Submit an article

Voluntary Action invites articles on volunteering or directly related subjects. Articles may consist of original pieces of research, studies of major volunteer involving organisations, reviews of literature and overviews of international research. In addition to original articles, the journal also features book reviews and research notes providing a digest of research articles and reports.

Guidelines

• Articles should be written in English, 4-6,000 words long
• Contributions based on research should explicitly draw out the implications of that research for the policy and practice of volunteering.
• All articles should be submitted as a Word file by email or post.
• The manuscripts can contain text headings on a maximum of two levels. First-level headings should be typed in bold with the text beginning on the following line. Second-level headings should be typed in italics, again with the text starting on the following line.
• Each article should begin with an abstract of 100-150 words.
• Articles should only mention race, sex, age, disability and sexuality when they are relevant, and should avoid using terms that exclude women.
• Contributors are personally responsible for obtaining permission to use any copyright material quoted in their article.
• References should be kept to a minimum and should follow the Harvard style, i.e. references in the text consist of the author's surname followed by the year of publication - for example, Davis Smith (1998) - and the full bibliographical reference is given at the end of the article as follows:
  Davis Smith, J. (1998), The 1997 National Survey for Volunteering, Institute for Volunteering Research.
• Footnotes should not be used.
• All articles should have a separate title page giving the name(s), institutional affiliations and contact details of the author(s).

Papers will be reviewed by two referees, one an academic and the other a practitioner. Criteria include: soundness of research or review, policy relevance and readability. If you have a particular interest in research on voluntary action, and would be interested in becoming a referee for the journal, please contact the editorial team at the Institute for Volunteering Research.