Author Guidelines
European Journal of Spatial Development (EJSD) is an open access journal providing high-quality scientific contributions to spatial planning, regional development, policy making and governance, from European and EU-related perspectives.
Please read the guidelines below then login or register to make a submission. Manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned.
Article types
Research articles: EJSD publishes peer reviewed academic articles, ranging in length between 7000 – 10.000 words (excluding abstract and references). Research articles contain a substantial empirical analysis with novel data.
Review articles: EJSD publishes peer-reviewed articles, ranging in length between 5000 – 7000 words (excluding abstract and references). Review articles do not contain an empirical study but centre around a literature review and theoretical discussion.
Debate Articles: EJSD publishes debate articles ranging in length between 2000 – 4000 words. As short opinion pieces, these essays can include standpoints and critical analyses of current spatial development issues, policy debates and planning problems. Debate articles, while likely context-specific in nature, should have international relevance.
Preparing your manuscript for submission
Download the template (Libreoffice OTT or MS-Word DOTX) of EJSD Journal paper and follow the typesetting instructions, including the following information:
- Title & Subtitle: max 100 characters (not including spaces);
- Name, Surname, email, affiliation (University, Department, etc..), ORCID and biography of all the authors;
- Abstract: max 200 words;
- Three to five keywords representing the main content of the article (i.e. Climate change; Urban planning; Coastal cities);
- The length of the article should be according to the type of paper (see above);
- The figures and graphs of the article should have at least a resolution of 150 dpi.
In case of images and graphs subject to copyright, please provide permissions to ejsd_admin@polito.it. Images must be commented by a brief caption;
- Bibliographical references should be ordered alphabetically and formatted according to the APA citation style. See more information below;
- EJSD uses UK English. Please follow the Oxford English Dictionary style guide.
- The manuscript should be sent to a professional language editing by the author/s. Language proficiency is the author's responsibility. EJSD does not process the articles for language editing but will ask the authors to improve the language proficiency as a condition of publication. Manuscripts with poor language quality will be automatically rejected.
Referencing
EJSD uses the APA Formatting and Style guide (7th Edition). Basic rules for most sources include:
- All lines after the first line of each entry in your reference list should be indented one-half inch from the left margin. This is called hanging indentation.
- All authors' names should be inverted (i.e., last names should be provided first).
- Authors' first and middle names should be written as initials. For example, the reference entry for a source written by Jane Marie Smith would begin with "Smith, J. M."
- Reference list entries should be alphabetized by the last name of the first author of each work.
- For multiple articles by the same author, or authors listed in the same order, list the entries in chronological order, from earliest to most recent.
- When referring to the titles of books, chapters, articles, reports, webpages, or other sources, capitalize only the first letter of the first word of the title and subtitle, the first word after a colon or a dash in the title, and proper nouns.
- Present journal titles in full. Capitalize all major words in the titles of journals.
- When using APA format, follow the author-date method of in-text citation. This means that the author's last name and the year of publication for the source should appear in the text, like, for example, (Jones, 1998).
>> Book
Author, A. A. (Year of publication). Title of work: Capital letter also for subtitle. Publisher Name. DOI (if available)
>> Chapter in edited book
Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Year of publication). Title of chapter. In E. E. Editor & F. F. Editor (Eds.), Title of work: Capital letter also for subtitle (pp. pages of chapter). Publisher. DOI (if available)
>> Journal article with digital object identifier (doi):
Autor, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Year of publication). Title of journal article. Title of Journal, Volume number (Issue number), page-page. DOI
>> Webpage or piece of online content
Lastname, F. M. (Year, Month Date). Title of page. Site name. URL
If the resource was written by a group or organization, use the name of the group/organization as the author:
Group name. (Year, Month Date). Title of page. Site name. URL
If the page's author is not listed, start with the title instead. Additionally, include a retrieval date when the page's content is likely to change over time:
Title of page. (Year, Month Date). Site name. Retrieved Month Date, Year, from URL
More information on APA Referencing and source-specific guidelines can be found here.
Submission Preparation Checklist
As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.
- The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
- The submission file is in OpenOffice, Microsoft Word, or RTF document file format.
- Where available, URLs for the references have been provided.
- The text is single-spaced; uses a 12-point font; employs italics, rather than underlining (except with URL addresses); and all illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text at the appropriate points, etc.
- The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines.
Submission
Login or register to make a submission and follow the instructions.
EJSD does not charge any author article processing charges (APC) nor article submission charges.
Step 1. Chose the section of the journal for which the author makes the submission (FOCUS section dedicated to the specific topic of the journal);
Step 2. Upload the typeset paper in .doc format;
Step 3. Fill the metadata section with all information related to all authors (name, surname, email, ORCID, URL, Affiliation, country, biography) and to the article (title, abstract, organization of support, references, keywords).
Step 4. If necessary, upload additional files (such as images, tables, etc..);
Step 5. The corresponding author and co-authors will receive a confirmation e-mail (by OJS platform) and the progress of the submission can be followed through the editorial process by logging in. Please, check-in the spam folder of your email box if you do not receive the email.
Copyright Notice
Authors who publish in this journal agree to the following:
- Authors retain the rights to their work and give in to the journal the right of first publication of the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons License - Attribution that allows others to share the work indicating the authorship and the initial publication in this journal.
- Authors can adhere to other agreements of non-exclusive license for the distribution of the published version of the work (ex. To deposit it in an institutional repository or to publish it in a monography), provided to indicate that the document was first published in this journal.
- Authors can distribute their work online (ex. In institutional repositories or in their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges and it can increase the quotations of the published work.
- The authors are responsible for the language proficiency of their manuscript.
