Asian Journal of Comparative Law

Instructions for Authors

Final Manuscript Preparation Guidelines

Please find here details on copyediting, typesetting, and layout requirements pertaining to final manuscript submission to this journal. All manuscripts must have correct formatting to be considered ready for publication.

COPYEDITING

The EdiKit system has been designed to improve the scholarly publication process for authors. Among the many improvements we offer over traditional journals, the most significant is that we have dramatically shortened the period between the initial submission and the final publication of a peer-reviewed article. Much of this time savings is due to the innovative use of electronic publication. These innovations, however, require certain changes in the way authors need to prepare accepted manuscripts for electronic publication.
De Gruyter does not copyedit manuscripts for this journal until further notice. However, De Gruyter does offer support to authors during the process. Authors are their own copyeditors and typesetters. This means that authors need to pay greater attention to the editing and look of their manuscripts than is typically required by print journals. If you have reasons to doubt your proficiency with respect to spelling, grammar, etc. (e.g., because English is not your native language), then you may wish to employ—at your expense—the services of a professional copyeditor.

Please get in touch with the copyeditors directly to discuss details.

• Alexandra Griswold
  xan3210@cs.com
  Areas of expertise: public policy, political science, education, economics, social sciences, humanities, ethics
• Cyndy Brown
  browncyndy@yahoo.com
  Areas of expertise: political science, social sciences, humanities, ethics
• Donna Reeder
  Reeder Literary Services
  Areas of expertise: political science, economics, mathematical economics, natural sciences, social sciences, technology, law, humanities, liberal arts, literary studies, health and medicine
• Dorothy Schepps
  dschepps2@gmail.com
  Areas of expertise: political science, emergency management, homeland security, community/land use planning, law, economics, cyber terrorism, and cyber security
• Jane Cotnoir
  jane.cotnoir@gmail.com
  Areas of expertise: Local government management, international crime and terrorism, emergency/disaster management, humanities, social science
• Patience Kramer
  patience.kramer@att.net
  Areas of expertise: Health and Medicine (CAM and drug policy and analysis), Economics and Business (with a focus on marketing)
• Steve Peter
  speter@mac.com
  Areas of expertise: LaTeX, Linguistics, economics, mathematics

FORMATTING REQUIREMENTS

CONTENT and STRUCTURE

ALL MANUSCRIPTS

• Copyedit your manuscript.
• Do not include a title page or abstract. (Begin the document with the introduction. The title page and abstract will be added to your paper by the EdiKit system.)
• Do not include page numbers, headers, or footers. (The EdiKit system will add the appropriate header with page numbers).
• Do not identify author names in the actual text of your manuscript; all such information is discarded when we receive your submission. To add or edit co-authors, you must use the “revise submission” form.
• Make sure all author and co-author information is complete. Click on “Preview submission” to make sure that all your co-authors' names and affiliations appear correctly.
• Do not include acknowledgments in your manuscript. Instead, enter acknowledgments in the coverpage footnote section on the “revise submission” form, so that they may be incorporated into the title page produced for publication.
• Write your article in English (unless the journal expressly permits non-English submissions).
• Submit your manuscript, including tables, figures, appendices, etc., as a single file (Word, RTF, or PDF files are accepted).
• Use the following document structure (keep in mind that there is no title page):
  1. Introduction (titling this section is optional)
  2. Subsequent sections which include all tables, figures, and footnotes referenced in the text
  3. Appendices (if any)
  4. References - Include a proper bibliography following the guidelines in the References section below.

BOOK REVIEWS

• Book reviews must start with the citation of the book at the top of the first page.

LaTeX TEMPLATE
For authors working with LaTeX files, please use the De Gruyter related LaTeX-template. Please download it here. For authors using word processing software such as Word or Word Perfect, please continue to follow the formatting requirements below.

