Instructions to Authors

Contents:

1. General Information
2. Editorial Policies
3. Publication Charges
4. Guidelines for Preparing Manuscripts
5. Reference Styles
6. How to Submit Your Paper

General information

Numeracy, the online journal of the National Numeracy Network, seeks:

• research articles, notes and reviews;
• evidence-based case studies;
• analyses and primers of methodologies;
• commentaries and issue papers;
• reviews of books and other educational resources; and
• commentaries/replies.

On all topics relating to quantitative literacy, including:

• theories of teaching and learning;
• assessment;
• classroom practice;
• curriculum improvement;
• educational resources;
• faculty development; and
• policy issues.

In all fields that need to cope with a world awash in numbers, such as:

• Mathematics
• Statistics
• Natural sciences
• Social sciences
• Mass communication
• Humanities
• Fine arts
• Business and industry
• Engineering
• Education
• Medicine, nursing and public health.

For a range of online readers that includes:

• faculty and administrators at two- and four-year colleges and universities;
• faculty and administrators at K-12 institutions;
• policy-makers at all levels; and
• others who have a stake in the quantitative literacy of the educated public.

Numeracy is hosted for the National Numeracy Network by the USF Libraries, which is committed to ensuring that peer-reviewed research is Open Access. Thus Numeracy is freely and universally accessible online and its authors retain copyright, allowing anyone to reproduce or disseminate articles, according to the copyright and licensing agreement. The journal will be archived at USF and at a backup repository.

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Editorial Policies

Manuscripts cannot have been previously published or be currently submitted elsewhere for publication while in review for Numeracy, although manuscripts may have been deposited on a preprint server. Manuscripts that are derived from papers presented at conferences can be submitted unless they have been published as part of the conference proceedings in a peer-reviewed journal. Authors are required to ensure that no material submitted as part of a manuscript infringes existing copyrights, or the rights of a third party.

Manuscripts must be submitted by one of the authors of the manuscript, and should not be submitted by anyone on their behalf. The submitting author takes responsibility for the article during submission and peer review. Submission of a manuscript to Numeracy implies that all authors have read and agreed to its content, and that any human-subjects research that is reported in the manuscript has been performed with the approval of an appropriate institutional review board.

Peer-Review Process

The peer-review process is designed to ensure that Numeracy publishes outstanding scholarship. One of the Editors will manage the manuscript. The manuscript's managing Editor will collect reviews and recommendations from at least three reviewers including at least one Associate Editor with respect to four possible outcomes: 1) accept without revision, 2) accept after revision without further external review, 3) neither accept nor reject until author(s) make revisions and resubmit, 4) reject. The reviews will be “single blind” but not “double blind” (i.e., reviewers will know the identity of the authors, but not vice versa, unless the reviewer self-identifies in the review). The manuscript’s managing Editor will make the decision on outcome and advise the author through the bepress system. The ultimate responsibility for all decisions lies with the two Editors, to whom any appeals should be addressed.

Guest editorials, reviews of books and other educational materials, and commentaries and replies will normally be reviewed by only one or both of the Editors.

Publication Charges

The National Numeracy Network will charge an article-processing fee of $500 per article accepted for publication. Fees may be waived in whole or in part upon request. Authors who are members of NNN or are from institutions or corporations that are members of NNN may have their annual dues applied toward these publication charges.

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Guidelines for Preparing Manuscripts

Manuscripts must be submitted in English (American or British). Authors are required to submit manuscripts as a high-quality PDF (Adobe's Portable Document Format), or a Microsoft Word or RTF file that will be converted by bepress into a PDF document.

