This page contains preparation guidelines for papers submitted to IJRT.

• submission procedure
• copyright issues
• templates and samples
• general guidelines
• fonts, font sizes and line spacing
• length
• abstract and keywords
• references
• acknowledgements and appendices
• figures and tables
• equations, notation and units
• language, style and abbreviations
• titleblock

Please note that it is very important to adhere to the instructions. If you do not follow the guidelines for preparing your paper, the editor may not be able to accept your paper.

Please prepare the manuscript of your paper using either LaTeX or Microsoft Word. When submitting the paper for review we require a PDF version of your paper. When your paper is finally accepted for publication, we will request that you upload the source files of your paper. At that stage we will also require that you upload a completed and signed copyright form (see below) and copies of any copyright permission letters you have obtained in order to reproduce figures, tables or text matter that is copyright of someone else. This is not required initially.

When you are ready and have finished the final version of your paper (in PDF), please upload all the required items using the IJRT - Submit system.

If you encounter difficulty with the online portal or questions regarding the formatting specification please contact If you have copyright or permissions related questions please contact

When your paper is accepted by the editor, and only then, you will be requested to complete this copyright form. The form has two pages. Both should be completed. On page 1 you should fill in your paper title and the list of authors. On page 2 you should provide full address details and sign the copyright declaration.

If in your paper you reproduce text matter, figures, tables, diagrams or any other illustration that is copyright of someone else (e.g. a figure previously used in a journal paper may now be copyright of the journal publisher) then you should obtain permission from the original copyright holder. All required copyright permissions should be obtained by you prior to submitting your paper. When you are asked to upload the copyright form you should also include copies of the permissions documents that you obtained. Failure to obtain permissions for any material that is copyright of someone else will mean that your paper cannot be published.

The following sections will describe the typographic specifications for your paper in detail. However, you may find it much easier to start from the following templates. Nevertheless we recommend you read through typographic specifications below so that you do not inadvertently override any of the template's features, and so that you fully understand the referencing conventions.

• LaTeX preamble for the paper
• MS Word example document for the paper

If you use LaTeX please make sure text of your entire paper is in one *.tex file. Please do not use the \include command except for style and graphics files.

Latex users should not use the hyperref package in their papers.

You may also want to check out a sample paper in PDF format.

• The template uses A4 paper in portrait orientation (297mm*210mm).
• The margins are: top=35mm; bottom=36mm; left=right=33mm
• On the first page of the paper a 75mm high space (within the margins) is used for the title block.
• There should be no running headers, no footers, no pagenumbers. The use of footnotes is strongly discouraged. If you do use any footnotes, then they should stay within the margins.
• You may wish to download the margin template in PDF format.

• The text should be laid out using single line spacing. (in MS Word, please ensure the default paragraph spacing is set to "single" and NOT "exactly #pt".
• The text should be prepared in Times New Roman font. Do not use any Asian fonts. Pay particular attention to the fonts used for legends in figures and in embedded tables. (For LaTeX users please include \usepackage{times}.)
• The pages of text should be fully (left and right) justified and aligned.
• Generally, no additional vertical space should be left between paragraphs.
• The width and height of the pages of text must exactly correspond to those on the template. Care must be taken to ensure that space is not left at the bottom of any text pages and that the tops and bottoms of all text pages align with the margins. This is referred to as flushbottoms or vertical justification.
• In general a space is left after each main title and a half space after each subsection and subsubsection title. To ensure that the columns have flushbottoms it may be necessary to add some additional space between paragraphs or above and below section headings.
• The body text should be in 12pt size.
• Main sections should be numbered in the style 1, 2, 3, etc. Subsections should be numbered in the style 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, etc. Sub-Subsections should be numbered in the style 1.1.1, 1.1.2, 1.1.3, etc.
• All section titles are typeset in the same font as the body text (i.e. Times New Roman).
• Sections titles (highest level) are typeset in 16pt and bold typeface.
• Subsections titles (second level) are typeset in 14pt and bold typeface.
• Subsubsections titles (third level) are typeset in 12pt and bold typeface.
• All section titles should be in lower case, except for the start of the first word which is capitalized, for example: "2.1.3 Example using the new method". Section titles should not have any full stops at the end.

The length of your paper should be between 10 and 24 pages.

Your paper should start on the first page, (below the 75mm titleblock), with an abstract. The abstract should be given the unnumbered title "Abstract" typeset using the same conventions as a subsection (i.e. 14pt bold) but unnumbered. Abstracts should be about 100 words in length.

The abstract is followed by keywords. At the end of the abstract text leave one blank line, then start the next line (without indentation) with "Keywords" typeset in 12pt bold, folowed by a colon and the keywords in 12pt regular. A minimum of six and a maximum of 12 keywords should be included. The keywords should not be capitalized unless they are names of people or places. The keywords are generally all in lower case.

Do not use abbreviations in key words since these may make your paper hard to find when readers search for your paper.

A list of references should be given at the end of the document.

