STYLE GUIDELINES FOR AUTHORS

OF EEPSEA RESEARCH REPORTS

INTRODUCTION

The best final reports from EEPEA-sponsored projects are published as EEPSEA Research Reports. The series is intended to be a high-quality product, professionally edited and attractively presented. We hope that it will appeal to a wide audience that includes not only academics but government officials, NGOs, the media, and others.

These guidelines are intended to simplify the process of preparing a manuscript for the Research Report series. They consist of written instructions and a template into which the manuscript should be entered. The guidelines provide detailed instructions on formatting, with examples and sample pages, as well as suggestions on writing style.

The main thing to bear in mind when preparing the manuscript is to communicate – to tell a story to the reader and convey a clear message. At the end of a long research project involving months of surveys and data collection, we all have a tendency to treat the final report as an archive into which we deposit all the information we have collected. Once we have accomplished this, we feel our work is complete – the data has been safely stored for future generations of scholars to examine!

But when we read a report ourselves, we rarely treat it like a visit to a museum. We don’t want to spend hours walking the aisles, examining data exhibited on dusty shelves. We want to find out as easily as possible what the author’s message is. What is the environmental problem? How serious is it? What should be done about it?

For this reason, an EEPSEA Research Report should be brief – no more than 50 single-spaced pages in 12 point font; preferably less. Data should be included to support the conclusions and recommendations, but only the most relevant data. Remember that the reader is probably not a specialist in this field, so the report needs to be written in clear, simple language. Among other things, this means defining or explaining specialized terms the first time they are used and taking special care with the Executive Summary and Conclusions. Often these are the only sections of the report the reader actually reads! These sections must be free of jargon and be readily understandable to any educated person.

This is not a style of report writing most of us are taught in university. In fact, most of us are not taught much about report writing at all. The best way to learn it is by reading good reports and noticing what is good about them. Usually they are relatively short; include only the most important data and present it a simple format (e.g. tables with only a few numbers in them); and have a clear, logical flow to their arguments. They tell us what is novel about the study, catch our interest in the first paragraph, and tell us most of what we need to know in the last couple of pages. If you write with your reader in mind, you can’t go wrong!

David Glover

Director, EEPSEA – January, 2002

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Spell out numbers from one to nine in full and use numerals for larger numbers.

Examples

nine rabbits; two trees; 16 parts; 30 provinces.

Exceptions

1. With a standard unit of measure* or its abbreviation.

Examples

3 hours; 18 mm; 300 kg

* Never abbreviate a unit of measure without a numeral before it unless it is in brackets.

Examples

The area of the field was measured in ha. (Wrong)

The area of the field was measured in hectares. (Right)

The area of the field was measured (in ha). (Permissible)

2. For dates, expressions of time (i.e., hours, days, months, years, etc.), a page number, a percentage, a decimal quantity, or a numerical designation.

Examples

7 January, 2001; 0815 hours; page 179; 27%; 37.6 g; a magnification of 50.

3. In a series containing numbers of 10 or above, and some less than 10, use numerals for all.

Example

The 7 orange trees, 9 papaya trees, and 20 banana trees were treated six times with the chemical.

The same rule in 1. above applies to ordinal numbers and to numbers with “-fold”.

Third, ninth, 10^th, 33^rd, 51^st, threefold, ninefold, 10-fold, 30-fold.

1. Write numbers above 999 with commas – e.g. 1,000 – both in text and tables.

Exceptions

• Years, e.g.: 1992, 2008.
• Very large numbers: substitute a word or a power of 10 for part of the number or select an appropriate unit of measurement.

$6 million or $6 x 10 ⁶ (not $6,000,000); 23 mg (not 0.000,023 g)

2. Note the difference between the American and British definitions of billion and trillion:

American system: One billion is 10⁹ and one trillion is 10¹² .

British system: One billion is 10¹² and one trillion is 10¹⁸ .

EEPSEA follows the American system.

Fifty samples were taken. (right)

50 samples were taken. (wrong)

Fifty (50) samples were taken. (wrong)

Fractions should be hyphenated when spelt out.

