Publication Standard

The Journal of the ACCL Advisory Board apply the following standards in selecting articles for publication:

The article is scholarly, well researched, well written, and thorough. It advances the knowledge of the industry and contains original, independent, and innovative thought. The article will endure the test of time in that it is likely to be as relevant three years from the date of publication as it is on the date of publication.

Article Format

E-mail the article to the editor-in-chief in Microsoft Word.

Font: Times New Roman, 12 point.  Footnotes, not endnotes.

Double-space, with 1-inch margins and each paragraph indented.  Justify margins.

Charts, tables, and photographs: Disclosure of the software in which they are written, use charts, tables, and photographs only where absolutely necessary.

Uniform Headings:

Main Heading: Roman numeral, heading all caps and centered.

Subheading Level 1: Capital letter numeration; italics; heading capitalize first letter of each word other than prepositions, articles, and conjunctions of four letters or less, left justified;

Subheading Level 2: Arabic numbers; italics; heading capitalize first letter of each word other than prepositions, articles, and conjunctions of four letters or less, left justified and indented.

No auto-formatting of headings.

Citations:

In order for the article to be easily accepted within West’s system, and searchable in Westlaw, West’s standard “Title case” method should be used for all publication titles, in text and in footnotes (no large and small caps). “Title case” means that the first letter of the following words in a publication should be capitalized: the first word, the word immediately following a colon, and all other words except articles (the, a, an), conjunctions, and prepositions of four or fewer letters.  Also, do not use "Id." in a footnote.  Westlaw cannot identify "Id." as a case citation or link it to the case, so repreat the case site.

All other aspects of citations in accordance with The Blue Book and style in accordance with The Chicago Manual of Style.

Make sure the footnotes are checked for format and substance before submission.

Case name only, not full citation, in text of article.

Use italics, not underlined, for case names in text.

Case names should be in regular font in footnotes, not italics or underlined, unless a shortened version of the citation is used, in which case italics should be used.

Do not use the shortened version of a citation unless the citation is within five footnotes of the previous citation.  Do not use "Id." in a footnote.  Westlaw cannot link to "Id."

Order of case citation within signal (unless one case is more important than the others) as follows: Supreme Court by date, F2d. by date, F. Supp. by date, state cases alphabetically and by date for cites within the same state.

Do not use supra in case citations.

Grammar:

Use comma before “and” in a series of three or more words or phrases.

No comma before “and” if only two words or phrases are in a series.

Use comma before “and” if two sentences are connected by the word "and."

Use capitals sparingly. Court is capitalized only where citing to the Supreme Court. Board is not capitalized.

Omit useless words and phrases.

Spell out numbers one through ninety-nine.

Use should, would, could, and may sparingly.

Use active voice.  Passive voice is for engineers.

Do not write in the first person.

Miscellaneous

Standard copyright assignment and disclosure of any previous publication of same or similar text elsewhere.

Do not use a numbered footnote to identify the author(s).  Author's name is to be written just under the title of the article, in italics.  Author attribution limited to author’s name, firm name and city, and identified and footnoted by an asterisk (*) on the first page of the article.

Submit article on time or early.