Authors are requested to respect the following rules of content and form.

Manuscript Submission

The journal only accepts original contributions.

Authors must certify in writing that their manuscript is not under consideration for publication anywhere else and that part or all of the article has not yet been published.

Authors are responsible for the accuracy of the content of the text as well as of the references mentioned.

Submission process by email

Articles must be submitted by email as a Word format document (.doc or .docx) to the following address: alter.journal@alter-asso.org.
The journal will acknowledge reception of the email.

For any questions, please contact: Colombe Camus, Guillaume Braunstein (alter.journal@alter-asso.org)

Language

Alter accepts contribution either in English of French.

Contributions

The journal publishes the following types of original contribution:

1) Peer-reviewed original research articles in any area of social science research relevant to disability. These papers may be up to 8 000 words including text, abstract, but not tables, figures and references.

2) Peer-reviewed critical, narrative, systematic, scoping reviews and just literature reviews of up to 1 500 words including text, abstract, but not tables, figures and references.

3) Submitted or invited commentaries up to 2 000 words.

4) Guest edited special Issues bringing together collections of papers on a particular theme.

5) “Disability through the lens of social crisis” are contributions that investigate the current socioeconomic crisis including the ongoing SARS-COV2 pandemic. Texts can vary in format, style and length (with a maximum of 8 000 words). Contributions can be sent on a day-to-day basis. Texts will be read by the editorial board without a double-blind selection process (they will not therefore be considered as academic articles but will benefit from the same dissemination process to the readership). After this reading, the editorial board will give consideration for their eventual publication, and might request some modifications to the authors. Articles will be published under the name of their authors or under a pseudonym or anonymously if it is the wish of some authors. Writing in association with a researcher is under consideration and such a suggestion can be made by the editorial board at the request of individuals who request it.

General principles for peer reviewed original research

Authors can submit their manuscript as a single Word document. The document includes a title page, the main text, tables, figures, references.

Methods

Empirical papers should provide details of the research methods used (qualitative, quantitative, mixed), including study settings and field of investigation, the method of data collection, if applicable the sampling procedures, the date(s) when the data was collected, the tools used (interviews, observations, questionnaires, archives, analysis of secondary data, etc.), instruments, and types of analysis. Secondary data analysis papers should provide the same if details are known. Articles must, moreover, not only include the results of the research, but also their discussion informed by the most up to date scientific literature on the question at stake.

Title page

Title page includes:

– A title, concise and informative without acronyms or abbreviations.

– Full names of the author(s) in the order of publication.

– Affiliations and email address of the authors.

– Date of submission of the article

– Postal address, phone and email of the corresponding author.

– A non-structured abstract written in both English and French and limited to 200 words for each, including background, aim(s), methods, main findings and conclusions of the study.

– A list of three to six keywords in both French and English that reflect the content of the article.

– The possible “author’s note” indicating the acknowledgments and the circumstances in which the study was carried out (funding within the framework of a program, doctoral thesis, etc.).

Article

The text should be formatted in A4 standard (21 x 29.7cm) double spaced, Times12-pitch font, with 1” (2.5 cm) margins on four sides of the page.

The main body of the manuscript is organized as follows: main text, references, appendix. The use of bold or underlined characters to emphasize terms in the text should be avoided.

Titles and subtitles

Articles are structures as follows and sections and subsections are not numbered but in bold: Introduction, Background, Methods, Results, Discussion and eventually a Conclusion. The size should be Time-13. Sub-section within each section should be Time-12 and could be titled in italic. Two levels are preferred but there is an acceptance for three levels.

Quotes

In both languages, use quotation marks for an in-text quote: (…) Pain has famously been described by Elaine Scarry as a “destruction” or “unmaking of the world” (Scarry, 1985). (…). For a quote in the quote, use inverted commas (‘…’).

A quote longer than four lines must be styled in the quote style (left paragraph indent of 1cm; font size 11).

Punctuation

In both English and French, the following rules should be followed: no spaces before double signs (semicolon, colon, exclamation mark, question mark); for an in-text quote single signs (full stop, comma) should be placed before the closing quotation mark; a note should be placed after the punctuation mark.

Tables and Figures

Tables will be integrated into the text and they should be numbered consecutively as they appear (Table 1, 2..; Figure 1, 2..). They should not include any colour and shading and vertical rules should not be used. Titles should be brief and describe the content. Notes should explain symbols used.

The location of the images will be indicated in the text, but the files will be attached in .jpg, .png or .tiff format, with a resolution of 300dpi.

For any image and/or illustration already published, a request for authorization must have been filed and obtained. The author should contact the institution or person who owns the image(s), and the source must be mentioned in the caption.

Footnotes

Notes should be kept to the minimum.

They are intended to explain a concept or provide additional information. They should be created using the Word “footnote” function (not manually), and numbered continuously throughout the article.

