The Economists' Voice

Submission Instructions

Use the Submit an Article link in the right-hand navigation bar, after reading the Policies, also found on the right side of this page.

Final Manuscript Preparation Guidelines for The Economists' Voice

This guide is divided into Writing instructions and Technical Instructions. Please print off a published article or two before you begin and model yours on the existing articles.

Writing instructions

• Articles should be 600-2000 words; letters under 400.
• Use simple language; avoid jargon.
• Make the piece understandable to those with no economics degree. Aim for the accessability of a sophisticated Op-Ed article, without compromising the soundness of your argument.
• Write something interesting to a professional economist, a non-economist, and a policy junkie — yes, all at once.
• The article by Laurence J. Kotlikoff is an excellent guide for Economists' Voice writing style: please download it and have a look before you write, or as you revise.
• For an example of the Economists' Voice letter-writing style, please see a letter by David Heigham.
• Include supporting facts and statistics. Organizing an argument around one or two surprising facts is often a good approach.
• Intersperse a short sentence between one or more long ones.
• Write punchy prose.
• Avoid adjectives or adverbs when possible.
• Include a few subheadings to break up the text. Make these bold font.
• State a thesis early.
• Allow yourself time to edit your piece before sending it to us. Give it to a graduate student who writes well to edit if possible.
• Avoid contractions. Use "is not" in place of "isn't".
• After the text include a "References and further reading" section for those who wish to read more on the subject. An Acknowledgments section is optional.
• To provide a source for a specific fact or statistic, put the reference in the reference section together with a parenthetical such as "(Arguing for a larger capital gains tax)".
• Footnotes should be avoided.
• Include your institutional affiliation, city, state (if applicable), and country.

Technical instructions

• Please submit a Microsoft Word or RTF file. If using Microsoft Paragraph Styles, please turn off before submission.
• Begin with a Title, then the author(s) name(s), then the author bios. After this, begin the text. Divide text at appropriate points with headers.
• When citing an article in the text, instead of the academic style: "according to Tirole (2003)," use an op-ed style and write "according to a recent article by Jean Tirole".
• References must include author, title, source, date, and if applicable, and page numbers. If citing a URL, please check that it is current and correctly typed.
• Sample Article Citation: Last Name, First Name (Year) "Title," Journal Title, Date or Month, Page Number-Page Number.
• Please use a paragraph style that indents each paragraph (rather than using a tab key).
• Do not use space between paragraphs.
• Do not include page numbers, headers or footers (we add these).
• Write "percent" in place of "%".
• Write out integers between one and ten: hence, "eight" not "8".
• Use em dashes instead of two hyphens. See Symbol under the Insert menu in Microsoft Word. Put one space before and one space after each em dash.