Instructions for Authors

PROCEDURE FOR PAPER SUBMISSION
Who can submit papers
The Arms Control Journal is published by the Arms Control Center, primarily to provide all interested individuals around the world with rapid, uncensored and unbiased open access to the research conducted at the Arms Control Center (an international non-profit research center and a publishing house registered with the national library of Greece). The journal itself, due to its non-commercial, exclusively academic nature is supported by the subscriptions of the members of the Arms Control Center who have the privilege of submitting and publishing (free of charge) papers, monographs, e-books, and their academic work in general, in the Arms Control Journal (and the website of the Arms Control Center). There are no publication fees for members (all co-authors must be members!) as long as their membership status is in good standing while for non-members there is only a nominal fee. Become a member now to receive your Arms Control Certificate and publish after review in the Arms Control Journal your papers, monographs, e-books, articles, conference proceedings etc (free of charge).

Reviewing Process
The Arms Control Journal applies a single-blind review process, which means that the names of the reviewers are hidden from the author. All papers should be submitted to the Editor-in-Chief. After the initial submission, the Editor-in-Chief screens the manuscript to ensure that it complies with the general requirements (membership in good standing, compatible format etc.). If accepted for peer review the manuscript is forwarded to two reviewers, who are distinguished academics specializing in the field of the paper. If both reviewers agree that the paper should be published then authors will be notified accordingly and the paper will appear on the website of the Arms Control Center both in the Arms Control Journal as well as a regular post. If both reviewers are not satisfied and have suggestions for amends then their review will be forwarded to authors, who have to comply and resubmit their amended paper to be reevaluated by the reviewers. If one reviewer accepts the paper and the other rejects it an adjudicator will be appointed by the Editor.

Review Stage
Please submit your manuscripts electronically for review as e-mail attachments. When you submit your initial full paper version, prepare it in two-column format, including figures and tables according to this template. The Arms Control Center cannot offer editing services so please follow all the rules found in this template. Papers that do not conform to this template will be returned to authors and will not be accepted unless all errors are corrected. Authors are strongly encouraged to seek editing help before submitting their work if they don’t have a thorough knowledge of MS Word.

Copyright Form
An Arms Control Journal copyright form should accompany your final submission. You can get a .pdf version from here or from the first issues in each volume of the Arms Control Journal. Authors are responsible for obtaining any security clearances.

EDITORIAL POLICY
Submission of a manuscript is not required for participation in a conference. Do not submit a reworked version of a paper you have submitted or published elsewhere. Do not publish “preliminary” data or results. The submitting author is responsible for obtaining the agreement of all coauthors and any consent required from sponsors before submitting a paper. The Arms Control Journal strongly discourages courtesy authorship. It is the obligation of the authors to cite relevant prior work.
The Arms Control Journal does publish papers related to conferences that have been recommended for publication on the basis of peer review. As a matter of convenience and service to the technical community, these topical papers are collected and published in one issue of the Arms Control Journal.
At least two reviews are required for every paper submitted. For conference-related papers, the decision to accept or reject a paper is made by the conference editors and publications committee; the recommendations of the referees are advisory only. Undecipherable English is a valid reason for rejection. Authors of rejected papers may revise and resubmit them to the Arms Control Journal as regular papers, whereupon they will be reviewed by two new referees.

PUBLICATION PRINCIPLES
The contents of the Arms Control Journal are peer-reviewed and archival. The Arms Control Journal publishes scholarly articles of archival value as well as tutorial expositions and critical reviews of classical subjects and topics of current interest.
Authors should consider the following points:
1) Technical papers submitted for publication must advance the state of knowledge and must cite relevant prior work.
2) The length of a submitted paper should be commensurate with the importance, or appropriate to the complexity, of the work. For example, an obvious extension of previously published work might not be appropriate for publication or might be adequately treated in just a few pages.
3) Authors must convince both peer reviewers and the editors of the scientific and technical merit of a paper; the standards of proof are higher when extraordinary or unexpected results are reported.
4) Because replication is required for scientific progress, papers submitted for publication must provide sufficient information to allow readers to perform similar experiments or calculations and use the reported results. Although not everything need be disclosed, a paper must contain new, usable, and fully described information. For example, a specimen’s chemical composition need not be reported if the main purpose of a paper is to introduce a new measurement technique. Authors should expect to be challenged by reviewers if the results are not supported by adequate data and critical details.
5) Papers that describe ongoing work or announce the latest technical achievement, which are suitable for presentation at a professional conference, may not be appropriate for publication in the Arms Control Journal.

MANUSCRIPT TEMPLATE
The Journal of Arms Control, Defense and Security Studies (abbreviated as “The Arms Control Journal” or ACJ) has adopted for its manuscript format a combination of other journal formats such as those of the IEEE, WASET etc. Thus our manuscript template originates from their own and has been adjusted to fit the purpose and nature of the Arms Control Journal. In this template, you will find guidelines for preparing papers for the Arms Control Journal (research reports, regular articles, letters to the editor, short notes, conference papers, etc.) Use this template if you are using Microsoft Word. Otherwise, use it as an instruction set. The electronic file of your paper may be formatted further by the Arms Control Journal.