Journal of Agricultural & Food Industrial Organization

Copyediting

The bepress system has been designed to improve the scholarly publication process for authors. Among the many improvements we offer over traditional journals, the most significant is that we have dramatically shortened the period between initial submission and the final publication of a peer-reviewed article. The median turnaround time for JAFIO in 2003 was 34 days, which is considerably less than it sometimes takes to receive a first-round review from paper journals. Much of this time savings is due to innovative use of electronic publication. These innovations, however, require subtle, but important changes in the way authors need to prepare accepted manuscripts for electronic publication.

bepress does not copyedit the manuscripts, and with the exception of adding the title page, pagination, and headers/footers, bepress does not make any formatting changes to the submissions. Therefore, authors are their own copyeditors and typesetters. This means that authors need to pay greater attention to the editing and look of their manuscripts than is typically required by print journals, which may do copyediting and typesetting—but not, however, without headaches such as the introduction of errors and the need for authors to do careful reviews of page proofs.

If you have reasons to doubt your proficiency with respect to spelling, grammar, etc. (e.g., because English is not your native language), then you may also wish to employ—at your expense—the services of a professional copyeditor.

Formatting Requirements

• Do not include a title page or abstract. (Begin the document with the introduction; a title page, including the abstract, will be added to your paper by the bepress system).
• Do not include page numbers, headers, or footers. (The bepress system will add the appropriate header with page numbers).
• Acknowledgements should be entered into the appropriate field on the submission form, and not in your document. This will allow them to be incorporated into the title page produced for publication.
• Page size should be 8.5 x 11-inches.
• Margins: 1.5 inches (3.8 cm) all around.
• Single space the paper.
• Single column layout.
• Font:
  1. Main Body — 12 pt. Times or closest comparable font available
  2. Footnotes — 10 pt. Times or closes comparable font available
• Indent all paragraphs except those following a section heading. An indent should be at least 2 em-spaces.
• Do not insert extra space between paragraphs of text with the exception of long quotations, theorems, propositions, special remarks, etc. These should be set off from the surrounding text by additional space above and below.
• Do not "widow" or "orphan" text (i.e., ending a page with the first line of a paragraph or beginning a page with the last line of a paragraph).
• All text should be left-justified (i.e., flush with the left margin—except where indented). Where possible, it should also be right-justified (i.e., flush with the right margin). "Where possible" refers to the quality of the justification. For example, LaTeX and TeX do an excellent job of justifying text. Word does a reasonable job. But some word processors do a lousy job (e.g., they achieve right justification by inserting too much white space within and between words). It is better to have jagged right margins than to have flush right margins with awkward intra- and inter-word spacing. Make your decision on whichever looks best.
• Document structure:
  1. Introduction
  2. Subsequent sections (with subsections, if any) of the body of the article. Sections and subsections should be capitalized
  3. Appendices (if any)
  4. References
• Sections, including the introduction, should be numbered consecutively.
  Example:
  

  1. Introduction, 2. Model, 3. Results

  Number of subsections should start with the number of the section.
  Example:
  

  2.1. Static Model, 2.2. Dynamic Model

• Footnotes should be numbered consecutively with superscript Arabic numerals and included in the body of the article.
• Tables should be numbered consecutively with title on the top of each table. To the extent possible, tables should appear in the document near where they are referenced in the text. Large tables or figures should be put on pages by themselves. Avoid the use of overly small type in tables. In no case should tables or figures be in a separate document or file.
• Figures should be numbered consecutively with title in the bottom of each figure. To the extent possible, figures should appear in the document near where they are referenced in the text. In no case should figures be in a separate document or file.
• Displayed formulae should be numbered consecutively throughout the manuscript as (1), (2), etc. The numbers should be placed on the right-hand side margin of the page.
• Fractions in the text should be of the form x/y.
• Within the text of your manuscript, use the "author-date" method of citation. For instance:

'Early pioneers in this literature include Klein, Crawford and Alchian (1978), 
Williamson (1983) and Grossman and Hart (1986)', 'contracts are becoming increasingly 
common in the agri-food supply chain (Hueth and Ligon, 1999a, b; Hueth et al., 1999; 
Young and Burke, 2001; Vercammen and Schmitz, 2001).'

• Within the references section, the citations should appear as follows:

For articles in traditional journals:

Aghion, P., M. Dewatripont and P. Rey. "Renegotiation Design with Unverifiable 
Information." Econometrica 62(1994):257-282.

For bepress articles:

Hudson, D., and J. Lusk. "Risk and Transactions Cost in Contracting: Results from a 
Choice-Based Experiment." Journal of Agricultural & Food Industrial Organization: 
2(2004):Article 2. Available at http://www.bepress.com/jafio/vol2/iss1/art2

For monographs and books:

Shy, O. Industrial Organization: Theory & Applications.  Cambridge: MIT Press, 1996.

For contribution to edited volumes:

Vercammen, J., and A. Schmitz, "Marketing and Distribution: Theory and Statistical 
Measurement." (Chapter 20, Volume I) in The Handbook of Agricultural Economics, (2001), 
edited by B. Gardner and G. Rausser, Elsevier, North Holland.

For working papers:

Xia, T., and R. J. Sexton. "Top-of-the-Market Price Clauses in Fed Cattle Procurement." 
Working paper, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of 
California-Davis, 2002.

For conference papers:

Desquilbet, M., and D. S. Bullock. "Who Pays the Preservation?" Paper presented at the 
International Agricultural Trade Research Consortium, Tuscon, Arizona, 14-16 December 
2001.

For USDA statistical reports:

U.S. Department of Agriculture. Packers and Stockyards Statistical Report: 1999 
Reporting Year. Grain Inspection, Packers, and Stockyards Administration, Washington, 
DC, 2002.

For USDA-authored publications:

Azzam, A., and D. Anderson, A. Assessing Competition in Meatpacking: Economic History, 
Theory, and Evidence. Washington, DC: U S Department of Agriculture, GIPSA-RR 96-6, May 
1996.

For Web reports by non-academic entities:

Canola Council of Canada. An Agronomic and Economic Assessment of Transgenic Canola. 
Prepared by Serecon Management Consulting and Koch Paul Associates, January 2001. 
Available at http://www.canola-council.org/

PDF File Requirements

The following settings are required because they are necessary to make certain that almost everyone will be able to view your article properly. If you have questions about how to create your PDF file, please contact support@bepress.com and we'll be happy to help you. More information is also available at: http://www.bepress.com/pdffaq.html

• Use Acrobat Distiller to create the highest quality PDF files. Do not use Adobe Acrobat Writer to create the files (Distillers comes with the full version of Adobe Acrobat).
• Embed all fonts
• Use Type 1 or TrueType fonts
• Use the settings for print optimized rather than optimized for the screen.
• Resolution should be at least 600 dpi.