National Civic Review

Guidelines for Authors

The National Civic Review is the quarterly journal of the National Civic League. Formerly known as the National Municipal Review, the Review is one of the nation's oldest civic affairs journals.
The Review has two main sections. The first comprises a set of articles that address a particular theme, e.g., local campaign finance reform, which varies with each issue. The second is divided into five subsections: Local Government, Philanthropy and Nonprofits, New Politics, Civic Journalism, and Healthy Communities. These subsections contain shorter articles that are not thematically related.

LENGTH: Review articles vary in length from 3,000 to 6,000 words with a "typical" piece being about 5,000 words. Articles in the subsections range from 750 to 1,500 words in length.

FORM: Hard copy manuscripts must be double-spaced with adequate margins. If we agree to publish an article, we require a floppy disk containing the text of the article in WordPerfect or Word for PCs. Do not insert unnecessary formatting codes and font changes.

The Review is not an academic journal. Superscripted numbers are used to cite sources in the text. Do not embed parenthetic references to other published works in the text, e.g., (Dickson, 1998).

We discourage the use of endnotes that supply extended commentary upon material in the text. Manuscripts with endnotes that contain extensive commentary will be returned to the author for modification, i.e., either incorporation of the material into the text or its deletion.

Endnotes are to be in the following style.

For journal article citations:

Roosevelt, T. and Roosevelt, A. "The Bully Pulpit." National Urban Review. 1898, 1 (1), 1-10.
(Note: authors' names are last name first followed by initials, article title is quoted, journal title is in italics, volume number is in italics, and issue number is in parentheses.)

For book citations:

Roosevelt, T. and Roosevelt, A. Collected Speeches from the Bully Pulpit. Philadelphia: Magisterial Press, 1902.
(Note: authors' names as for journal articles, book title in italics, city of publication, publisher, and year of publication listed as shown.)

Subheads, if used, should be clearly identified. They should appear on a separate line in roman typeface and upper- and lowercase letters.

STYLE: Our aim is to accommodate the time constraints of busy readers. Articles should be self-contained, clearly written, and packed with information. Authors are encouraged to provide imaginative titles for their articles that will draw reader interest.

COPYRIGHT: Manuscripts should be the original work of the author. Each issue of the Review is copyrighted by Jossey-Bass Publishers. Authors may at any time request permission to reprint their articles elsewhere. Additionally, the publisher regularly grants permission for the reprinting of Review articles in other publications, most often for educational purposes.
Manuscripts and disks may be mailed to Mike McGrath, Editor, National Civic Review, National Civic League,
For questions and further information, please contact Mr. McGrath at (303) 571-4343 or by email at mikem@ncl.org.

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