Subscriptions:

Airmail overseas rate: US$60 or AUD$90 (4 issues per year). Back issues: price available on request. Major credit cards are accepted.
Australian rate: AUD$55 per year (incl. GST). Back issues: $14.30 per copy (incl GST).
New Zealand rate: AUD$50 per year; back issues: $13.00 per copy.
All prices include airmail delivery.

Address:

Youth Studies Australia welcomes contributions on all aspects of Australasian youth and aims to present youth issues and research in a way that is accessible and reader-friendly.

Intending contributors should thoroughly familiarise themselves with the journal.

Academic papers will be reviewed by one or more external reviewers and by the editor and deputy editor.

In general, manuscripts should not exceed 4,000 words. Text style should conform to the AGPS Style Manual (5th edition) with references presented in the author-date system. (APA style is acceptable.) If including tables and figures, please supply the raw data as well. Include with the manuscript a short abstract, and for each author, a short biographical statement, name, affiliation, mailing address, phone and fax numbers and email address.

Submission of a manuscript implies commitment to publish in the journal. Manuscripts should not have been published elsewhere in substantially similar form or content, nor be submitted simultaneously to other journals.

Manuscripts should be supplied on disk in MSWord, with one hard copy and sent to: The Editor, Youth Studies Australia, Private Bag 64, Hobart, Tasmania 7001. Responses will be sent within two months of receipt.

Rights: Contributors to Youth Studies Australia retain copyright of their original work. YSA/ACYS holds copyright of the published version and reserves the right to reproduce all YSA material on the web site of the Australian Clearinghouse for Youth Studies and to collect copying fees in relation to all or part of any ACYS publication.

2. Guide for authors and peer reviewers

Youth Studies Australia aims to provide readers with up-to-date research and practice information that might usefully inform their work in the youth field. Youth Studies Australia encourages authors to communicate to a wide, often non-academic, audience. Papers that have been successfully peer reviewed for YSA may therefore differ in appearance and length from those in traditional scholarly journals but must nevertheless meet similar criteria.

The criteria (adapted from the Society for Research on Adolescence) for papers published in Youth Studies Australia are:

1. research and theory should be of a high standard and be communicated in a reader-friendly manner;
2. policy issues should be substantive and addressed objectively; and
3. the work should clearly articulate the implications of the research, thereby clarifying policy problems and (ideally) illustrating solutions.

Contributors are asked to write to a word length of 4,000 words or under. (In some cases, scholarly papers may be accepted at 5,000 words.) Due to this space restriction, background reading and the methodology or `science' need to be summarised very succinctly. Authors are encouraged to focus on findings, discussion, implications and recommendations. While the authors' demonstration of knowledge of the literature is very important, it need not be unnecessarily expansive. The space available should be used to `advance' knowledge of the issue or subject; we therefore prefer that common knowledge be accepted as `given'. (For example, papers addressing particular aspects of youth homelessness or unemployment do not need to first establish, beyond giving current figures, that homelessness and unemployment exist as problems.)

In the peer-review process, reviewers are asked to respond to the following questions:

1. Does the paper reflect a knowledge of substantive issues in the area of youth studies?
2. Does the research, review or argument that forms the basis of the paper conform to standards acceptable to the particular field of study?
3. Do the conclusions represent a logical interpretation of the authors' research or review?
4. Do the authors discuss other relevant research or literature? Is this reflected in the literature sourced? (Please take into account the space priorities described above.)
5. Does the paper contribute to the body of knowledge on the subject?
6. Would you recommend publication as a peer-reviewed paper in Youth Studies Australia?

3. Publication as a non-peer reviewed paper

Papers which do not meet the rigorous standards or depth required of scholarly, peer-reviewed work, but which are well written, well sourced and raise interesting issues which deserve attention, may, with the authors' permission, be published in YSA as non-peer reviewed articles.

Rights and permissions:

Apart from fair dealing for educational purposes, the contents of Youth Studies Australia may be reproduced only with the prior permission of the editor and the authors concerned, with appropriate acknowledgments. The views expressed are those of the individual authors, not the ACYS or the Australian Government, Department of Family and Community Services.

Contributors to Youth Studies Australia retain copyright of their original work. YSA/ACYS holds copyright of the published version and reserves the right to reproduce all YSA material on the web site of the Australian Clearinghouse for Youth Studies and to collect copying fees in relation to all or part of any ACYS publication.

Abstracting and indexing information:

Youth Studies Australia is indexed and/or abstracted by these databases which should be available through your nearest academic library:

• EBSCO Information Services (Academic Search Elite; MasterFILE;
• UnCOVER;
• CAB Abstracts;
• NCJRS (US Department of Justice);

and by the following Australian databases:

• AEI (ACER);
• APAIS (National Library of Australia);
• MAIS (Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs Library);
• FAMILY (AIFS); and
• Guidelines.

Adverstising:

Youth Studies Australia does not carry advertising on its pages. However, if you have a youth-related product or event to promote to readers of Youth Studies Australia, note that ACYS can distritute fliers or inserts along with the journal for a fee. Find out more or send an email to ACYS@educ.utas.edu.au