Publishing policy

CARSA is a national journal that promotes academic and professional discourse amongst professionals involved in child-care work. It publishes high quality, peer-evaluated, applied, multidisciplinary articles focusing on the theoretical, empirical and methodological issues related to child abuse in the light of the current political, cultural and intellectual topics in South Africa. Authors of articles submitted for review will remain anonymous. The comments of the reviewers and peer evaluators should be constructive and helpful and designed to aid the authors to produce articles that can be published. The authors may then use these comments to revise their articles. However, the final decision on whether or not to publish an article rests with the editor. There should be an interval of at least two issues between articles published by the same author.

Preparing articles for submission

The submitted articles should always conform to CARSA's house style. As the journal develops, it is envisaged that it will contain full-length articles, shorter debates, book reviews and software reviews. The following information is provided regarding the length of articles:

Full-length articles should not exceed a word count of 8000 (tables excluded)

Shorter articles (in the form of shorter debates) should not exceed a word count of 3000 (tables excluded)

Book reviews should not exceed a word count of 1000

Software reviews should not exceed a word count of 3000.

Tables, figures, illustrations and references are excluded from the word count. Book reviews and software reviews will be initiated by the editor and review editors. They will commission individuals to do the reviews. Prospective authors are expected to abide by language guidelines regarding issues of gender and race and disability.

Empirical research should adhere to acceptable standards of descriptive and inferential statistics and empirical data should be manipulated statistically using an acceptable statistical program such as the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) or SAS. The inferences regarding qualitative analysis should also be accompanied by an explanation of the techniques used or should utilise statistical packages such as SQR.NUD.IST which are recognised for this type of analysis.

Copyright policy and author's rights

Once an article has been accepted for publication, the author automatically agrees to the following conditions. All work published in CARSA is subject to copyright and may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any manner or in any medium without the written consent of the editor, unless no charge is made for the copy containing the work, and provided the author's name and place of first publication appears in the work. Authors assign copyright to CARSA.

Non-exclusive rights for contributions to debates and comments to articles are requested so that these may also appear in CARSA. The moral right of the author to his or her work remains with the author. Where applicable, contributors should indicate sources of funding. It is the duty of the author to clear copyright on empirical, visual or oral data. Simultaneous submission to other electronic or printed journals is not allowed.

Notes for contributors

Articles that appear in CARSA are subject to the usual academic process of anonymous peer reviewing. The articles that are written by the editorial staff will be refereed by independent referees. Electronic submission of articles by E-mail should be done in MS Windows, Word. Authors should submit their work to the editor, Prof Michele Ovens at: ovensm@unisa.ac.za

Before submission, articles should have been corrected for errors, edited and should be accurate.

It is the responsibility of the author that articles should be language and technically edited, before submission. Formal conversation is required that the final accepted article has been edited for language proficiency.

Style

Main headings should be typed in upper case and begin at the left margin. No indentation is allowed. Dates should be written as follows:

9 January, 2000. Bold, italics and underscore should be formatted as such in the original document. The recommended style for reference purposes is the abbreviated Harvard technique, for example, "Child abuse is rising (Author 1999:10)" OR "According to Author (1999:10), child abuse is rising". In the case of legal articles, footnotes will be allowed.

To work toward uniformity in the alphabetical bibliography at the end of an article, the following examples of format are given:

Books:

Kuehnle, K. 1996. Assessing allegations of child sexual abuse. Sarasota: Professional Resource Press.

Articles:

Collings, SJ & Payne, MF. 1991. Attribution of causal and moral responsibility to victims of father-daughter incest: an exploratory

examination of five factors. Child Abuse and Neglect (15)4:513-521.

Where applicable, contributors should indicate sources of funding. It is the duty of the author to clear copyright on empirical, visual or written data. Simultaneous submission to other electronic or printed journals is not allowed.

Non-sexist language

Gender specific nouns and pronouns should not be used to refer to people of both sexes. The guidelines on sexist, racist and other discriminatory language should be observed. The following is intended to assist contributors to refrain from sexist language by suggesting non-sexist alternatives.

Sexist: Each respondent was asked whether he wanted to participate. The child should have enough time to familiarise himself

with the test.

Non-sexist: Respondents were asked whether they wished to participate. Enough time should be allowed for the child to become familiar with the test.