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  3. Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations
  4. Journal information
  5. Author instructions
  6. Preparing your materials
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Preparing your materials

Policy on prior publication

When authors submit manuscripts to this journal, these manuscripts should not be under consideration, accepted for publication or in press within a different journal, book or similar entity, unless explicit permission or agreement has been sought from all entities involved. However, deposition of a preprint on the author’s personal website, in an institutional repository, or in a preprint archive shall not be viewed as prior or duplicate publication. Authors should follow the Cambridge University Press Preprint Policy regarding preprint archives and maintaining the version of record. 

Abstract
An abstract is to be provided, preferably no longer than 100–150 words.

Key Words
A list of 4–5 key words is to be provided directly below the abstract. Key words should express the precise content of the manuscript, as they are used for indexing purposes.

References should include (in this order):

  • last names and initials of all authors
  • year published
  • title of article
  • name of publication
  • volume number
  • and inclusive pages

The style and punctuation of the references should conform to that used in the journal – illustrated by the following examples:

  • Journal Article

Crow, S. M., Fok, L. Y., and Hartman, S. J. (1998). Who is at greatest risk of work−related discrimination – women, blacks, or homosexuals? Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal, 11(1), 15−26. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1027319915725

  • Book

Blau, J. R. (1993). Social Contracts and Economic Markets. Plenum Press.

  • Contribution to a Book

Segal, S. P., and Holschuh, J. (1995). Reciprocity in support networks of sheltered−care residents. In R. K. Price, B. M. Shea, and H. N. Mookherjee (eds.), Social Psychiatry across Cultures: Studies from North America, Asia, Europe, and Africa (pp73-86) Plenum Press.

Footnotes

  • Footnotes should be avoided. When their use is absolutely necessary, footnotes should be numbered consecutively using Arabic numerals and should be typed at the bottom of the page to which they refer. Place a line above the footnote, so that it is set off from the text. Use the appropriate superscript numeral for citation in the text.

Tables

  • All tables are to be numbered using Arabic numerals.
  • Tables should always be cited in text in consecutive numerical order.
  • For each table, please supply a table caption (title) explaining the components of the table.
  • Identify any previously published material by giving the original source in the form of a reference at the end of the table caption.
  • Footnotes to tables should be indicated by superscript lower-case letters (or asterisks for significance values and other statistical data) and included beneath the table body.

Abstract and Keywords Preparation

For further guidance on how to prepare your Abstracts and Keywords, please refer to these guidelines.

Supplementary materials

Material that is not essential to understanding or supporting a manuscript, but which may nonetheless be relevant or interesting to readers, may be submitted as supplementary materials. Supplementary materials will be published online alongside your article, but will not be published in the pages of the journal. Types of supplementary materials may include, but are not limited to, appendices, additional tables or figures, datasets, videos, and sound files.

Supplementary materials will be published with the same metadata as your parent article, and are considered a formal part of the academic record, so cannot be retracted or modified other than via our article correction processes. Supplementary materials will not be typeset or copyedited, so should be supplied exactly as they are to appear online. Please make sure you are familiar with our detailed guidance on supplementary materials prior to submission.

Where relevant we encourage authors to publish additional qualitative or quantitative research outputs in an appropriate repository, and cite these in manuscripts.

When submitting files as supplementary material, please ensure you remove personal information from the property of the document, as this will otherwise undermining the anonymous-peer-review process

Use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools

We acknowledge the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools in the research and writing processes. To ensure transparency, we expect any such use to be declared and described fully to readers, and to comply with our plagiarism policy and best practices regarding citation and acknowledgements. We do not consider artificial intelligence (AI) tools to meet the accountability requirements of authorship, and therefore generative AI tools such as ChatGPT and similar should not be listed as an author on any submitted content. 

In particular, any use of an AI tool: 

  • to generate images within the manuscript should be accompanied by a full description of the process used, and declared clearly in the image caption(s) 
  • to generate text within the manuscript should be accompanied by a full description of the process used, include appropriate and valid references and citations, and be declared in the manuscript’s Acknowledgements. 
  • to analyse or extract insights from data or other materials, for example through the use of text and data mining, should be accompanied by a full description of the process used, including details and appropriate citation of any dataset(s) or other material analysed in all relevant and appropriate areas of the manuscript 
  • must not present ideas, words, data, or other material produced by third parties without appropriate acknowledgement or permission 

Descriptions of AI processes used should include at minimum the version of the tool/algorithm used, where it can be accessed, any proprietary information relevant to the use of the tool/algorithm, any modifications of the tool made by the researchers (such as the addition of data to a tool’s public corpus), and the date(s) it was used for the purpose(s) described. Any relevant competing interests or potential bias arising as a consequence of the tool/algorithm’s use should be transparently declared and may be discussed in the article. 

Seeking permissions for copyrighted material

If your article contains any material in which you do not own copyright, including figures, charts, tables, photographs or excerpts of text, you must obtain permission from the copyright holder to reuse that material. Guidance on how to do that can be found here.

Competing Interests

All authors must include a competing interest declaration in their title page. This declaration will be subject to editorial review and may be published in the article.

Competing interests are situations that could be perceived to exert an undue influence on the content or publication of an author’s work. They may include, but are not limited to, financial, professional, contractual or personal relationships or situations.

If the manuscript has multiple authors, the author submitting must include competing interest declarations relevant to all contributing authors. 

Example wording for a declaration is as follows: “Competing interests: Author 1 is employed at organisation A, Author 2 is on the Board of company B and is a member of organisation C. Author 3 has received grants from company D.” If no competing interests exist, the declaration should state “Competing interests: The author(s) declare none”. 