Notes should neither be bibliographical references nor include a reference call (in case a bibliographical source not appearing in the body of the text should exceptionally be cited in relation to the note, insert the full reference in the note itself).

References

Any reference cited in the text must be present in the reference list and vice versa.

Regarding references, the journal follows the recommendations of the American Psychological Association (https://apastyle.apa.org/products/publication-manual-7th-edition) Thus, in the preparation of the manuscript, authors are encouraged to use the “APA7th style” using a software for publishing and managing bibliographies. Rules are summarized below.

1. Citations in the text

The articles, books and chapters of books to which reference is made will be indicated in the text by the name of the author and the year of publication:

1) If the name of the author is in the text, just add the date in parenthesis = “(…) according to Grönvik (2007), definitions (…)”.

2) In case of two or three authors in the text, name all the names = “(…) As a follow up on work done by Carson et Dorahy (2010) about adaptations (…)”.

2) Single author but not in the text: the author’s name and the year of publication in brackets with a coma in between = “(…) (Albrecht, 1990) (…)”.

3) Two or three authors not in the text, the authors’ names and the year of publication in brackets = “(…) (Carl, Montori & Mair, 2009) (…)”.

4) Four or more authors: first author’s name followed by “et al.” and the year of publication in brackets = “(…) (Wahlberg et al., 2021) (…)”.

5) Groups of references are listed alphabetically then chronologically. Separate them by semi colon = (“(…) (Barnes, 2008; Groce, 2005; Oliver et al., 1995; Ville, 2010) (…)”).

6) In case of more than one reference for a given author on the same year, add letters a, b, c, d, etc., after the year = (“(…) (Shakespeare, 2010a, 2010b) (…)”).

7) if the citation refers to a specific part of the bibliographic source, indicate the pagination or chapter after the year of publication = (“(…) Kuhn (1970: 71) (…)”), (“(…) (Oliver et al., 1995: 175-7) (…)”, “(…) (Adams, 1999, chap. 3) (…)”).

2. List of references

At the end of the text, under the heading “Bibliography”, list alphabetically by author’s name all the references cited in the text, and only these, without numbering.

References should be arranged first alphabetically and then further sorted chronologically if necessary. More than one reference from the same author(s) in the same year must be identified by the letters a, b, c, etc., placed after the year of publication.

Include the full names of all authors.

In the case of multiple authors, enter only the first six names, and then indicate “et al.”.

Examples

Journal reference

One author:

Austin Peter C. 2010. Statistical criteria for selecting the optimal number of untreated subjects matched to each treated subject when using many-to-one matching on the propensity score. American journal of epidemiology, 172(9):1092-7.

Two authors:

Manderson Lenore & Narelle Warren. 2010. The art of (re)learning to walk: trust on the rehabilitation ward. Qualitative Health Research, 20(10): 1-15.

Three authors:

Saradjian Adam, Thompson Andrew R. & Dipak Datta. 2008. The experience of men using an upper limb prosthesis following amputation: positive coping and minimizing feeling different. Disability and Rehabilitation, 30: 871-83.

More than six authors

Aybek Selma, Gronchi-Perrin Aline, Bernez Alexandre, Catalano Chiuvé Sabina, Villemure Jean-Guy, Burkhard Pierre R., et al. 2007. Long-term cognitive profile and incidence of dementia after STN-DBS in Parkinson’s disease. Movement Disorders, 22(7): 974-81.

Reference to a book

Pickering Andrew. 1995. The mangle of practice: time, agency, and science. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Reference to an edited book

Machado Santiago M. & Rafael de Lorenzo (eds). 1997. European Disability Law. Madrid: Escuela Libre Editorial.

Reference to a chapter in an edited book

McRuer Robert. 2006. Compulsory able-bodiedness and queer/disabled existence. In Lennard J. Davis (ed.). The disability studies reader: 88-99. London: Routledge.

Web references

Web references should include author names, dates, reference to a source publication, URL, the date when the reference was last accessed.

Council of Europe Secretariat. 2006. United Nations draft “International Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities”: Drafting proposals and comments. Retrieved May 2007, from http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/enable/rights/ahc8docs/ahc8eucouncil1.doc.

Haute Autorité de Santé. 2014. Éducation thérapeutique du patient (ETP). Publié le 19 juin 2014. Consulté en décembre 2020 sur https://www.has-sante.fr/jcms/c_1241714/fr/education-therapeutique-du-patient-etp.

Proofs of an article

Following the edition of the manuscript accepted for publication, the editor will send to each author the proofs of his article, in pdf format, for validation. Changes to the content are not possible at this point and will be limited to typos and other mistakes.

Authors will make every effort to return corrected proofs to the publisher within 5 days of receipt.

Together with the proofs, each author will receive a contract by e-mail, which must be duly signed and returned to the editor.

A final soft copy of the article will be sent to all authors.