One-third, four-fifths, etc.

Use hyphens in adjectives that contain numbers. 

A 16-hectare field; a 90-page book.

Use standard metric units such as tonnes (not tons) and their respective abbreviations, as listed in section E.2.

All figures should have a numeral before the decimal point, even if it is zero.

0.46 not .46

Use decimal points rather than the European convention of commas to denote decimals.

8.34 not 8,34

4.732 m would be rounded down to 4.73 m or 4.7 m.

5.678 ha would be rounded up to 5.68 ha or 5.7 ha.

Use the word “per” rather than a solidus or symbols (as in: ha^-1). Do not use the solidus after %.

3.5% per year

When reporting numbers in a nonscientific context: “IDRC staff work 37.5 hours/week”.

When abbreviations are used

e.g. “Fertilizer at 3 t of nitrogen per hectare” should be written as “… 3 t N/ha.”

But, do not use the solidus twice with one number.

3.5 kg/person per year

Currency abbreviations should come before the number, with a space separating the two.

USD 120

MYR 1.1 million

VND 14,000

When quoting a currency exchange rate: 14,000 VND = 1 USD (as it reads more naturally).

All dates should be expressed in the following standard format (note the position of the comma):

12 July, 2002

• All figures and tables should be aligned to the left margin, not centred.

• Use Word styles for all table and graphics titles (see template guide for details), e.g. Table Header / Figure Header / Appendix Table Header, as appropriate.
• Type titles in upper and lower case, i.e. only the first word, nouns and verbs have initial capital letters.
• Entitle a chart, picture, map, diagram, drawing, etc. as a “Figure”. A graph may be entitled as a “Graph” if there are only graphs and tables in the Report – entitle a graph as a “Figure” if there are other figures in the document. Always entitle a table as a “Table”.
• Titles should include Contents, Agent, Place and Time (not units) and should be kept brief. Add notes or footnotes if necessary.
• Position table titles above tables and figure titles below (i.e. as captions) figures. Both types are left-aligned and should be formatted as follows:

• Table/Figure + number + full-stop/period + tab + description (no full-stop at the end)

Example

• Table 9. CRM Activities Undertaken by the Seven LGUs, 1995-1998

• Within tables, use italics for titles.

* See section F.13. for more on titles/headings.

• Font should be Times New Roman (TNR) – maximum size 12 pt.
• Use the same font size for similar tables.
• If there is a need to reduce the font size to fit the table onto one page, the minimum font size allowed is TNR 9 pt.

• Box all graphics and tables with a 1pt line – this gives them more definition as ‘units’ separate from the text.
• Within tables, keep the vertical and horizontal lines to a minimum and as light as possible (hairline weight).

• Try to position illustrations so that the reader does not have to turn the page sideways to view the illustration, i.e. use portrait rather than landscape orientation.

• Dates indicating the period that the data covers should always appear at the end of the title.
• A dash between dates implies the presence of data for the years stated and the intervening years.

• All tables, graphs and figures should be numbered consecutively as follows: Figure 1, Figure 2, and so on; Table 1, Table 2, and so on.

• Tables should be contained within one page as far as possible. Avoid large tables which run on to another page. Try to separate them into smaller tables, which are easier for the reader to grasp, or provide summary tables.
• If a table does have to run on to the next page, indicate with “(continued)” at the bottom right-hand corner of the first page in italics. “Table N. continued” replaces the title above the continuation of the table. “Table N. concluded” replaces the title above the last part of the table.

• Use exactly the same layout, spacing and font size as far as possible.
• The same principal applies to graphs.

• Use the template’s “Note (RR)” style (10 pt) and position the note immediately below the appropriate figure or table.
• The sequence and format is as follows:

• Source: Boardman et al. (1996)

• Note: Text of the note for the table/figure.

• Table/figure footnotes are indicated in superscript. Use a different numbering system (e.g. a, b, c) from the rest of the document’s page footnotes as follows:

• ^a Text of the footnote for the table/figure.

