The page number is only given for a direct quotation in the text.)

Multiple authors

When a reference has three, four or five authors, then all the authors are listed the first time that it is cited in the text. After the first citation, only the surname of the first author is cited, followed by 'et al'.

However, if there are six or more authors, only the surname of the first author is cited in the text, followed by 'et al'.

(Hall et al. 1998)

In the reference list, the names and initials of the first six authors are included, and any remaining authors are listed as 'et al.'.

Secondary sources

Seidenberg and McClelland's study (as cited in Coltheart & Haller 1993) ...

The secondary source (ie, Coltheart & Haller 1993) only is included in the reference list.

Reference list should take the following format:

Book

Smith E (1999) Understanding rural change: A local view. Sydney: Wentworth.

Journal article

Smith E and Jones PR (2000) Rural change in Victoria. Rural Society 10(5): 34-45.

(If, and only if, each issue of a journal begins on page 1, give the issue number in parentheses immediately after the volume number.)

(If the article has only been viewed in its electronic form, [Electronic version] should be added after the article title.)

Chapter in a book

Dixon J (1981) The age pension: Developments from 1890 to 1978. In Howe AL (Ed) Towards an older Australia: Readings in social gerontology, pp.65-81. St Lucia QLD: University of Queensland Press.

Published conference proceedings

Cheng W and Coleman DC (1989) Rhizsphere effect on soil organic matter decomposition. In Keister DL and Cregan PB (Eds) Beltsville Symposia in Agricultural Research, pp.8-18. Atlanta GA: Institute of Ecology, University of Georgia.

Unpublished conference paper

Lonne B and Cheers B (2001 September) 'Adjusting to rural practice: A national study'. Paper presented at the National Conference of the Australian Association of Social Workers, Melbourne.

Internet sources

Goldie N (1999) CSIRO media release: Korea, Australia to share environment satellite. Accessed at http://www.csiro.au/news/mediarel/mr1999/mr99107.html on 20 May 1999.

For more detail, please refer to:

*American Psychological Association (2001) Publication manual of the American Psychological Association 5^th edn. Washington DC: Author.

Tables and Figures

Ideally tables, figures and appendixes should be supplied at the end of the main text, with their desired locations cross-referenced within the text. Tables and figures should be numbered consecutively in separate sequences, use Arabic numerals (eg, 1, 2, 3), and have self-explanatory captions. The maximum final size of published figures and tables will be 200mm x 145mm, landscape or portrait. All line diagrams and photographs are 'Figures'. Line diagrams should be suitable for immediate black and white reproduction (ie not require redrawing). Photographs should be clear black and whites with good contrast.

Figure labels are to use bold, italic and roman Helvetica or Arial fonts, with minimum capitalisation. Line diagrams should be clearly labelled and not use colour; images should be sharp with clear resolution to allow direct photo-reproduction. Electronic TIFFs or EPS files are preferred using high resolution (300 dpi and above). GIFFs and JPEG files at lower resolution (below 150 dpi) are NOT suitable for print publishing. Please do not repeat-save JPEG images as JPEGs are 'lossy' and automatically compress with each save, thereby losing detail each time.

Author warranties

In the cover email the authors must warrant that the material has not been previously published and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere.

By submission of material to Rural Society, all authors warrant that the material is their own, original material or that copyright clearance has been acquired to reproduce other material from employers, third parties or attributed to third parties. It is the responsibility of the authors to secure the release of any copyright material and to provide written evidence to this effect to eContent Management Pty Ltd. It is also the authors' responsibility to obtain clearance for reproduction from the organisation which commissioned the work if applicable.

Submission of material to Rural Society implies all authors' consent to assignment of the material's copyright to eContent Management Pty Ltd when that material is accepted for publication in the journal, for the full legal term of copyright and any renewals thereof throughout the world in all formats and in any medium of communication (see Copyright below).

By submitting material to Rural Society, all authors of the material agree to indemnify eContent Management Pty Ltd, and its heirs and assigns in business, against any litigation or claims that may arise from the content of or opinions in the material provided.

On acceptance for publication, an agreement specifying these terms will be sent to the corresponding author for signature by all authors of that manuscript.

Copyright

The author will transfer copyright to the publisher to eContent Management Pty Ltd. However, the author will have an irrevocable non-exclusive licence to make use of their work, which gives them all of the rights specified in the journal's transfer of copyright form. Details of these rights are available on the Journal's website.

Apart from fair dealing for the purposes of research and private study, or criticism and or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968 of Australia, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the Publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of the licences issued by

Copyright Agency Limited
Level 19, 157 Liverpool Street
Sydney NSW 2000, Australia
Tel: +61 (0)2 9394 7600; Fax: +61 (0)2 9394 7601; info@copyright.com.au; www.copyright.com.au