Taylor & Francis manuscript layout guide

This layout guide will help you to format your manuscript to get it ready to submit to a Taylor & Francis or Routledge journal.

If you’d like to save even more time, our downloadable templates are a useful resource that can be used along with this guide to help you prepare your article for submission.

How should I format my manuscript?

This guide contains general advice, but some journals will have specific layout and formatting requirements. Before you submit your article, please make sure you’ve checked the instructions for authors for your chosen journal, so you are aware of everything that is needed. You can find the instructions for authors on the journal’s homepage on Taylor and Francis Online.

If your article is accepted for publication, the manuscript will be further formatted and typeset in the correct style for the journal.

Font

Use Times New Roman font in size 12 with double-line spacing.

Margins

Margins should be at least 2.5cm (1 inch).

Title

Use bold for your article title, with an initial capital letter for any proper nouns.

Abstract

Indicate the abstract paragraph with a heading or by reducing the font size. The instructions for authors for each journal will give specific guidelines on what’s required here, including whether it should be a structured abstract or graphical abstract, and any word limits.

Keywords

Keywords help readers find your article, so are vital for discoverability. If the journal instructions for authors don’t give a set number of keywords to provide, aim for five or six.

Learn more about choosing suitable keywords to make your article and you more discoverable.

Headings

Please follow this guide to show the level of the section headings in your article:

1. First-level headings (e.g. Introduction, Conclusion) should be in bold, with an initial capital letter for any proper nouns.
2. Second-level headings should be in bold italics, with an initial capital letter for any proper nouns.
3. Third-level headings should be in italics, with an initial capital letter for any proper nouns.
4. Fourth-level headings should be in bold italics, at the beginning of a paragraph. The text follows immediately after a full stop (full point) or other punctuation mark.
5. Fifth-level headings should be in italics, at the beginning of a paragraph. The text follows immediately after a full stop (full point) or other punctuation mark.

Tables and figures

Show clearly in the article text where the tables and figures should appear, for example, by writing [Table 1 near here].

Check the instructions for authors to see how you should supply tables and figures, whether at the end of the text or in separate files, and follow any guidance given on the submission system.

Find more detailed advice on including tables in your article.

It’s very important that you have been given permission to use any tables or figures you are reproducing from another source before you submit.

Here’s our advice on obtaining permission for third party material and our guide to submission of electronic artwork.

Data availability statement

If you’re submitting a data availability statement for your article, please include it within the text of your manuscript, before your ‘References’ section. So that readers can easily find it, please give it the heading ‘Data availability statement’.

Spelling and punctuation

Each journal will have a preferred method for spelling and punctuation. You’ll find this in the instructions for authors, available on the journal’s homepage on Taylor and Francis Online. Make sure you apply the spelling and punctuation style consistently throughout your article.

Special characters

If you are preparing your manuscript in Microsoft Word and your article contains special characters, accents, or diacritics, we recommend you follow these steps:

• European accents (Greek, Hebrew, or Cyrillic letters, or phonetic symbols): choose Times New Roman font from the dropdown menu in the “Insert symbol” window and insert the character you require.
• Asian languages (such as Sanskrit, Korean, Chinese, or Japanese): choose Arial Unicode font from the dropdown menu in the “Insert symbol” window and insert the character you require.
• Transliterated Arabic: choose either Times New Roman or Arial Unicode (unless the instructions for authors specify a particular font). For ayns and hamzas, choose Arial Unicode font from the dropdown menu in the “Insert symbol” window. Type the Unicode hexes directly into the “Character code” box, using 02BF for ayn, and 02BE for hamza.

Running heads and received dates

These aren’t required when submitting a manuscript for review. They will be added during the production process if your article is accepted for publication.

Format-free submission

An increasing number of Taylor & Francis journals allow format-free submission. If your article is consistent and includes everything necessary for review, you can submit work without formatting your manuscript. Check the instructions for authors for your chosen journal to find out if it uses format-free submission.

Publishing open access

Have you considered publishing your research open access? Open access makes published academic research freely and permanently available online. Anyone, anywhere can read and build upon this research. Find out more about publishing open access.

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