• Both graph axes must be labelled clearly (using not less than TNR 9 pt).
• Remember to check the spelling of all labels, as often graphs and figures are not easily edited at a later production stage.

• These are provided below the table, figure or map, as applicable.
• All maps must have a North arrow and a scale.
• Give any scale in a bar form so that it changes with the scale of the drawing during reduction or enlargement.

• Ensure maps, diagrams, drawings, pictures or graphs are large and clear enough to be read easily, and do not contain dark or coloured shading, as this does not reproduce well in black & white.
• Text within figures should also be between 9-12 pt size (TNR).
• Titles should not be included within the box border, but above or below it. (See 2. above.)
• When using illustrations from external sources, e.g. maps, please provide these as a separate file – or even a good-quality hard copy – if possible, and label them clearly to enable the best print reproduction.

• Provide a separate listing of tables, figures or graphs on the page entitled “List of Tables” and “List of Figures”. This page comes after the “Table of Contents” page/s. See Appendix 3 for a layout example. The template contains a Table of Figures style to format these lists automatically.

• If you need to insert a tab within a table cell, e.g. between a bullet point and its related text, you can press Ctrl+Tab key. (Pressing the Tab key alone will take you to the next cell, not insert a tab space.)
• Avoid using the space bar to align text!

• Cite only surname and year (e.g. Ebarvia 1997). Initials of name and commas after surnames are not necessary.
• Commas separate the years (if more than one) and semicolons separate the authors (e.g. Carter 1983, 1994; Jackson 1997).
• All references cited in the text must be listed in full in the References section at the back of the Research Report (see section D.2. below for details). Check that citations correspond.
• Names of publications, newspapers, etc. appear in italics in text citations, but not in the References section.

• Cite both (or all), e.g. (Francisco and Glover 2001)

• Use only surname of first author and add “et al.” Followed by the year, e.g. “Lutz et al. 1997”.
• However, full citation of all authors (if known) should be given in the References section at back (see section D.2. below).

• Initials must be included to differentiate them, e.g. (Smith, J. 1975; Smith, K. 1975).

• List as a, b, c, etc., e.g. (Smith 1975a, b, c, 1978; Brown 1976).

• Quote separately, e.g. (Smith et al. 1998; Smith et al. 1999), and not (Smith et al. 1998, 1999).

• Use the following abbreviations:

• (Grey 1975, pp. 172-184)

• (Grey 1975, p. 156)

• (Grey 1975, fig. 10)

• (Grey 1975, tab. 14)

• If year is unknown, state as follows: (Jones n.d.) – n.d. stands for “no date”.
• If you do not know the year of publication, but can make an educated guess, use square brackets to enclose the date, e.g.: Smith [1990] states…

• For automatic formatting of the References Section, use the “References” style provided in the template (see Template Guide for instructions).
• All references cited in the text must be cited in full in this section, unless cited as a footnote on the appropriate page in the document proper (see l) below).
• List references in alphabetical order.
• Arrange in year sequence (oldest to most recent) where an author has more than one entry (see k) below).
• Type references with full punctuation.
• Do not have a numbered or bulleted list. Numbering is only allowed if there is reference in the text to this list (for example, in footnotes).
• If the first authors’ family names are the same, then look to the second (then third, and so on) in order to select who comes next on the list.
• No italics except for scientific names (see also e)* below for a further exception).
• No underlining or inverted commas necessary.
• No brackets for years.

• Names are cited in the following order:

• Family name of Author 1, Initials for first name(s) of Author 1; Initials of first name(s) of Author 2 followed by his family name; and Initials of first name(s) of Author 3 followed by his family name. + date (and so on…)

Cruz, W.; M. Munasinghe; J. J. Warford. 1997. (and so on…)

•  
  
  Use semicolons to separate authors; only full-stops, no spaces, after each initial, and the word “and” before the last author in the list.
• See n) below for exception to the name order, i.e. cases where the family name comes first.

• Author(s). Year of publication. Title of article. Title of periodical. Volume number. Issue number (if available). Inclusive page numbers.

• Author(s) or Editor(s). Year of publication. Title of book (edition number). Publisher. City and country of publication. Number of pages (if known).