PAGE LAYOUT and SPACING

• Page size must be 8.5 x 11-inches (“letter” size). Do not use A4.
• All margins (left, right, top and bottom) must be 1.5 inches (3.8 cm), including your tables and figures.
• Single space your text.
• Use a single column layout with both left and right margins justified. (Footnotes and references must be both left- and right- justified as well.)
• Indent all paragraphs except those following a section heading.
• An indent should be at least 10 em-spaces.
• Equations, long quotations, theorems, propositions, special remarks, tables, figures, etc. should be set off from the surrounding text by additional space above and below. Otherwise, do not insert an extra space between paragraphs of text.
• Do not “widow” or “orphan” text; make sure that headings are on the same page as the text that follows them, and do not begin a page with the last line of a paragraph. This also applies to titles or notes attached to tables.
• There should be no pages where more than a quarter of the page is empty space, unless it is absolutely impossible to do so.
• All text should be fully justified, left and right (i.e., flush with the left and right margins).

FONTS
TYPE and SIZE

We cannot accept Type3 fonts. The following is a brief guide to fonts with respect to layout.

•  Font:
  • Main Body—12 pt. Times or the closest comparable font available
  • Equations—12 pt. Times or the closest comparable font available
  • Footnotes—10 pt. Times or the closest comparable font available
  • Tables, graphs & figures—Text accompanying graphs, figures and tables should be no smaller than 8 pt.   

FONT FACES
Use Times or the closest comparable font available, except, possibly, where special symbols are needed. If you desire a second font, for instance for headings, use a sans serif font (e.g., Arial or Computer Modern Sans Serif).

COLORED TEXT

• Set the font color to black for the majority of the text. De Gruyter encourages authors to take advantage of the ability to use color in the production of figures, maps, images, and graphs. However, you need to appreciate that this will cause some of your readers problems when they print the document on a black and white printer. For this reason, you are advised to avoid the use of colors in situations where their translation to black and white would render the material illegible or incomprehensible.
• Please ensure that there are no colored mark-ups or comments in the final version, unless they are meant to be part of the final text. (You may need to “accept all changes” in track changes or set your document to “normal” in final markup.)

EMPHASIZED TEXT, TITLES, and FOREIGN TERMS

• To indicate text you wish to emphasize, use italics rather than underlining. The use of color to emphasize text is discouraged.
• Foreign terms should be set in italics rather than underlined.
• Titles of books, movies, etc., should be set in italics rather than underlined.

HEADINGS
Headings (e.g., title of sections) should be distinguished from the main body text by their fonts or by using small caps.

• Use the same font face for all headings and indicate the hierarchy by reducing the font size.
• Put space above and below headings. Spacing must be consistent around all headings.
• Be consistent in whether or not you use headline case, or you capitalize the first word and leave the rest in lower-case.

FOOTNOTES

• Footnotes must appear at the bottom of the page on which they are referenced rather than at the end of the paper.
• Footnotes must be in 10 pt. Times or closest comparable font available.
• They must be single spaced, and there must be a footnote separator rule (line).
• Please make sure there is no excess blank space above or below the footnote line divider.
• Footnote numbers or symbols in the text must follow, rather than precede, punctuation.
• Excessively long footnotes are better handled in an appendix.
• All footnotes should be fully justified, left and right (i.e., flush with the left and right margins).

TABLES, FIGURES & GRAPHS

• If figures are included, use high-resolution figures, preferably encoded as encapsulated * PostScript (eps).
• To the extent possible, tables and figures should appear in the document near where they are referenced in the text.
• Large tables or figures should be put on pages by themselves.
• Make sure to use at least 8 pt. font size in tables, figures and graphs.
• Everything must be easily readable when viewed on a computer screen at 100% and when physically printed.
• In no case should tables or figures be in a separate document or file. All tables and figures must fit within 1.5" margins on all sides (top, bottom, left and right) in both portrait and landscape view.

MATHEMATICS and EQUATIONS

• Roman letters used in mathematical expressions as variables must be italicized. Roman letters used as part of multi-letter function names should not be italicized. Subscripts and superscripts must be a smaller font size than the main text.
• Use 12 pt. Times or the closest comparable font available
• Type short mathematical expressions inline.
• Longer expressions must appear as display math, as must expressions using many different levels (e.g., such as fractions).
• Important definitions or concepts can also be set off as display math.
• Number your equations sequentially.
• Insert a blank line before and after each equation.
• Whether equation numbers are on the right or left is the choice of the author(s). However, make sure to be consistent in this.
• Avoid symbols and notation in unusual fonts. This will not only enhance the clarity of the manuscript, but it will also help ensure that it displays correctly on the reader's screen and prints correctly.
• When proofing your document, pay particular attention to the rendering of the mathematics, especially symbols and notation drawn from other-than-standard fonts.

