Society and Mental Health

The Journal of the ASA Section on the Sociology of Mental Health

Submission Guidelines

Electronic Submission

All manuscripts must be submitted electronically via Sagetrack’s ScholarOne Manuscripts. To access this system, go to http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/smh. You will be required to register with the system before electronically submitting your manuscript to SMH.

Manuscript Preparation

Articles published in Society and Mental Health are seldom longer than 35 manuscript pages, including:

  1. title page,
  2. abstract,
  3. text,
  4. notes,
  5. references,
  6. tables,
  7. figures, and
  8. appendices.

All pages must be typed double-spaced (including notes and references). Margins must be at least 1 inch (i.e., line length must not exceed 6-1/2 inches). Please use Times New Roman font, 12-point type size (roughly equivalent to 10-pitch type size).

The object is to provide reviewers and editors with easy-to-read text and space for notes. It is the responsibility of authors to submit manuscripts in the proper SMH format (see below). Manuscripts not submitted in SMH format may be returned for revision. Additional details on preparing and submitting manuscripts to SMH are published in the American Sociological Association Style Guide (ISBN 0-912764-29-5), available from the ASA Publications Department; phone: (202) 383-9005; email: publications@asanet.org.

SMH Format

  1. The title page should include the full title of the article, each author’s complete name and institutional affiliation, total word count (include all text, notes, and references; do not include word counts for tables or figures), number of tables, number of figures, and running head (short title, fewer than 55 characters with spaces). Use an asterisk (*) to add a note to the title giving the corresponding author (name, address, phone, fax, and email). In the same note, cite acknowledgments, credits, or grants.
  2. Print the abstract (fewer than 150 words) on a separate page headed by the title. Omit author identification.
  3. The text of the manuscript should begin on a new page headed by the full title. Notes, references, tables, figures, and appendices appear in separate sections following the text, in that order. Since manuscripts are evaluated through an anonymous peer review process, authors should make every effort to remove identifying references or material. When citing your own work, please write “Smith (1992) concluded . . . ,” but do not write “I concluded (Smith 1992) . . . ”
    1. Headings and subheadings in the text indicate the organization of content. Generally, three heading levels are sufficient.
    2. Citations in the text should provide the last name of the author(s) and the year of publication. Include page numbers for direct quotes or specific passages. Cite only those works needed to provide evidence for your assertions and to refer to important sources on the topic. In the following examples of text citations, ellipses (. . .) indicate manuscript text:
      • If author’s name is in the text, follow it with the year in parentheses: “Duncan (1959) . . .”
      • If author’s name is not in the text, enclose the last name and year in parentheses: “. . . (Gouldner 1963).”
      • Pages cited follow the year of publication after a colon: “. . . (Ramirez and Weiss 1979:239–40).”
      • Provide last names for joint authors: “. . . (Martin and Bailey 1988).”
      • For three authors, list all three last names in the first citation in the text: “. . . (Carr, Smith, and Jones 1962).” For all subsequent citations use “et al.” throughout: “. . . (Carr et al. 1962).” For works with four or more authors, use “et al.” throughout.
      • For institutional authorship, supply minimum identification from the complete citation: “. . . (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1963:117).”
      • List a series of citations in alphabetical order or date order separated by semicolons: “. . . (Burgess 1968; Marwell et al. 1971).” Use consistent ordering throughout the manuscript.
      • Use “forthcoming” to cite sources scheduled for publication. For dissertations and unpublished papers, cite the date. If no date, use “n.d.” in place of the date: “. . . Smith (forthcoming) and Oropesa (n.d.).”
      • For machine-readable data files, cite authorship and date: “.|.|. (Institute for Survey Research 1976).”
    3. Notes should be numbered in the text consecutively using superscript Arabic numerals. If referring to a note earlier or later in the text, use a parenthetical note: “. . . (see note 3).”
    4. Equations in text must be typed. Use consecutive Arabic numerals in parentheses at the right margin to identify important equations.
  4. Notes should be typed or printed, double-spaced, in a separate “NOTES” section and should appear after the text but before the references. Begin each note with the Arabic numeral to which it is keyed in the text (e.g., “1. After 1981, . . .”). Notes can (a) explain or amplify text, (b) cite materials of limited availability, or (c) append information presented in a table. Avoid long notes. Consider (a) stating in the text that information is available from the author, (b) depositing the information in a national retrieval center and inserting an appropriate note, or (c) adding an appendix.
  5. References follow the text in a separate section headed “REFERENCES.” All references cited in the text must be listed in the reference section, and vice versa. Publication information for each must be complete and correct. It is authors’ responsibility to make sure that all information provided in the reference section is complete and correct. List the references in alphabetical order by authors’ last names; include first names and middle initials for all authors. If there are two or more items by the same author(s), list them in order of year of publication. If the cited material is unpublished but has been accepted for publication, use “Forthcoming” in place of the date, and give the name of the journal or publishing house. For dissertations and unpublished papers, cite the date and place the paper was presented and/or where it is available. If no date is available, use “N.d.” in place of the date. If two or more works are by the same author(s) within the same year, list them in alphabetical order by title and distinguish them by adding the letters a, b, c, and so on, to the year (or to “Forthcoming” or “N.d.”). For works with multiple authors, only the name of the first author is inverted (e.g., “Jones, Arthur B., Colin D. Smith, and James Petersen.”). List all authors; using “et al.” in the reference section is not acceptable.
  6. Number tables consecutively throughout the text. Insert a note in the text to indicate the placement (e.g., “Table 1 about here”). Type each table on a separate page. Each table must include a descriptive title and headings for columns and rows. Do not use abbreviations for variable names or column and row headings within tables. Align numbers in columns by decimal. Gather general notes to tables as “Note:”; use a, b, c, and so on, for table footnotes. Use asterisks *, **, and *** to indicate significance at the p < .05, p < .01, and the p < .001 levels, respectively, and specify one-tailed or two-tailed tests. Do not photo-reduce tables.
  7. Number figures consecutively throughout the text. Insert a note in the text to indicate placement (e.g., “Figure 1 about here”). Each figure should include a title or caption. Do not use abbreviations within figures. All artwork must be submitted on diskette or as camera-ready art. Figures must be executed by computer or by graphic artist in black ink on white paper; lettering must be done in pen and ink or typeset; photographs must be black-and-white on glossy paper. Contact the SMH office to discuss preferred file formats for computer generated files.
    IMPORTANT: All figures (including all type) must be legible when reduced or enlarged to widths of 2-9/16 inches (one column width) or 5-5/16 inches (full page width).
    PERMISSION: The author(s) are responsible for securing permission to reproduce all copyrighted figures or materials before they are published by SMH. A copy of the written permission must be included with the manuscript submission.
  8. . Appendices should be lettered to distinguish them from numbered tables and figures. Include a descriptive title for each appendix (e.g., “APPENDIX A. Variable Names and Definitions”).

