Notes for Authors
Building Services Engineering Research & Techology operates a conventional single-blind reviewing policy in which the reviewer’s name is always concealed from the submitting author. All papers submitted to Building Services Engineering Research & Techology are subject to peer review by members of a carefully appointed editorial board/commmittee etc.
All material submitted for publication is assumed to be exclusively for Building Services Engineering Research and Technology, and not to have been submitted for publication elsewhere. All authors must assign copyright to Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (by completing the copyright assignment form). The council of the Institution may release or surrender its rights in this respect.
The opinions expressed by the authors and contributors to discussions are those of the individuals concerned and are not necessarily those of the Institution.
Priority and time of publication are decided by the editors, who maintain the customary right to edit material accepted for publication if necessary.
Technical Content
Building Services Engineering Research and Technology publishes material which is original, a useful extension of knowledge in the subject area and well presented. Acceptance is conditional on addressing any referees' comments transmitted by the editor. Discussion may be solicited from outside commentators for publication with submissions. Authors will normally be given the opportunity to reply. Contributions take the following forms:
a) Research papers, case studies and review papers: Papers should not normally
be more than 5000 words long with not more than 10 illustrations.
b) Selected Brief Papers: The Panel members will select high quality brief
papers, for instance those which have been presented at international
conferences, and invite the authors to publish them in the journal. These
will normally be a maximum of 3000 words plus two figures.
c) Technical Notes: These papers need not contain original research but should
be of wider interest to the building services industry. These will normally
be a maximum of 3000 words plus two figures.
When the subject matter merits colour reproduction of figures, feasibility should be discussed with the Editor before the paper is submitted. However, it should be noted that the cost of colour reproduction must be met by the author.
Submission
Electronic submission of the manuscript attached to an email message sent to Mr William Whalley (williamwhalley@tiscali.
co.uk) is the preferred method of submission. The submission should include all illustrations, graphs and tables.
If you are unable to submit via email then please send the manuscript on a disk with a covering letter to the following address.
BSERT Editorial Office
School of the Built Environment
Heriot-Watt University, Riccarton
Edinburgh, EH14 4AS
Peer review is managed by Mr Whalley on behalf CIBSE. The production is handled by SAGE on behalf of CIBSE.
Article presentation
Manuscripts should be typed double-spaced on one side of the sheet only, especially the references. 4 cm margins should be left at the top, sides and foot of the page. All pages should be numbered in order.
The following items must be provided in the order given:
1) Title Page
Authors and affiliations
Authors should include their surname and initials, their qualifications, the establishment where the work was carried out (if the author has left this establishment his/her present address should be given as a footnote).
For papers with several contributors, the order of authorship should be made clear and the 'responsible author' (to whom proofs and e-prints will be sent) named with their telephone/fax/email contact information listed.
Title
The title should indicate the content of the contribution precisely, be as short as possible (normally not more than 10 words) and worded so as to distinguish the paper from other known publications. The first word and other keywords should be suitable for indexing. A short title (for the running head) of no more than 50 characters should also be given.
Abstract
Please provide an abstract of not more than 125 words. It should guide readers on whether the contribution is of interest, giving a brief outline of the content of the paper and drawing attention to new information, principal conclusions and recommendation. The abstract is not part of the paper and should be intelligible independently without reference to the text.
Practical application
Please provide a separate paragraph (max. 100 words) explaining how your contribution relates to the practice of modern professionals in the building industry.
2) Text
This should be written in the third person, in simple and concise terms and give sufficient introduction to the subject to be understood readily without undue reference to other publications. Conclusions and recommendations should be drawn together at the end of the text; the conclusions should not merely summarise the body of the paper. Trade names must not be mentioned, nor may the manufacturers be stated except in the form of an acknowledgement of information or assistance at the end of a paper. Mathematical expressions should be inserted very clearly; if confusion is possible e.g., between v and n , the symbol should be identified in the margin. Subheadings should be typed on separate lines and numbered 1., 1.1, 1.1.1 etc to indicate their progressive order of importance. The use of more than three levels of heading should be avoided.
3) Appendices
These should contain essential extended explanation of statements in the text or detailed mathematical derivation of formulae should appear after the references.