• Author(s). Year of publication. Title of chapter or article. Editor(s), In title of book*. Publisher, city and country of publication. Report number (if exists) inclusive page numbers.

• * Note “In” in italics.

• Author(s). Year of meeting. Title of paper. Title of meeting, dates of meeting, location of meeting. Sponsoring agency, city and country of location. Number of pages.

• Author(s). Year. Title. University or agency name and address. Type of thesis or identification number of report. Number of pages.

• List by the acronym form first followed by the spelt-out form in brackets.

• Example

• ADB (Asian Development Bank)

• Leave a space for where the author’s name should appear followed by the year and normal publication citation.

• State as follows: Jones, P.R. n.d.

• (“n.d.” stands for “no date”)

• The author’s name is not repeated in subsequent citations. His/her name is represented by a half-inch line (6 underscores: ______ ) followed immediately by the year of publication (no period/full-stop) and so forth.
• Citations should appear in year sequence (earliest to latest).

• References from the Reference List or Bibliography should never be repeated as footnotes.

• Where the title for a reference is a translation, the original language should be noted as the last element in the reference, e.g. “…citation in English….. (In Thai.)”
• If the original language is used, do not give the language note.

• Note that names of Chinese, Vietnamese and other Asian nationalities appear differently to the order given in b) above. The family name is given first, e.g. Wang Wu Cheng and Chan Lai Shan. The correct citation is therefore: Wang, W.C.; Chan, L.S.

• “Ed” need not be in brackets.
• Use “ed” (i.e. in the singular) even where there is more than one editor.

• The full citation should be given the first time an abbreviation / acronym appears in the text. Thereafter, use of only the abbreviation / acronym is acceptable.

• Example

•  All local government units (LGUs) were involved…

• It is advisable to include full citations, even for commonly used scientific abbreviations, for the benefit of readers who do not have a science background If the Research Report contains a large number of abbreviations and acronyms, these should be listed as an appendix for easy reference.
• Use only standard abbreviations. For example, do not use “yr” for “year”. Use abbreviations sparingly.
• Use as few full-stops (periods) in abbreviations as possible, e.g. IDRC not I.D.R.C. Use them only when it is necessary to prevent ambiguity. See Section F.2. for exceptions.
• Avoid Latin-based abbreviations, such as i.e., e.g., and etc. Write these out in full where necessary, or re-structure the sentence accordingly.
• Do not use full-stops for international codes, such as metric or country abbreviations.

• Examples

•  UK, US, USA, 10 kg, and 25 km.

(Source: US Metric Association’s Guide to the Use of the Metric System)

*  Note the use of superscript here.

**  The USA uses a capital L as the preferred symbol for litre, but both forms are correct. Whichever is used, ensure consistency throughout the Research Report.

• Use of either British or American English (spelling) is acceptable provided use is standardized throughout the document.
• This does not apply to numerals, e.g. billion, etc. – see section B.3.
• Use simple words.
• Vary sentence length.
• Avoid highly complex or convoluted sentences.
• Keep use of jargon to a minimum. It is advisable to provide a short definition of technical terms for the benefit of lay readers, and explain all acronyms/abbreviations.
• As Research Reports are scientific documents, it is important to always be specific as far as possible. Try to avoid language which creates uncertainty about your research, e.g. “This method may be quite applicable.” Do not use the words “may” or “quite” in this context: state whether the method is in fact applicable or not. Another example: “XYZ site does not charge an admission fee or only charges a nominal price.” It has to be either one or the other, so state the fact clearly.

• Use full punctuation throughout the document except for headings, titles of tables/figures/etc, (these have only a full-stop/period after the Table/Figure number and not at the end of the description), and acronyms. (See Appendices 4 and 5 for examples of headings.)
• The following should be punctuated: Dr., Mr., i.e., e.g. and etc. (See section E. 1. for guidelines on using such abbreviations.)
• Bulleted or numbered points should be consistently punctuated: either all finishing with a full-stop or none. Ditto for notes.
• In the References section, no inverted commas around book titles.
• Use an em dash ( ¾ ) instead of a hyphen ( - ) to separate clauses and insert a space on either side of the em dash. An em dash can also be used as a substitute for parentheses.