Title and Abstract

• Do not include title, author(s) and abstract on the uploaded text; i.e., begin the document with the introduction. The bepress system will produce a title page and abstract page from information you supply when you submit the manuscript.
• Avoid long titles. We prefer titles (including subtitle) with fewer than 90 characters (including punctuation and spaces) and will object to titles longer than 120 characters.
• Use a colon (rather than a dash) to separate title from the subtitle, if you have one.
• Prepare an informative, 100–250-word abstract. All papers, including reviews of books and educational resources, but excluding editorials and commentaries/reviews, must have abstracts. The bepress system displays the abstract in a prominent position, and many readers will make their decision about downloading or proceeding further in the PDF on what they find in the abstract. It is important that the abstract be substantive; it must include sufficient information that the reader learns the method and findings of the study. Abstracts that are merely teases, previews or promises will not be accepted.

Main Text

• Do not include page numbers, headers or footers. The bepress system will add the appropriate information, including a running head that you supply during the submission process.
• For matters of style, consult The Chicago Manual of Style.
• Use the following style formats (see Issue 1):

• Page size: 8.5 x 11 inches.
• Margins (left, right, top, and bottom): 1.5 inches (3.8 cm), including tables and figures.
• Line spacing: single space, except to set off block quotations, equations and special remarks. Do not insert extra space between paragraphs.
• Layout: single column, right-justified if possible.


• Fonts

• Main body: 12-point New Times Roman.
• Footnotes: 10-point New Times Roman.

• Headings: Left-justified

• 1st-order: 16-point Arial, bold.
• 2nd-order: 14-point Arial, bold, italics.

• Indents:

• First paragraph after heading: no indent.
• Subsequent paragraphs: 2-em.

• Block quotations: block indent 0.5 inch from both left and right margins.

• Use the following document structure:

• Introduction
• Subsequent sections
• Acknowledgments
• References
• Appendices (if any)

• In the Introduction, orient the reader with respect to the intellectual context of the paper, including up-to-date literature citations.
• Use footnotes, rather than end notes, for brief, extra information, including Web site URLs that are not included in the references. Number the footnotes consecutively through the document.
• Do not hyperlink the URLs.
• Use a brief closing statement to acknowledge significant contributions by professional associates (including students where appropriate), permission to publish by employer, financial support, and reviews. For Acknowledgment heading, use 14-point, bold, New Times Roman.
• Use italics to indicate text you wish to emphasize, rather than underlining it. Similarly, use italics rather than underlining for unusual foreign terms, and titles of books, journals, and movies.
• Use abbreviations sparingly if at all. They can be defined when first used or in a list of abbreviations preceding the acknowledgments and references.

Literature Citations

• Cite reference in text by author(s) name and year (e.g., Jones 1999) (no comma between name and year). For multiple references by the same author in the same year, the letters a, b, and c after the year can be used (e.g., Jones 1999a and 1999b). Papers with multiple authors should be cited in the text using "et al." (e.g., Jones et al. 1999).
• At the end of the paper, list alphabetically by author(s) name in chronological order.
• Use the reference style of The Chicago Manual of Style (see Reference Styles).
• Do not write references as footnotes. Footnotes may include citations to references in the References section.
• Check to be sure that every reference that is cited in text, footnotes, tables and figure captions is listed in the References section.
• Any 'in press' articles cited within the references and necessary for the reviewers' assessment of the manuscript must be made available if requested by the editorial office.

Figures and Table

• Anticipate that in the published document all tables and figures will need to fit within 1.5-inch margins on all sides (top, bottom, left and right), whether portrait or landscape. Large tables or figures will be on pages by themselves, but they will need to be within the 1.5-inch margins. Avoid small font in the tables.
• For the review manuscript, include the figures and tables at the end of the submitted manuscript. Indicate in the text the approximate location where the figure or table should appear (e.g., “Figure 1 about here,” set off by horizontal lines across the page). Include the figure caption with the figure.
• For the final manuscript, you will need to submit the figures in separate files in TIF format or EPS format with embedded fonts. The published figures must have a resolution of at least 300 dpi (dots per inch). Here are some tips for preparing your figures:


• Avoid making prescreened line art (art containing gray shading). It is nearly impossible to digitize these images accurately without creating “blotchy” patterns. If you must use gray shading: generate the image at line screens of 85 lines per inch or lower; apply gray in steps no closer that 20 percent; do not use levels of gray below 20 percent or above 70 percent.
• Use thick, solid lines no finer than 1 point in thickness.
• Use bold, solid, sans serif type for lettering. At 100 percent, no type should be smaller than 6 point.
• Figures must have captions. Tables must have titles.
• Figure captions should consist of the following parts: Figure number (consecutive Arabic numerals – e.g., Figure 1, [spelled out]); figure title; explanation and discussion, if important, up to 300 words.
• Every figure and table must be referenced in the text. For figures, use “Fig.” when referring to a figure in parentheses; otherwise spell it out (“Figure”).

