Publication Guidelines

Author guidelines are below for InContext and the Indiana Business Review.

Article Length

• InContext: A typical article runs between 800-1,500 words with about 5 graphs or tables.
• Indiana Business Review: A typical article runs between 1,200 and 2,300 words with 4-6 graphs or tables.

Spreadsheet Guidelines

1. Always include at least one spreadsheet with your original data, calculations and graphic files (Note: we cannot use graphics you’ve simply pasted into a Word document or graphics that you have modified in Word.)

2. If you are working in software other than Excel (such as R), please export graphics as EPS files.

3. When pulling the data, be sure to include the source of your data. There are a couple ways to do so
   1. Preferred: A full URL to the data you pulled
   2. The name of the source (i.e., U.S. Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, etc.)
4. General notes for a good spreadsheet:
   1. If you pull a large amount of data, but only need a portion of it, create a copy of the full data set before deleting any cells/columns/rows/etc. This will make it easier to verify what you have pulled. Leave the full sheet as a separate tab labeled appropriately.
   2. Make your calculations within your spreadsheet, so we can see the cell references. We expect all authors to verify their own calculations are correct before sending us the files for publication, but these are useful to resolve any problems that arise during editing/verification.
   3. Please put graphics on individual tabs with their data.

Formatting Guidelines

1. Don’t capitalize the first letter of industry or occupation names within the text because these are not proper nouns (It is okay for them to use title capitalization in tables, however).
2. Round numbers to one decimal place.
3. Don’t manually add in footnotes. Use computers to your advantage and use Word's footnoting feature.
4. Use Word’s predefined heading styles for headings (i.e., don't underline or bold the normal paragraph font in order to make it look like a heading).
5. When referencing a figure in parenthesis within your text, format it as “(see Figure n)."
6. Use the Chicago Manual of Style for formatting citations. APA is also acceptable.

More Guidelines (for the authors who really want to impress us)

1. Don't use the serial comma (i.e., "apples, oranges and pears"— not "apples, oranges, and pears")
2. Spell out numbers one to nine and use numerals for everything 10 and above (unless it is a percent: percents always use numerals).
3. Don't capitalize every word in headings and don't type anything in all caps.
4. Write "United States" when using it as a noun, but "U.S." when it is used as an adjective (note the abbreviation uses periods, but no spaces.)