A few examples follow. Refer to the American Sociological Association Style Guide for more examples.

Books:

  • Bernard, Claude. [1865] 1957. An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine. Translated by Henry C. Greene. New York: Dover.
  • House, James S. 1981. Work Stress and Social Support. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. U.S. Bureau of the Census. 1960. Characteristics of the Population. Vol. 1. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Periodicals:

  • Conger, Rand D. Forthcoming. “The Effects of Positive Feedback on Direction and Amount of Verbalization in a Social Setting.” Sociological Perspectives.
  • Goodman, Leo A. 1947a. “The Analysis of Systems of Qualitative Variables When Some of the Variables Are Unobservable. Part I—A Modified Latent Structure Approach.” American Journal of Sociology 79:1179–1259.
  • ———. 1947b. “Exploratory Latent Structure Analysis Using both Identifiable and Unidentifiable Models.” Biometrika 61:215–31.

Collections:

  • Clausen, John A. 1972. “The Life Course of Individuals.” Pp. 457–514 in Aging and Society, vol. 3, A Sociology of Age Stratification, edited by M. W. Riley, M. Johnson, and A. Foner. New York: Russell Sage.

Dissertations:

  • Charles, Maria. 1990. “Occupational Sex Segregation: A Log-Linear Analysis of Patterns in 25 Industrial Countries.” Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Sociology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA.

Machine-Readable Data Files:

  • American Institute of Public Opinion. 1976. Gallup Public Opinion Poll #965 [MRDF]. Princeton, NJ: American Institute of Public Opinion [producer]. New Haven, CT: Roper Public Opinion Research Center, Yale University [distributor].
  • Miller, Warren, Arthur Miller, and Gerald Klein. 1975. The CPS 1974 American National Election Study [MRDF]. Ann Arbor, MI: Center for Political Studies, University of Michigan [producer]. Ann Arbor, MI: Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor].

Electronic Sources

  • American Sociological Association. 1997. “Call for Help: Social Science Knowledge on Race, Racism, and Race Relations” (ASA Action Alert, October 15). Washington, DC: American Sociological Association. Retrieved October 15, 1997 (http://www.asanet.org/racecall.htm).
  • Kao, Grace and Jennifer Thompson. 2003. “Racial and Ethnic Stratification in Educational Achievement and Attainment.” Annual Review of Sociology 29:417–42. Retrieved October 20, 2003 (http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.soc.29.010202.100019).