Mathematics

• Type short mathematical expressions inline. Longer expressions should appear as display math. Also expressions using different levels (e.g., such as fractions) should be set as display math. Important definitions or concepts can also be set off as display math.
• Number equations sequentially. Number them on the right.
• Italicize Roman letters used as variables in mathematical expressions. Roman letters used as part of multi-letter function names should not be italicized. Whenever possible, subscripts and superscripts should be a smaller font size than the main text.
• Avoid unusual fonts for notation and symbols. This will not only enhance the clarity of the manuscript, but it will also help ensure that it displays correctly on the screen and prints correctly. When proofing your document under PDF pay particular attention to the rendering of the mathematics, especially symbols and notation drawn from other than standard fonts.

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Reference Styles

Examples (following The Chicago Manual of Style)

Article within a journal

• Baker, J., and S. Sugden. 2003. Spreadsheets in education: The first 25 years. Spreadsheets in Education. 1:18-43. [http://www.sie.bond.edu.au/articles/1.1/bakersugden.pdf].
• Elmore, R. F. 1996. Getting to scale with good educational practice. Harvard Educational Review 66(1): 1-26.
• McBurney, D. H., S. J. C. Gaulin, T. Devineni, and C. Adams. 1997. Superior spatial memory of women: Stronger evidence for the gathering hypothesis. Evolution and Human Behavior. 18:165-174, doi: 10.1016/S1090-5138(97)00001-9.

Book chapter, article within a book, or article within conference proceedings

• Diezmann, C., and L. English. 2001. Promoting the use of diagrams as tools for thinking. In The Roles of Representation in School Mathematics, 2001 Yearbook, ed. A. Cuoco and F. Curcio, 77-89. Reston Va: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.
• Kastens, K.A. and T. Ishikawa. 2006. Spatial thinking in the geosciences and cognitive sciences: A cross-disciplinary look at the intersection of the two fields. In Earth and Mind: How Geologists Think and Learn about the Earth, ed. C. Manduca and D.W. Mogk, 53-76. Geological Society of America Special Paper 413. Boulder: Geological Society of America.
• Hughes-Hallett, D. 2003. The role of mathematics courses in the development of quantitative literacy. In Quantitative Literacy: Why Numeracy Matters for Schools and Colleges, ed. B. Madison and L. A. Steen, 91-98. The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, National Council on Education and the Disciplines. [http://www.maa.org/Ql/pgs91_98.pdf]

Complete book

• Anderson, J., and T. Swanson. 2005. Understanding our Quantitative World. Washington DC: Mathematical Association of America.
• Tolchinsky, L. 2003. The Cradle of Culture and What Children Know about Writing and Numbers before being Taught. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
• Tufte, E. R. 2001. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. 2nd ed. Cheshire, Conn.: Graphics Press, 197 pp.

Edited or compiled volume

• Gaither, C. C. and A. E. Cavazos-Gaither, comps. 1996. “Statistically Speaking”: A Dictionary of Quotations. Bristol, England: Institute of Physics Publishing.
• Grissmer, D. W. and J. M. Ross, eds. 2000. Analytic Issues in the Assessment of Student Achievement. Washington D.C.: U. S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics.
• Kelly, A. E. and R. A. Lesh, eds. 2000. Handbook of Research Design in Mathematics and Science Education. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
• Steen, L.A., exec. ed. 2001. Mathematics and Democracy: The Case for Quantitative Literacy. The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, National Council on Education and the Disciplines. [http://www.maa.org/Ql/mathanddemocracy.html]

Book with institutional author

• National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). 2000. Principles and Standards for School Mathematics. Reston, Va.: NCTM
• National Research Council. 2002. Scientific Research in Education. Committee on Scientific Principles in Education Research. Ed. J. Shavelson and L. Towne. Center for Education. Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.
• Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). 1998. Literacy Skills for the Knowledge Society. Washington, DC: OECD.