• Common terms like “et al” no longer need to be in italics.
• Scientific names of species, etc. should be in italics.
• Titles of publications in the text are in italicized but not in the References section.

• Do not suddenly introduce new data/terms/jargon into the text without explaining their meaning or source. Explanation and uniformity are important for clarity.

• Standardize the terminology used throughout your Research Report and ensure it is the correct terminology (especially when using economics terms, so as not to alienate economists who will be reading the finished document). Do not fluctuate from one form to another in the same document, e.g., “the revealed preference approach” / “revealed preferences method” / “primary data method” / “direct method” – in this case provide an explanation that the revealed preferences approach is a direct approach in primary data collection.
• Another example: if one introduces a certain system as a “baseline system”, do not suddenly refer to it as “basal system” or “basic system” elsewhere in the text. The last two forms are not only erroneous but will also confuse the reader. The same principle applies to words like “method”/“model”, “corn”/“maize”, “travel cost”/“travel costs”, and “transaction costs”/transactions cost”.

• Ensure that headings and sub-headings are logically ordered, i.e. headings of the same level of importance are formatted the same, so that the reader can navigate easily through the document. Using the Research Report template’s pre-formatted styles will assist in this.
• The form of headings should be consistent. For example if the title of a table reads as: “Table 12. Cost-benefit Analysis Indicators for XYZ Project”, then the title for a similar table should read as “Table 13. Cost-benefit Analysis Indicators for ABC Project” and not “ Table 13. Cost-benefit Analysis: ABC Project” or any other such variation.

• Ensure consistency throughout the document. For example, if one refers to “City A and City B” in this sequence in a heading, then City A should be treated first in discussion, related tables, etc.
• Make sure items in bullet points and lists are grammatically parallel, e.g. to describe three activities, write “planting, weeding, and fertilizing hedgerows”. Do not write “planting, weeding, and the fertilization of hedgerows” (all three items should be –ing-ending verbs). In other cases, items might all be nouns, all verbs, all infinitives, whatever – as long as all equally important ideas use the same form. This allows your reader to understand and follow your thoughts much faster.
• Standardise the romanisation of Chinese, Vietnamese, etc. place names within your document, e.g. “Ha Long Bay” vs. “HaLong Bay” vs. “Halong Bay”. Be consistent in your choice.

• Watch out for confusing ambiguities which can create loopholes in your argument. For instance, it would be hard for a reader to understand that there are “methods a, b, and c” within “method X”. Use different terminology to distinguish between the two.
• Sometimes there is an inherent ambiguity in a situation. For example, there is a group of islands called the Langkawi Islands but within this group, there is also an island called Langkawi. The author should therefore make the reader aware of this situation at the outset (e.g. “Langkawi” in different contexts may refer either to the group of islands (short address) or the individual island itself). The author should take pains to avoid such ambiguity.
• Read through the final draft of your Research Report to check for contradictory statements, e.g. Section 1.0 states that an entrance fee of US$1 will be charged to tourists for using park facilities, yet Section 3.0 refers to the same entrance fee as being US$2 per tourist. Such inaccuracies undermine the credibility of the research.

• All equations must be supported with a key explaining what each symbol represents.
• Number equations sequentially through the Research Report.
• Show simple calculations for clarity.
• Multiplication sign: use “x”, an asterisk *, or a superscript period, e.g. a ^. b(c+1), however be consistent throughout.
• Make sure that all symbols are accurate (including correct use of sub- and superscript). Inconsistencies which occur in this area are not easily picked up at the proofreading stage.

• Avoid page cross-referencing as page numbers may change after typesetting. It is safer to refer to sections.
• Ensure text explaining tables or graphs, or equations using data from tables or earlier text, correspond exactly with the data in the tables/earlier text. This is in danger of being overlooked especially if there are revisions along the way.
• Ensure that corresponding changes are made to text / table of contents / lists of tables and figures affected by revisions. (Using the Word template and the automatic TOC function will minimise the risk of errors in this regard.)
• Ensure reference citations in the text coincide with those in the References section, i.e. the correct name (e.g. one citation having ‘et al.’, the other not) and year.