4) References
These should be in Vancouver style and be doubled spaced. References should be cited consecutively in the text using superscript numbers to refer to the list. All authors should be given and titles written in full. First and last page numbers, volume number and year of publication should also be given for each reference, with issue numbers of exact dates of periodicals which number the pages of each issue from 1. For conference reports etc. information should be given to enable the readers to identify the reference easily. Material not freely available (e.g., private communications, unpublished and internal reports etc.) should not be included in the references.
For a journal
1 Bradley J, Bye C. Normal values of the airways. Respiration 1979; 38: 221-26.
For a book
2 Hall PD ed. Alcoholic Liver disease. London: Arnold, 1985.
For an article within a book
3 MacSween RNM, Antony RS. Immune mechanisms in liver disease. In: Hall PD ed. Alcoholic Liver disease. London: Arnold, 1985: 69-89.
For conference proceedings
4 Ruffles PR. The lighting of the pump house: Proceedings of the CIBSE National Lighting Conference, University of Bath. London: Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers, 1996.
For a PhD thesis
5 Spreckley AV. PhD thesis. Bradford: University of Bradford, 1996.
5) Acknowledgements
Authors should acknowledge any financial or practical assistance given.
6) Tables
These should be submitted each on a separate sheet and numbered in sequence. Each table should have a title stating concisely the nature of information given. Units should be in brackets at the head of columns. The same information should not be included in both tables and figures.
7) Figure captions
These should be provided together on a separate sheet and keyed into the main text file.
8) Figures
One set of good quality originals should be provided even if electronic versions are being supplied.
All figures should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are referred to in the text. Qualifications (a), (b) etc can only be used when the separate illustrations can be grouped together with one caption. Do not print the figure caption on the figure.
Please provide electronic versions of your figures in either TIFF, or EPS format. Each piece of artwork should be saved as a separate file. Do not embed graphics files in word or excel documents. Computer generated plots should be produced by laser printer.
Symbols in diagrams should as far as possible follow BS 3939.
Line drawings should be black and white. All figures should be marked 'TOP' on the reverse with a soft pencil along with the author's name and figure number. Figures should ideally be drawn for a reduction of one third.
Photographs should be of good quality, show a full range of tones and be printed on black and white glossy paper no smaller than 120 mm wide.
Disk
Please ensure that your disk matches the final version of your paper - as approved by the Editor.
Microsoft Word is the preferred word processor, but files can be accepted from any of the common Macintosh, Windows or MS-DOS word processing programs. LATEX, RTF or ASCII files can also be accepted. When preparing your paper:
• Use the minimum formatting.
• Roman, bold and italic type can be used, but use only one typeface and size.
• Capitals should be used only where they are to appear in the finished text.
• The text should be ranged left and unjustified, with hyphenation cancelled.
• Indents, underlining and tabs should be avoided unless absolutely necessary.
• Headings and paragraphs should be separated by two carriage returns.
• There should be only one space between words and only one space after any punctuation.
Style
General:
Abbreviations should be spelled out when first used in the text. Full stops should be used in lower case abbreviations (e.g., i.e.,) but not for capitals (SAS, ANOVA). Spelling to follow the Oxford Dictionary.
Mathematical:
Numbers below 10 should be written out in the text unless used in conjunction with units (e.g., three apples, 4 kg).
Use spaces (not commas) within numbers (e.g., 10 000, 0.125 275).
Full points (not commas) should be used for decimals. For numbers less than one, a nought should be inserted before the decimal point . (e.g., 0.125 275).
Authors should use standard terms and symbols, which should comply wherever possible with the relevant UK, European or International standard; in particular BS 4727 and BS 5775. See also CIBSE Guide section C7 'Units and miscellaneous data'.
SI units must be used with the addition of certain specialized units such as the apostilb.
A list of symbols is desirable.
Permissions
It is the responsibility of the author(s) to obtain written consent from the original publisher and author(s) to use any material published previously elsewhere. Please forward all correspondence to SAGE Ltd. with your manuscript.
Proofs
Proofs are normally sent to the corresponding author to check for typographical errors. Modifications cannot be incorporated at this stage without incurring heavy costs hence the original text cannot be altered.
E-prints
Access to 25 free e-prints will be provided; the corresponding author will receive a maximum of five complimentary copies of the journal.
English Language Editing Services: Please click here for information on professional English language editing services recommended by SAGE.