PhD dissertation

• Liu, Y. 2005. Teachers’ understanding of probability and statistical inference and their implications for professional development. Ph.D. diss., Vanderbilt University. [http://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/~iase/publications/dissertations/05.liu.Dissertation.pdf]

Published abstract

• Vacher, H. L. and S. Patterson. 2006. Quantitative vs. mathematical literacy as illustrated by geoscience education [abstract]. Geological Society of America Annual Meeting Paper 204-6. [http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2006AM/finalprogram/abstract_114880.html].

Link / URL

• Briggs, W. Quantitative Literacy/Reasoning [http://www.math.cudenver.edu/~wbriggs/qr/qrtop.html]
• International Statistical Literacy Association (ISLA). International Statistical Literacy Project [http://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/~iase/islp/home].

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How to Submit Your Paper

New Account

To register a new account, click "Submit Article" in the sidebar. Then click on "Create Free Account" and enter your first and last name, e-mail address, and preferred password. You should receive immediately a confirmation e-mail at the address you provided (you may need to check your Junk mail); click in the link in the e-mail and proceed with your submission if ready. If you attempt to create an account at an address already in the system, you will be sent your password as a reminder. If you require assistance, contact the Journal Staff at .

Initiating the Process

Start the manuscript submission process by pressing the "Submit Article" link on the home page. If you have a bepress account, log-in and press “Continue.” If you do not have an account, you will need to register. After you have logged in, you will see a page listing the essentials you will need to complete the process: title, a separate abstract (for articles, perspectives and book reviews, not for guest editorials and commentaries/replies); and the manuscript in Word, RTF, or PDF. After reviewing the required elements, press “Continue.” Then review the Article Submission Agreement and the Copyright Agreement, and press “Accept.” (Pressing “Decline” dead-ends the process.)

Completing the Process

Review and, if necessary, correct the information about you, the first author, and press “Continue” (if you are not the first author, you can reorder the authors after they are all entered). Follow the prompts on the next page to enter all your co-authors and end with “Continue” to reach the main upload page. Fill in the boxes for the following and then submit.

• Title (headline capitalization)
• Running head (a shorter version of the title, max 60 characters)
• Key words (optional)
• Subject (select one or more from a list)
• Type of article (select one from list: Article, Perspective, Book Review, Comment or Reply, Editorial, other)
• Abstract (upload or type)
• Article (upload. If you upload a Word or RTF document, bepress will convert it to PDF and send it to you for checking.)
• Cover letter (purpose and anticipated contribution to QL education)

A completion screen will provide you with a four-digit manuscript number for your manuscript. The system will send you an e-mail to confirm when it has converted to PDF. Please check over the PDF carefully to ensure the conversion was satisfactory and that the manuscript is ready for review. If no revisions are necessary, you do not need to notify the editor. If revisions are necessary, go to your My Account page, click on the submission title, and then use the "Revise submission" link to provide a revised version. Both you and the editor assigned to your submission will be notified when the revision has been uploaded, so there is no need to confirm with the editor.

Later

You can update your Profile (e.g., Password, E-mail, Name, Institutional Affiliation) from the home page: http://services.bepress.com/numeracy/. Click “My Account.” Then

• Log in to the site with your E-mail address and Password.
• Click: Log In.
• Click: Edit Profile.
• Complete or update the fields on this screen to update your profile.
• Please note: if you change your password, you will have to log in again using the new password.
• Click: Update.

If you forget your password, click on “Forget your password?” on the login page.

You can also upload a new submission from the “My Account” page: Click “Upload” to start the process.

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