Funding statement

A declaration of sources of funding must be provided if appropriate. Authors must state the full official name of the funding body and grant numbers specified. Authors must specify what role, if any, their financial sponsors played in the design, execution, analysis and interpretation of data, or writing of the study. If they played no role this should be stated. 

Authorship and contributorship

All authors listed on any papers submitted to this journal must be in agreement that the authors listed would all be considered authors according to disciplinary norms, and that no authors who would reasonably be considered an author have been excluded. For further details on this journal’s authorship policy, please see this journal's publishing ethics policies.

Author affiliations

Author affiliations should represent the institution(s) at which the research presented was conducted and/or supported and/or approved. For non-research content, any affiliations should represent the institution(s) with which each author is currently affiliated. 

For more information, please see our author affiliation policy and author affiliation FAQs.

Publication Ethics

All authors are required to comply with Cambridge University Press’s publishing ethics guidelines. As part of its editorial processes, this journal may share relevant submission data and manuscript content with in-house or third-party tools to perform research integrity and other submission checks. Any such information sharing is conducted in accordance with the appropriate privacy and processing laws, applicable Terms of Use, and ethical guidance. In cases of alleged or suspected misconduct, the journal will investigate in line with COPE recommendations.

ORCID

We encourage authors to identify themselves using ORCID when submitting a manuscript to this journal. ORCID provides a unique identifier for researchers and, through integration with key research workflows such as manuscript submission and grant applications, provides the following benefits:

  • Discoverability: ORCID increases the discoverability of your publications, by enabling smarter publisher systems and by helping readers to reliably find work that you have authored.
  • Convenience: As more organisations use ORCID, providing your iD or using it to register for services will automatically link activities to your ORCID record, and will enable you to share this information with other systems and platforms you use, saving you re-keying information multiple times.
  • Keeping track: Your ORCID record is a neat place to store and (if you choose) share validated information about your research activities and affiliations.

See our ORCID FAQs for more information. If you don’t already have an iD, you can create one by registering directly at https://ORCID.org/register.

ORCIDs can also be used if authors wish to communicate to readers up-to-date information about how they wish to be addressed or referred to (for example, they wish to include pronouns, additional titles, honorifics, name variations, etc.) alongside their published articles. We encourage authors to make use of the ORCID profile’s “Published Name” field for this purpose. This is entirely optional for authors who wish to communicate such information in connection with their article. Please note that this method is not currently recommended for author name changes: see Cambridge’s author name change policy if you want to change your name on an already published article. See our ORCID FAQs for more information. 

Author Hub

You can find guides for many aspects of publishing with Cambridge at Author Hub, our suite of resources for Cambridge authors.

English language editing services 

Authors, particularly those whose first language is not English, may wish to have their English-language manuscripts checked by a native speaker before submission. This step is optional, but may help to ensure that the academic content of the paper is fully understood by the Editor and any reviewers.  

In order to help prospective authors to prepare for submission and to reach their publication goals, Cambridge University Press offers a range of high-quality manuscript preparation services, including language editing. You can find out more on our language services page.

Please note that the use of any of these services is voluntary, and at the author's own expense. Use of these services does not guarantee that the manuscript will be accepted for publication, nor does it restrict the author to submitting to a Cambridge-published journal. 

General Guidelines for Book Reviews


1.Book Reviews

Book Review Preparation

Publishers and authors interested in submitting books for review are requested to please contact the book review editor

Marc Jegers
Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB)
Department of Applied Economics
Pleinlaan 2 (C2.22)
B-1050 Brussel
Belgium

E−mail: Marc.Jegers@vub.be

Length: The preferred length for book reviews is about 800 words. This may be extended slightly for a particularly important book, or reduced for one which does not need extended treatment.

Contents:

  • Background of the author – an indication of the author(s) or organizer(s)’ institutional/disciplinary background.
  • Purpose and organization of the book – a succinct description of the author(s)’ stated purpose and how the book is structured/organized. Reviewers should position the work by informing the reader about the state of knowledge of the subject area, and mention implications of the book for research policy, practice, or theory.
  • Summary and statement of claim(s) – presentation of the book author(s)’ argument or claim(s), main concepts and theories. Reviews should be descriptive only to the extent that description is required for analysis.
  • Critique – Description of the empirical sources and methodology used, and a critical evaluation of the book author(s)’ success in sustaining his/her claims and fulfilling the stated purpose. Reviews should mention the extent to which the book adds to or changes current thinking, or if it breaks new ground. Good criticism is aimed at the book’s contents and not at the author(s). Both strengths and weaknesses of the work should be identified. A good review may itself become a piece of theoretical work by developing the book author(s)’ theoretical ideas, placing it within a larger intellectual or applied context and engaging with the book author(s) in dialogue.
  • Relevance of the book - The reviewer should identify the intended audience for the book and say who would find it useful. It is important to address the broadest possible range of readers bearing in mind the diverse readership of Voluntas. If the book’s explicit focus is not directly related to Voluntas fields of research and practice, the review should point out relevant topics for Voluntas readers in the book’s broader context.

2. Form and Style

Please consider the following form and style for book reviews:

  • At the beginning of the review, include in the following order, the author, the title, the publisher, the place of publication, the year, the number of pages, the addenda (bibliography, appendix, etc.) and the price, as in the example below: Sohail H. Hashmi (ed.), Islamic Political Ethics. Civil Society, Pluralism and Conflict, Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford, 2002, pp. 227, bibliography, index, $18.95.

Use double quotation marks around shorter quotes of 40 words or less. Set larger quotations off from the text.