International Journal of Defense Acquisition Management (IJDAM)

Submission Requirements

Format

The International Journal of Defense Acquisition Management (ISSN 1940-3445) generally follows the requirements set out in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 5th Edition, 2001 (hereafter APA). However, this is not a firm requirement and authors should feel free to submit their manuscripts in the most convenient style. Following acceptance, our technical editors will make minor adjustments to bring the article into line with APA requirements and send the final version of the article to the authors for concurrence.

For those who do not have the APA Publication Manual, the three-page summary of APA Documentation Style is attached for your convenience. Again, compliance with APA format is not mandatory for submissions.

Author may also feel that APA does not address a specific aspect of their paper adequately and are free to choose an alternative approach to cover a specific issue. We recognize that the complexity of government documents, for example, may call for flexibility in many cases.

All papers are to be submitted via e-mail one of the co-editors, with a copy to the other, but not to both individuals. Authors may format their submissions in either 8.5 x 11 inch or ISO A4 (210 x 297 mm) format. Papers shall have margins of 1 inch or 2.5 cm, and in accordance with APA, the abstract, text, figures, notes, and references should all be double-spaced. The preferred font is 12-point Times New Roman. All text should be left-justified (ragged right), rather than fully-justified.

Guidelines

The following elements should comprise the submission:

  1. The covering e-mail itself, to include full contact information for the author(s) as well as any titles and organizational affiliation.
  2. A first attachment corresponding to the cover page. The cover page should include the title, with a maximum length of 12 words. Authors are cautioned against attempts at humor or sarcasm in creating a title, unless they believe that it is central to the article. Also, superfluous words such as "A review of," "An analysis of," etc should be avoided. The contact information for the authors requested in the e-mail should also be repeated on the cover page.
  3. A second attachment containing the paper itself, including the title, an abstract (maximum of 120 words), the text of the article, and references in APA style. There should be no indication of authorship within the article. Authors are cautioned against citing their previous work with excessive frequency or including a large number of references to their work, as this is often an indication of authorship and may degrade the quality of the blind peer-review process.
  4. The journal follows the tradition of public administration, business and social sciences journals in publishing articles with a limited number of authors. No specific limit is set, but discretion is suggested in choosing who will receive credit for authorship.
  5. The length of the paper should not exceed 25 pages. Appendices or lengthy excerpts from specific documents should be used with discretion. The journal wishes to appeal to a broad audience. References to these documents may be provided, however, in accordance with APA requirements (see below).
  6. Authors are reminded to number the pages of their manuscripts.
  7. Also within the second attachment, up to ten keywords shall be listed immediately below the abstract. Given the nature of the journal, authors may wish to consider keywords corresponding to weapon systems, countries, organizations, policies, or methodologies. Keywords not only assist in the review process, but are used by librarians and database editors to index published articles, increasing their potential readership.
  8. Manuscripts are preferred in Microsoft ® Office Word 2003. Users of Word 2007 are requested to ensure that their submissions are saved using the backwards-compatible feature so that the document can be read in Word 2003. Otherwise, certain features of the manuscript may be lost.
  9. As IJDAM is an online journal, figures, tables and photographs should be placed approximately where the author believes they would be most appropriate. Photographs or drawings are welcome, but the author should exercise restraint. Illustrations that are easily available to the public on the Web or in print publications should be avoided (such as an overall view of a C-130J Hercules or a Nimrod MRA4). However, illustrations that support and are specific to the article and not easily available to the public may be included. Illustrations should be embedded in the Word document in a common format (such as .jpg) and have sufficient resolution to appear attractively and with sufficient detail in actual size.
  10. Authors are welcome to submit manuscripts in the national variant of English they are most comfortable with. Published articles will not have spelling or grammar changed in order to reflect a given variant of English.
  11. In the text, foreign terms (such as juste retour or Deutsche Marine) in Latin characters are welcome, but should be followed on first use by an English translation in parentheses. Acronyms of organizations from other than English-speaking countries (such as France's DGA) should be left in their original form, again with an English translation on first use.
  12. Use of technical jargon should be minimized and technical, service- or country-specific terms should be explained on first use. Authors are reminded of the targeted international readership of the journal.
  13. The reference list should be provided as indicated by APA. If hanging indents (in Word 2003, see Format/Paragraphs/Indentation/Special) for references are difficult to produce, they will be formatted as such by the journal's staff. Where URLs are used, they should be live (i.e. clicking on them will carry the reader to the indicated site), unless the document is no longer available. Authors are cautioned against unstable or excessively lengthy URLs. It is not always necessary to include a URL that carries the reader all the way to the specific document. In most cases, a higher-level URL (for example, for the source organization's publications section), combined with the title of the document in the reference list, is sufficient.
  14. Many referenced documents include report numbers of some type. As provided for in APA, pages 255-256, Section 4.16, report numbers should be placed in parentheses and immediately follow the title of the document in the reference list.
  15. Authors are encouraged to suggest reviewers, in which case they are asked to provide contact information. The editors will select the reviewers for each article, but appreciate nominations of reviewers, as increasing the potential reviewer pool is in the best interests of the author and the journal.
  16. The journal is co-published by the Naval Postgraduate School, an institution of the U.S. government, in partnership with Cranfield University in the UK. U.S. law does not allow copyright for any work of the U.S. government, including all articles published in the journal. All accepted articles will be published in PDF on the journal's Web site.
  17. The editors will provide an acknowledgement of receipt of submissions as soon as possible. They will also reply to the author following review of the submission within a goal of 90 days. Accepted articles will be submitted for technical editing (e.g. grammar, compliance with APA) and returned by the journal's administrative staff to the author for any required changes prior to publication. The technical editing process is not intended to modify any of the content or meaning of the accepted article.
  18. The journal is published in annual volumes, with the pages of articles sequentially numbered within each volume. There will not be individual issues; articles will be posted on the journal's Web site as soon as possible following acceptance.

Example Article

The following link provides an example article formatted to the required standard.

Example Article