Enterprise Development & Microfinance: Instructions for authors

The purpose of these guidelines is to simplify the process of submitting your article for publication in Enterprise Development & Microfinance (EDM).These steps will make it easier for the article to be reviewed, and make the production process run more smoothly once an article has been accepted for publication.

It would be beneficial for authors to read the House Style Manual.

Scope

EDM is a journal aimed at practitioners in the field of microfinance and small enterprise development. Themes include microfinance institutions and their sustainability, poverty impact on clients and producers, business development services, vallue chain development, and the business environment. Readers of your article will want to learn about developments that are new and helpful for their work. For example:

• Articles should provide insights into how programmes might be run better, or what changes in policy are needed.
• Articles concentrating on analysis of how poor people manage their finances or their businesses should also include recommendations for how interventions might be improved.
• Articles describing particular projects in a given country should also include international comparisons, or at least some discussion of how local practice relates to what is done in other parts of the world.
• Readers are also interested in sustainability i.e. how much programmes cost to run, or financial products cost to offer on the market, and how far they are able to cover their costs with customer charges.

Articles should be between 3000 and 6000 words in length: articles covering specific projects and their experiences may be shorter, whereas more analytical overviews are often longer. The editor welcomes authors sending in 100—150 word outlines of their proposed article for discussion and guidance prior to writing the full article.

Format

Please submit articles as a Word document containing the text, including title (up to 12 words), abstract (100—150 words), references, tables, boxes and figure captions.

Please also include one sentence on the author's occupation. Acknowledgments are not encouraged but if it is important to include them, please keep them to one sentence.

References and footnotes

EDM does not have footnotes. Material of this type should either be incorporated into the text (possibly in brackets) or omitted.

References should be given in the Harvard style e.g. (Smith, 2001) in the text, together with, in a list at the end: 

Smith, John (2001) ‘Microfinance performance indicators’, DFID report, London.

Tables and illustrations

• Tables should be set up in Word
• Line images should be submitted in black and white, no areas of solid grey, and at a resolution of 600 dots per inch at the size you would like it published or larger.
• Graphs or diagrams that were originally composed in Excel should be linked as an object in the Word file, and furnished as a separate file. Data should be displayed in greyscale or with patterns rather than colours: they should be in 2-D rather than 3-D.

Submission and editorial selection procedure 

Articles should be submitted as email attachments, and sent to the Editor, Clare Tawney, via email at publishinginfo@practicalaction.org.uk. 

Once received, they will be acknowledged by the editor, who will check that the article is within the scope of the journal. They will then be read by at least two other reviewers. When the reviewers’ comments have been received, usually within 6 weeks, the editor will convey the decision of the reviewers to the author. Unless the decision is not to publish, the reviewers usually ask for some revisions or they have a few queries.

If it is agreed that the article is suitable for publishing, the final decision on which issue the article is most suitable for is made at the editorial committee meeting, approximately 3 months before the issue will be published. The editor then edits the article and prepares it for publication. She will send each author a single copy of the issue when it is published: please send her the postal address to which copies should be sent.

Copyright Assignment

The journal's policy is to acquire copyright for all contributions. All named authors should download, sign, and scan the copyright assignment form, and once the article has been reviewed and revised, the form(s) must be uploaded to the Editorial Manager site along with the revised article. The original copy should be posted to Journals, Practical Action Publishing, The Schumacher Centre, Bourton-on-Dunsmore, Rugby, Warwickshire, CV23 9QZ, UK or faxed to +44(0)1926 634401. Co-authors can sign a single form, or may each sign separate forms, whichever is more convenient. 

Payment and extra copies

EDM  is published by Practical Action Publishing, part of the registered charity Practical Action, and we regret that we cannot pay authors.

We don’t distribute offprints or pdfs but authors who would like to order extra copies are invited to contact publishinginfo@practicalaction.org.uk. If you state that you are eligible for an author’s discount for this issue you can get discounts of 25% (single copy orders) and 33% (multiple copy orders) off the single copy price.