• Research Reports should contain an Executive Summary section before the Introduction section.
• Note that EEPSEA prefers the use of the term “Executive Summary” rather than “Abstract” (although they both have the same content in this context).

• Avoid repetition as far as possible. Try to concentrate data on a specific topic into one section / sub-section, for example, “Characteristics of the Study Site”, which can then be cross-referenced. This is preferable to repeating or spreading out information about the study site across different sections.

• Avoid incorporating too many different topics into one section. For instance, do not put “Review of Related Literature and Methodology” together in one section. Divide them into two separate sections, i.e. “Review of Related Literature” and “Methodology”.
• The same applies for the Introduction and Objectives of Study.

• Indicated by numerals starting with 1. in superscript (TNR 8 pt).
• Footnotes should be kept brief and to a minimum.
• Use the template’s Footnote Text style (TNR 10 pt).
• Acknowledgements should not be given as footnotes.
• References cited in the References section should not be repeated as footnotes.

• Keep headings brief (but meaningful).
• Headings in the body of the Research Report should be numbered to three levels only.
• From the fourth level onwards use bold + italics attributes, indenting as appropriate.
• Type all headings in both upper and lower case (i.e. only the first word, nouns and verbs have initial capital letters) – even those using the HEADER (CAPS) style, so that they appear correctly in the auto-generated Table of Contents.
• Place a tab stop between the heading/table/figure number and the description (do not use the space bar to move across).
• Do not put full-stops at the end of headings.

• Examples

• 1.0  First-level heading (centred)

•  1.1 First-level Subheading

•   1.1.1 Second-level Subheading

•    Fourth-level Subheading Onwards

•  Table 3. Tariff Rates for Logs

•  Figure 4. Production of Logs

• Use Body text (RR) style for this page.
• Avoid using bullet points.
• This page may be omitted or can be combined with the previous page containing the author contact details if the acknowledgements are very short.

Before sending your finished Research Report to EEPSEA for the final editing and layout production stages, please use the checklist below to ensure completeness.

Executive Summary

An applied general equilibrium model of the global trade in forest products has been used to assess the impact of tariff and export tax reductions on forestry, the wood processing sector and the agricultural sector. The focus of this study is on Malaysia and Indonesia and the implications for their forest resources. Three key results have emerged: firstly, trade liberalisation does not necessarily lead to increased log production since the real producer’s price does not always rise. Secondly, the Uruguay Round tariff changes may make forestry a less-attractive form of land use when compared with agriculture. Thirdly, the proliferation of log export barriers amongst tropical countries has a cartel-like effect; thus elimination of such barriers may be detrimental to tropical exporters.

Forests perform important environmental and ecological functions: they help prevent soil erosion, provide a habitat for wildlife, and hold much of the world’s biodiversity and carbon. In this way, forests are important elements in the process of climate change. With increased population pressure and rapid economic development, much of the world’s forestlands have been altered. Although the rate of alteration has now stabilised in the temperate and boreal regions, deforestation continues to be a problem in the tropics. Given the essential environmental functions of natural forests – in particular their role in the preservation of biodiversity and the reversal of climate change – their destruction is of significant global concern.

Table 1. Export Taxes on Forest Products Used in the Model (percentages)

4.0 Base year data

Data used in the model is divided into four groups: (1) production and trade, (2) input-output, (3) elasticities of substitution, and (4) trade barrier data. The sources of each group are outlined below. Only the data on substitution elasticities and trade barriers is presented in this paper, with the rest of the data being available from the author.

The year 1996 has been chosen for the analysis to avoid the results being affected by the Asian economic crisis, which began in mid-1997. The main source of data on the production, trade and direction of trade in logs, sawnwood and plywood is the FAO Yearbook of Forest Products (1997), supplemented by the UNCTAD-TRAINS Database which has a more detailed account of bilateral trade flows.

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References