Notes for Authors
Progress in Physical Geography is an international journal, which encompasses an interdisciplinary approach incorporating the latest developments and debates within Physical Geography and interrelated fields across the Earth System Sciences. Contributions which review progress to date; which blend review material with new and original findings; or which introduce material, methods or techniques at the forefront of current knowledge, are welcomed. Authors need not be uncritically exhaustive in synthesizing research on a particular topic, but should concentrate on what they consider to be the most promising recent productive trends and developments. They should further aim at the widest possible international coverage and should consider the relevance of tangential or parallel developments to their fields. In addition, authors are encouraged to evaluate the general significance of research to date, including practical and policy applications where relevant.
Peer Review Policy:
Progress in Physical Geography operates a conventional single-blind reviewing policy in which the reviewer’s name is always concealed from the submitting author. Each manuscript is reviewed by at least two referees. All manuscripts are reviewed as rapidly as possible and an editorial decision is generally reached within 4-6 weeks of submission.
Submission:
Articles and proposals for articles are accepted for consideration on the understanding that they are not being submitted elsewhere. They should be emailed to:
pipg@sagepub.co.uk
The typescript:
Your paper should be submitted double-spaced in Word format.
When preparing your paper:
- Use the minimum of formatting.
- Roman, bold and italic type can be used, but only one typeface and size should be used.
- Capitals should be used only where they are to appear in the finished text.
- 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.
Please ensure that the title page includes all address details, as well as email address and telephone and fax numbers. Please indicate where queries, proofs and author copies should be sent.
Style:
(i) Use 'z' not 's' where there is an alternative, and in general follow the first variant given by the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (eg, realize, idealize, analyse, advertise).
(ii) Use SI units.
(iii) Dates: '16 January 1990' not 'January 16, 1990'.
(iv) Numbers: all numbers under 10 should be spelt out in letters except where attached to a unit of quantity (eg, 1 mm or 3 kg); all numbers of 10 or more should be rendered in digits except where the context makes this awkward (eg, use spelt-out forms at the beginning of a sentence).
(v) Capitalization: avoid excessive capitalization. For titles of books and articles, capitals should be used for the initial letter of the first word only. For the titles of journals and series, the initial letter of all principal words should be capitalized.
(vi) Italics: use italics for emphasis very sparingly.
(vii) Abbreviations: these should be typed with no full points in between (eg, UK, UNESCO, BBC). Abbreviations in which the last letter of the abbreviation is the same as the last letter of the word should also have no full point (eg, Mr, St, BUT no., Str., etc.).
Abstracts and key words:
These should be included at the beginning of an article. The abstract should not exceed 250 words. There should be between 5 and 8 key words.
Word count:
Articles should normally be between 5000 and 8000 words.
Headings:
Please avoid using more than three weights of subheading.
Artwork:
Graphs, charts, simple line figures, and artwork which is mainly text should be submitted in Word format. More complex figures and photos should be in either TIFF or JPEG format, of at least 300dpi. Tables should be in Word format. Any artwork should be in a separate file(s) from the typescript, and the placement of artwork should be clearly indicated in the text. Figure and table captions should be listed at the end of the manuscript.
Figures supplied in colour will be published in colour online at no charge. If colour is required in the print copy, this should be indicated at article submission and a charge will be made to the author. Details of charges can be obtained from the Editor.
Footnotes:
Footnotes should be avoided, although a title-page footnote may be used to give details of the address at which work pertaining to an article was carried out if this is different from the author's current affiliation. All other acknowledgements should be placed at the end of the article.
References:
References should follow the Harvard system. In the typescript, references should be indicated by giving the author's name and the year of publication (with page references where necessary). For example:
'...a quality which Liebenstein (1967: 153) calls "x-efficiency"'.
'Piaget points out that "between two structures of different levels there can be no one-way reduction, but rather there
is reciprocal assimilation..." (1972a: 93)'.
The references should be listed in full at the end of the article, in alphabetical order and in the following form:
(a) Journal article
Liebenstein, H. 1966: Allocative efficiency versus x-efficiency. American Economic Review 61, 392-415.
(ie, no quote marks around the title of the article and minimum capitalization).
(b) Book
Olson, M. 1965: The logic of collective action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
(c) Article in a book
Wiesbrod, B.A. 1965: Geographic spillover effects and the allocation of resources to education. In Margolis, J., editor, The public economy of urban communities, Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 33-50.
(d) Book in a series
Bunge, W. 1966: Theoretical geography, second edition. Lund Studies in Geography, Series C, General and Mathematical Geography 1, Lund: Gleerup.
If several papers by the same author and from the same year are cited, a, b, c etc. should be added to the year of publication (eg, 1972a, 1972b etc.).
The use of the phrase et al. (= et alia) to indicate multiple authorship should be used in the text, for references after the first one. It should not be used in the list of references, where all names should be given.
Journal titles should not be abbreviated.
Proofs:
Proofs will be supplied in the form of a PDF sent via e-mail. You will be given approximately 3 days to check your proofs and return any corrections to SAGE. Please remember that if you return corrections even a few days after the date stipulated, it may be too late to include them in the final version of the journal.
Journal Contributor's Publishing Agreement:
Before publication SAGE requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor's Publishing Agreement. SAGE's Journal Contributor's Publishing Agreement is a exclusive licence agreement which means that the author retains copyright in the work but grants SAGE the sole and exclusive right and licence to publish for the full legal term of copyright. Exceptions may exist where an assignment of copyright is required or preferred by a proprietor other than SAGE. In this case copyright in the work will be assigned from the author to the society. For more information please visit our Frequently Asked Questions on the SAGE Journal Author Gateway.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests Policy:
Within your Journal Contributor's Publishing Agreement you will be required to make a certification with respect to a declaration of conflicting interests. Progress in Physical Geography does not require a declaration of conflicting interests but recommends you review the good practice guidelines on the SAGE Journal Author Gateway.
English Language Editing Services: Please click here for information on professional English language editing services recommended by SAGE.