• The list of references can be sorted either in order of citation or in alpabetical order. Both reference orders are acceptable provided they are used consistently. For review papers alphabetical ordering is preferred.
• If alphabetical ordering is used, the surname of the first author is the sort key. When the author list is identical, the year of publication is used next.
• References should be cited in the text using square brackets in the regular font and size used by the rest of the text. Please do not use superscript. Multiple references within the same citation should be sorted numerically and separated by commas within the square brackets. Example: "... clues to the psychology of Brunus edwardii are to be found extensively in references [2,3]. Blackmore and Young [1] presented a 1970 review of the diseases present in this species. Elsewhere the effect of environmental pollution [5] and rubella [4] on the population of the species is examined..."
• In Word: References, Figures and Tables must not be automatically cross linked in Word. The reference to these objects should be written in pure text and not hyper-linked in any way. References thus linked are destroyed in the typesetting process and will result in the loss of reference, figure and table numbers.
• A the end of the paper (after acknowledgements but before any appendices) the references should be listed under an unnumbered section titled "References".
• The list of references is a numbered list using square brackets and numbers. The list numbers are left alligned (against the left margin). The reference text is "hanging" with an indent at 10mm.
• The references should be given in the following style:

  [1]

  D.K. Blackmore, C.M. Young, "Some Observations on the Diseases of Brunus edwardii (Species nova)", Veterinary Record, 90, 382-385, 1972.

  [2]

  M. Bond, "A bear called Paddington", Collins, London, United Kingdom, 1958.

  [3]

  A.A. Milne, "A House at Pooh Corner", Methuen & Co. Ltd., London, United Kingdom, 1928.

  [4]

  J.T. Paul, "The 1954 Rubella epidemic in Brunus edwardii", in "Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Epidemics in Europe", V. Lancaster, (Editor), Academic Medical Press, London, United Kingdom, 561-568, 1987.

  [5]

  J.T. Paul, "Environmental Pollution and Brunus edwardii", in "Bear Population Studies", V. Lancaster, (Editor), Edinburgh Zoological Publications, Edinburgh, United Kingdom, Chapter 7, 123-168, 1988.

• Please note: author first names are abbreviated to initials; initials precede the author surname; multiple authors are separated by a comma; all elements of the references are separated by a comma; the year of publication should always be the last element in the reference.

Acknowledgements may be included as an unnumbered section preceding the references. If appendices are included, then these follow after the references. Instead of numbers they should use: "Appendix A", "Appendix B", etc.

• Your paper will be printed in colour. But it is better to design your figures in such a way that they are clearly readable when printed in monochrome. Typically graphs with coloured lines can be replaced by solid or dashed or dotted lines in black. These will print clearly in monochrome. The web version of your paper will also include colour figures. However, in the text it is better not refer to colour in figures in any way, since the when readers print your paper they may not have a colour printer. (Do not use light blue lines in figures as light blue never prints well.)
• Diagrams, photographs, illustrations and code snippets should all be treated as figures, i.e. given figure numbers and captions.
• In the text figures should be referred to in the style: "... In Figure 1 a new bear is shown ..."
• All figures should be centred.
• All captions for figures and tables should appear BELOW their respective figure or table. All captions should be centred. Captions should start: Figure 1: A New Bear
• Captions are typeset in the regular text font Times New Roman using 12pt. Captions should not have a full stop at the end.
• All figures should be integrated within the text and not placed on pages at the end of the paper. Figures should be placed within the text near to the place where they are first mentioned. They should preferably be located just after their first mention (rather than before).
• Tables are treated separately and should also be numbered consecutively in the text and referred to in the style: "... Population studies for bears are given in Table 1 ..."
• Tables should have captions.
• Tables should be placed within the text near to the place where they are first mentioned. They should preferably be located just after their first mention (rather than before).
• Pay particular attention to the size of figures and tables. Not only the contents of your figure or table, but also the border (if any) around the figure or table should fit within the margins. Figures should preferably not have a surrounding border. Tables on the other hand should have one.
• Figures and Tables should be read without turning the page through 90 degrees - all figures and tables should be read when the page is viewed in portrait.
• Figures and Tables must not be automatically cross linked in Word. The reference to these objects should be written in pure text and not hyper-linked in any way. References thus linked are destroyed in the typesetting process and will result in the loss of reference, figure and table numbers.

• Equations should be numbered consecutively in the text.
• Equations must be typeset not handwritten.
• Equations should be centred on the page, and have a right aligned equation number enclosed in round brackets. The equation number is typeset using the same convention as the body text (12pt regular).
• In the text an equation should be referred to in the style: "... The computation of steak and kidney pie rations for bears is given by Equation (1) ..."
• Any mathematical or other notation should be defined in the text when it is first referred to. Lists of notations should NOT be given.
• It is desirable that SI units be used. If non-standard units are used (e.g. Imperial Units) appropriate conversion factors should be given.

• All documents should be in British-English. Papers should be as brief as compatible with clarity and intelligibility.
• Abbreviations should be spelt out in full on first appearance. First the full term should appear, followed by the abbreviation in round brackets.
• Please do not capitalize terms when the abbreviation is first defined unless it contains names of places, people or trademarks. Example: "... we now use the finite element method (FEM) to compute ...".

The 75mm block on the first page of your paper should be used for inserting the paper title, authors and affiliations. Please include include the following information:

• Paper title, author(s) names and affiliations in the following style:

  The Role of Football in a Technological University

  A.B. Smith¹ and J.-F. Wesson²,
  ¹Centre for Special Studies, Tower University, London, United Kingdom
  ²Institute of Computer Generated Information, University of Ostend, Belgium

• The affiliations should be in English without abbreviations and follow the pattern: department, institute, city, country. If the name of city is already included as part of the name of the institute (e.g. Oxford University), then the city name should be omitted.
• Author's first names are abbreviated to initials. The initials are placed before the surnames.
• If only one institute is used, then the subscript attribution numbers should be omitted.
• Please limit the length of your title to 80 characters long including spaces between words. It should not contain any non-alphanumeric symbols or embedded equations. Your title should be in mixed upper-lower case. Generally all significant words in the title are capitalized. Small words, (e.g. a, an, and, in, the, on, using, with, ...) are all lower case.