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Guidelines for Authors
(Adapted, with permission, from Guidelines for Writers for the Evangelical
Missions Information Service, Wheaton, Illinois)
IJFM Distinctives
Prospective writers for the IJFM should recognize, and if possible, further
the Journal’s distinctives. The IJFM is published in the name of
the International Student Leaders Coalition for Frontier Missions, a fellowship
of younger leaders who are committed to the purposes of the twin consultations
of Edinburgh 1980: The World Consultation on Frontier Missions and the
International Student Consultation on Frontier Missions. As an expression
of the ongoing concerns of Edinburgh 1980, the IJFM seeks to:
- promote intergenerational dialogue between senior and junior mission
leaders.
- cultivate an international fraternity of thought in the development
of frontier missiology.
- highlight the need to maintain, renew, and create mission agencies
as vehicles for frontier mission.
- encourage multidimensional and interdisciplinary studies.
- foster spiritual devotion as well as intellectual growth.
- advocate “A Church for Every People.”
Mission frontiers, like other frontiers, represent boundaries or barriers
beyond which we must go yet beyond which we may not be able to see clearly
and boundaries which may even be disputed or denied. Their study involves
the discovery and evaluation of the unknown or even the reevaluation of
the known. But unlike other frontiers, mission frontiers is a subject
specifically concerned to explore and exposit areas and ideas and insights
related to the glorification of God in all the nations (peoples) of the
world, to open their eyes, to turn them from darkness to light and from
the power of Satan to God.
IJFM Readers
Subscribers and other readers of the IJFM come from a wide variety of
backgrounds. Mission professors, field missionaries, young adult mission
mobilizers, college librarians, mission executives, and mission researchers
all look to the IJFM for the latest thinking in frontier missiology.
Guidelines for Choosing Topics and Writing Articles:
Fresh ideas that:
(a) plow up new ground.
(b) fit the purposes of the Journal.
(c) are useful to our readers.
(d) contain keen insights, sound wisdom and judgment, and careful analysis
and interpretation.
(e) make interesting and compelling reading.
Missiological perspective and principles grounded in sound missiology.
Calls to commitment and involvement in frontier missions.
Practical Tips
1. Write to the editor first about your article, giving a brief summary
of what you propose to send, the subject matter, how you would treat it
and how many words you expect you may need for the article.
2. If you have sent your article to another publication, please indicate
which one. We don’t like to use another publication’s material
without permission.
3. When the editor gives you encouragement to proceed:
- Before you begin, please review the next section, “A Few Comments
on Text Formatting.”
- Type your article in your favorite word processor, but save it in
Rich Text Format (.rtf).
- Count the words and indicate the total at the top of first page.
- Enclose a biographical sketch.
- Include complete bibliographical data for all quoted materials.
- Indicate which Bible version(s) you are quoting.
- Write a brief (3-4 sentences) summary of your article (unless it
is a book review).
- E-mail your paper, as an attachment, either to the guest editor who
solicited your paper, or to ijfm@wciu.edu (if you are submitting your
paper on your own). If you need to communicate securely, contact us
for our public key.
- After your paper has been flowed into our layout program, we will
e-mail you a copy of your formatted article in PDF format for your final
review. You will have up to one week to respond with changes should
you notice any errors that were inadvertently introduced in the layout
process. If you do not own a copy of Acrobat Reader, please download
the latest version at http://www.adobe.com/prodindex/acrobat/readstep2.html.
A Few Comments on Text Formatting
Please observe the following guidelines (and thereby gain our enduring
gratitude):
- Do not double space after punctuation (or anywhere else). Please
run the Find & Replace function of your word processor to make sure
you have no double spaces.
- Do not indent paragraphs.
- Never underline anything.
- Use italics sparingly.
- Do not use all caps for headings or subheadings.
- Learn the difference between hyphens, en dashes and em dashes (these
aren’t exhaustive but will give you a start):
- For our purposes, the only place you ever use a hyphen is in compound
words like grace-oriented.
- En dashes are used to indicate a duration (8–10 A.M.; May–July)
[Mac: Opt+-; Windows: Alt 0150]
- Em dashes are used to set off phrases that contain many commas
or to mark an abrupt change in thought or sentence structure. [Mac:
Shift+Opt+-; Windows: Alt 0151]
- Please have three other people read your work and make suggestions/corrections
since even good proofreaders miss mistakes in their own work. We suggest
you use a spell checker and a grammar checker, but don’t rely on
them exclusively. Though helpful, they’re not perfect and are no
substitute for a good human eye.
- In general, spell out numbers below 10, use figures for numbers 10
and above, unless they begin a sentence. Example: Twenty people crowded
into my living room.
Technical Specifications
- 1. Normal maximum length of article: 8,500 words (six Journal pages).
- 2. Minimum length of article: 2,000 words (two Journal pages).
Note: One full journal page, without graphics or titles, etc., consists
of approximately 900 words.
Responsibilities of IJFM Staff
- To give your article a fair review.
- Our answer may not always be a “Yes” or “No”
but a “Maybe.” That means that we would either like to see
more revision or work done on your article, or we need more time to
see how various ideas jell and which other articles would cover that
subject.
- We are dealing with authors nowadays who are experienced writers
as well as computer users. We also do not have a large enough circulation
to justify the expense and delay attendant upon the common copy editing
done. Thus for the time being we will print any article which we accept
for its basic message without extensive copy editing. Please understand,
then, that typos, misspellings, and inelegant sentences will be left
as they are and that we will plainly state in each issue that we have
not added to the editing done by the authors. You will have one opportunity
for a pre-publication review of your article before it goes to press.
- We regret that we cannot pay honoraria at this stage of the Journal’s
life. If your article is accepted, we will provide you as a token of
our appreciation:
- 50 copies of your printed article,
- five copies of the issue in which it appears, and
- the opportunity to purchase additional copies of this issue at
50% discount. (If you wish to purchase a large number of these issues,
you would need to let us know before publication deadlines.)
For further information on guidelines and suggestions
for writers, contact:
Rory Clark, IJFM Editor
1605
E Elizabeth St
Pasadena,
CA 91104
Tel: (626) 398-2119
Fax: (626) 398-2337
E-mail: ijfm@wciu.edu
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