Generic Manuscript Submission Guidelines for Authors

Rationale of the guidelines

The following guidelines are intended to help you the author to prepare a consistent manuscript. Please follow them to avoid the back-and-forth movement of your manuscript. The extent to which you observe them will help Makerere University Press (MakPress) speed up the production process of your manuscript. The guidelines apply mainly to monographs and edited works.

British English usage

For consistency in the manuscript, please use British English in your vocabulary, grammar,
punctuation and spelling. However, when you are directly quoting a text written in American
English, you have to keep it that way.

If an abbreviation ends with the last letter of the abbreviated word, use the abbreviation without aperiod; e.g. Dr, Mr, Ms, etc.; unless of course, such abbreviations appear at the end of the sentence. For abbreviations that do not end with the last letter of the abbreviated word, they should end with a
period; e.g. Prof.

Style

Use the Times New Roman font, 12-point size, in 1.5-line spacing. Apply double spacing between
paragraphs. Do not indent the paragraphs. Apply single spacing for the list of references, but apply
double spacing between the references.

You should submit typed work. The Press does not accept handwritten manuscripts.

Footnotes and endnotes

Endeavour to avoid using notes. Instead, incorporate the explanatory notes into the main text,
following the author-date citation; for example: (Ikoja, 1998, p. 52) or (Ikoja, 1998, 52).

If you must use notes, keep them brief; and give source references with as brief additional content as
possible. Our preference is that you omit them altogether.

Note that all the in-text references must appear on the list of references at the end of the manuscript.
The list of references must be presented in alphabetical order.

Quotes

All direct and indirect quotes should be acknowledged with citations. For indirect quotes, provide the
author’s surname and year of publication; e.g. (Ikoja, 1998).

For direct quotes, provide the author’s surname, year of publication and the page number; e.g. (Ikoja,
1998, p. 52). Where it is not easy to identify the surname, usually the name of the author that appears
last is the one to be quoted.

For quotes of more than 40 words, present them in block format and double indent. For example:

Makerere University is the powerhouse of Uganda and has empowered many prominent people in the region and globally…. Scholarly publishing should be distinguished from other forms of publishing such as; book publishing, trade publishing, newspaper publishing, magazine publishing, self-publishing and music publishing (Ikoja, 1998, p. 52).

All sources cited in the main body should appear at the end of the manuscript in alphabetical order; following the latest edition of the publication manual of the American Psychology Association (APA). The latest edition is available on https://apastyle.apa.org/products/publication-manual-7th-edition.

If an author has published two or more works in the same year, and are cited in the manuscript, the references in the text and the list of references should appear as Ikoja, 1998a; Ikoja, 1998b; Ikoja, 1998c, etc.

For works written by three or more authors, insert et al. after the first author’s surname to cater for the rest of the authors. For example, Okello et al. (2004). That applies to the in-text citations. However, you should provide the names of all the co-authors on the list of references.

In-text citation and the list of references

As an academic publisher, we acknowledge that there are several referencing styles that are discipline specific. Some disciplines prefer one style to another such as Chicago, Harvard, Vancouver, MLA, Oxford, APA, etc. The MakPress, especially for most work in the Humanities and Social Sciences, adopts the APA referencing style. The latest edition is what you should always refer to when referencing your work (https://apastyle.apa.org/products/publication-manual-7th-edition). The key though is to be consistent and not mix up the styles, or even old editions of APA with the latest one. Stick to the latest edition.

In-text citation

In-text citations should carry the author’s surname and the year of publication. Please always add the
page number if it is a direct quote. Please visit https://apastyle.apa.org/products/publication-manual-
7th-edition for the citation of work by a single author, two authors, more than three authors, online
sources, a television programme, a video, a publication programme, an Act of Parliament, work with
no author’s name, work with no publication date, etc.

The list of references

All the materials you have cited in the main body of your work should appear on the list of references with full details of each work. The list should be in alphabetical order. Strictly follow the latest edition of the APA (American Psychological Association) Style Manual. Please visit https://apastyle.apa.org/products/publication-manual-7th-edition for details on referencing a journal article, a book by a single author, a book by two authors, a book by three authors, a dissertation, an edited book, a book chapter, a newspaper article, an online source, a television programme, a video, a
publication programme, an Act of Parliament, work with no author’s name, work with no publication
date, etc.