REFERENCES
REFERENCES WITHIN TEXT

• Within the text of your manuscript, use the author-date method of citation. For instance, “As noted by Smith (1776).”
• When there are two authors, use both last names. For instance, “Edlin and Reichelstein (1996) claim … ”
• If there are three or more authors give the last name of the first author and append et al. For instance, a 1987 work by Abel, Baker, and Charley, would be cited as “Abel et al. (1987).”
• If two or more cited works share the same authors and dates, use “a,” “b,” and so on to distinguish among them. For instance, “Jones (1994b) provides a more general analysis of the model introduced in Example 3 of Jones (1994a).”
• After the first cite in the text using the author-date method, subsequent cites can use just the last names if that would be unambiguous. For example, Edlin and Reichelstein (1996) can be followed by just Edlin and Reichelstein provided no other Edlin and Reichelstein article is referenced; if one is, then the date must always be attached.
• When citations appear within parentheses, use commas—rather than parentheses or brackets—to separate the date from the surrounding text. For instance, “ … (see Smith, 1776, for an early discussion of this).”

REFERENCE SECTION
It is the author's obligation to provide complete references with the necessary information. Our editors do not check this.

• After the last sentence of your submission (text or appendix), please insert a line break—not a page break—and begin your references on the same page.
• Do not split an individual reference between two pages. If the entirety of the reference does not fit on the page it starts on, then move the entire reference to start on the following page.
• References must be in alphabetical order and have margins that are both left- and right- justified. You may choose not to right-justify the margin of individual references if the spacing looks too awkward.
• Use hanging indents for citations (i.e., the first line of the citation should be flush with the left margin and all other lines should be indented from the left margin by a set amount). Citations should be single-spaced with extra space between citations.
• Within the references section, the citations can be formatted as you like, provided (i) the formatting is consistent and (ii) each citation begins with the last name of the first author. That is, the following would all be acceptable:
        Smith, Adam (1776) The Wealth of Nations, …
        Smith, A., The Wealth of Nations, … , 1776.
        Smith, Adam: The Wealth of Nations, 1776, …

Asian Journal of Comparative Law is covered by the following abstracting and indexing services:

• Bibliography of Asian Studies
• Elsevier: Scopus
• Index Islamicus
• Index of Singapore Information
• OCLC: WorldCat
  

Executive Board
A Jayagovind
National Law School of India University
Andrew Lin
National Taiwan University
Harkristuti Harkrisnowo
University of Indonesia
Herminio Harry L. Roque, Jr.
University of the Philippines
Jessica Young
University of Hong Kong
Lee Keun-Gwan
Seoul National University
Liu Xiaohong
East China University of Politics & Law
Mark Fenwick
Kyushu University
Orabhund Panuspatthna
Chulalongkorn University
Sharifa Zubaidah Syed Abdul Kader
International Islamic University Malaysia
Sharifah Suhanah binti Syed Ahmad
University of Malaya
Advisory Board
Ahn Kyong-Whan
Seoul National University
Andrew Harding
University of Victoria
Chan Sek Keong
Chief Justice, Supreme Court of Singapore
Erman Rajagukguk
University of Indonesia
Huang Feng
Beijing Normal University
Jiang Ping
China University of Political Science & Law
Lee Hoong Phun
Monash University
Mahendra Pal Singh
WB National University of Juridical Sciences
Nobuyuki Yasuda
Nagoya University
Randall Peerenboom
La Trobe University Melbourne / Oxford University Centre for Socio-Legal Studies
Rudolfo Severino
ISEAS/former Sec-Gen, ASEAN
Visu Sinnadurai
former Supreme Court Judge, Malaysia
Vitit Muntarbhorn
Chulalongkorn University
Wael Hallaq
McGill University
Wang Tse-chien
National Taiwan University/former Grand Justice, Judicial Yuan