Types of article and word limits

Professional papers are in-depth articles of 2000 to 3500 words, and are double-blind peer reviewed. They should be grounded in current research evidence, policy or theoretical argument, and must demonstrate evidence of critical thinking and analysis.

General features are two pages long (1400 words) and aim to share professional experience about a specific project or service, or to discuss an issue around education, policy or practice.

Clinical updates are two or three pages long (either 1400 or 2100 words), and provide an up-to-date overview of a clinical issue.

Platforms are one-page (800-word) opinion pieces on any issue relevant to readers, written from an individual perspective.

Front lines are also one page (800 words), for authors to write in the first person about an aspect of their professional work, where sharing their experiences could give readers a valuable perspective.

Editing

The editor reserves the customary right to determine the priority and time of publication. Because of the large number of articles received publication may be delayed, although every effort is made to publish within nine months of acceptance. No payment is made, but authors of articles receive two complimentary copies of the journal.

Publication

The editor reserves the customary right to style and if necessary shorten material accepted to publication.

We hope this brief guide will be helpful. If you have any further queries please contact the editorial team of the journal.

General point: abbreviations

Spell out when first used in an article followed by initials in brackets
( )s, except Unite/CPHVA, UK, US, NHS, RCN, RCM and NMC.

General point: capitals

Lower case titles, eg, Unite/CPHVA director Mark Jones; the health secretary, Melanie Johnson.

Upper case for names of organisations, eg, the Department of Health.

Lower case for informal description: the health department.

The Green Paper; the White Paper.

The government is lower case: the Labour party is upper case.

Areas are capital if they are names in their own right, eg, the West End and the Highlands are correct, but North West London is not.

Nurse authors tend to capitalise everything related to their profession, eg, the Practice Nurse told the Health Visitor that Nursing was facing a crisis. Wrong. Lower case throughout.

General point: collective nouns

The government is singular, as is the trust, the hospital, the Conservative party, etc.

General point: compound words

When used as a noun, health care is two words, eg, health care in Britain. One word when used as an adjective: healthcare employees.

General points: dates

16 April 1999. The 21st century. The 1980s.

General points: diseases and conditions

Lower case unless named after a person: diabetes, Alzheimer's disease, Crohn's disease, Down syndrome

General point: hyphens

Use to clarify meaning, eg, high-school girl, not high schoolgirl, and to separate identical letters: co-operate; re-educate. Nouns formed from prepositional verbs; build-up; shake-up. Use in-patient and out-patient.

General point: italics

For anything which could be described as media TV programmes, films, books, magazine and journal titles, and reports, eg, the Health of the Nation.

Also for foreign words providing they have not become anglicised, eg, de rigueur, but status quo.

General point: numbers

One to nine inclusive are written out except in percentages (8% not 8 per cent or 8 percent). No comma in four-digit numbers (1000, 2345) but use one in numbers over 9999, eg, 10,000. Write out and hyphenate fractions: one-and-a-half. One in 50 to 100 15-year-olds.

General point: paragraphs

All indented except first and after each cross-head. Indent by hitting tab once.

Punctuation: colons

Use before a whole quoted sentence.

Pat Jackson said: 'The school nursing service is under threat.'

Note full stop within the quote mark at the end.

Similarly, the comma in the following sentence: 'The school nursing service is under threat,' she said. Avoid breaking quotes.

Punctuation: commas

Note: The director of the project, Mark Jones, said...

but: project director Mark Jones said...

References

Please check that references are complete and accurate before submitting an article. Failure to do so may cause delay in publication. References should be set out in the Vancouver style (see examples in recent copies of the journal and reference sheet). Essential information includes: author’s name and initials, full title of paper or book, publication date, volume number, and page numbers of the articles (first and last page).

Normally, references should not exceed 25 in number, often they will number far fewer.

References are an important part of most author’s articles and we hope the following information will be helpful. The principle of referencing is simple: to give a full reference to the source of your information.

References can cause no end of problems, but these are greatly reduced if a few simple rules are followed. In common with many other biomedical journals, CommunityPractitioner’s standardised system for references is the Vancouver system. This means the book or article is numbered in the text and listed in full at the end, eg, Smith's work on public health.1 (which speaks of a new era...’ The format is as follows:

References should be numbered in the order they appear in the text. References to articles in journals should be in the following order:

Author’s surname

initials

full title of article

name of journal (in full, not Abbreviated)

year

volume number

and last page numbers of article

References to books should be as follows:

Author's surname

initials

full title of book

city of publication

name of publisher

year of publication

and last page numbers of article

For example:
Illingworth RS. The normal child: some problems of the early years and their treatment. Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone, seventh edition, 1979.

Sometimes you may wish to refer to one particular chapter in a book which has the editor as the main author. This would appear as follows:

Smith ABC. Hearing tests in young children. In: Brown XYZ (ed). Developmental testing of the under fives. New York: Blenkinsop, 1980.

Note the number appears outside any punctuation and in superscript (under Format, then Font in 'Word'). Note also the punctuation used where the references are listed:Number (no full point but tab afterwards) Surname of author and initial.Book title. Place of publication: publisher, date.

Example
Smith P. The new agenda in public health. Oxford: Blackwell, 1989.If Smith P has a co-author: Smith P, Jones D

For journal articles, always give volume, issue and page numbers, although issue number is unnecessary where pages are numbered sequentially throughout the volume, as in the British Medical Journal.

Again, note punctuation. Journal titles are given in italics, as is et al, used when more than three authors are given.

Remember: if in doubt refer to a previous issue for examples.