Headings/Levelling

Please adopt a clear and simple heading scheme. For example:

Level 1: Topic in New Times Roman Pt 14, Capitals, Bold and Centred (preferably not longer than 100 characters).

Level 2: Sub-topic in New Times Roman, 12 points, Mixed Case, Bold, and Left aligned (preferably not longer than 50 characters).

Level 3: Sub-sub-topic in New Times Roman, 12 points, Mixed Case, Bold, Left aligned (preferably not longer than 50 characters. This level is to be italicised in the manuscript).

Level 4: New Times Roman, 12 points, Mixed Case, Bold, and Left aligned.

Note 1: Please avoid numbering the topics and the sub-topics. Stick to levelling them as explained above.

Note 2: A mixed case means The First Letters of Key Words are in Upper Case except the prepositions, conjunctions or articles; unless they are appearing at the beginning of the sub-topic.

Note 3: Your clarity in levelling will be helpful to the copy-editors to understand the prominence accorded to your arguments in the manuscript.

Originality

The manuscript you submit to us should be your original work that has not been published elsewhere.
You should also not submit the same manuscript to another publisher concurrently. Honesty and integrity are key elements of academic writing and should not be compromised. Acknowledge the use of AI tools e.g. ChatGPT. The MakPress will subject your work to AI detection tools.

Plagiarism

Please avoid plagiarism. Acknowledge all the information you have used that you got from other authors by citing the sources. We encourage you to subject your manuscript to an anti-plagiarism check and submit an anti-plagiarism report to us. The MakPress accepts work with a similarity reporting showing 15% overlap and below. Any evidence of plagiarism will be brought to the attention of the author(s) for correction or rejection if it is excessive.

Copyright

Please ensure that your work does not infringe any copyright, violate the rights of any other person,
or contain any defamatory or unlawful content. The author maintains intellectual rights to their work. Any exceptions will be spelt out in the respective author’s agreements.

Permissions

Please ensure that you obtain written authorisation from previous publishers of any part of your work
or the whole of it. You must present written evidence that republishing it will not infringe on the legal rights of any party. This also applies to photographs, illustrations and other graphics used that are taken from other sources. Not every photograph/image available online is free. Check free opensource sources e.g. https://freepix.net/ and others. For biographies, the administrator of the estate should provide written permission to use family photographs

Artwork and other illustrations

Please ensure that all images, graphics, illustrations and any other artwork are easily readable. They
should be numbered successively in the order they appear in your manuscript; e.g. Table 1, Table 2,
or Figure 1, Figure 2, etc.

First-person language

We encourage you to use the first-person singular form (“I”) in your writing if you do not have co-
authors. If you have co-authors, use the plural form “we”.

Index

As the author, you know your content better than anyone reading it. For that reason, please generate a
list of index entries (keywords per page) that we shall build on to produce a complete and thorough index. We also encourage you to provide keywords for your book chapter or journal article.

Blurb

A blurb is a short description of your manuscript. It should be approximately 250 words. The blurb
will appear on the back cover of your book. Please write it in such a way that it promotes your book.
We also encourage you to get prominent personalities in your field to provide blurbs for your book.
Depending on the size of the book, the ideal should be no more than three.]

Biographical note/about the author(s) or editor(s)

Please provide your biographical information of not more than 200 words. This information will
appear in the book or on the back cover below the blurb. Also, provide a high-definition passport size
photograph preferably in jpeg format.

The editing and publication chain

Please note that the MakPress ensures the quality of publications by taking each manuscript through
a rigorous review and editing process. The publication of your manuscript will take at most twelve
months. The period of publication will depend on the size of the manuscript, the number of authors
and the level of technical complexity such as seeking permissions and copyrights. A key factor is
also how fast the author(s) respond(s) to reviewers’ comments (including line-editors, copy-editors
and proof-readers).

Enquiries

For any enquiries or clarification on the guidelines above, please contact:

The Managing Editor
makpress[@]mak.ac.ug AND
makpress2023[@]gmail.com

Thank you for expressing interest in publishing with the MakPress.