Journal of Near-Death Studies Instructions for Authors

GENERAL REQUIREMENTS

Logical organization is essential.  While headings help to structure the content, titles and headings within the manuscript should be as short as possible.  Do not use the general masculine pronoun or other sexist terminology.

MANUSCRIPTS

may be submitted in electronic format (preferred) or hard copy.  Electronic manuscripts may be submitted by e-mail to the Editor, Bruce Greyson, at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , or by mailing a computer diskette or CD-ROM to the Editor at the address below.  Please clearly designate the name of the file containing the manuscript and the hardware and software used.  IBM-compatible files are preferred in WordPerfect, but other programs for IBM-compatible or Macintosh computers are acceptable.  Manuscripts submitted as hard copy should be submitted typed on one side of the page only, double spaced throughout, with a margin of at least one inch on all four sides, and all pages should be numbered.  There are no absolute limits on length of articles, but authors should strive for conciseness.

Send manuscripts and/or computer diskettes or CD-ROMs to:

Bruce Greyson, M.D.
Division of Personality Studies
University of Virginia Health System
P. O. Box 800152
Charlottesville, VA 22908-0152
(USA)

TITLE PAGE

should contain the names of the authors, as well as their academic degrees, institutional affiliations, titles, and phone number, fax number, and e-mail address for the senior author.  Include a name, postal address, and e-mail address for reprint requests.

ABSTRACTS

Abstracts of 100-200 words are required with all articles.  Abstracts should include the major premises of the article, intent, hypotheses, research design, results, and conclusions.  For research reports, include the purpose, hypotheses, method, major results, and conclusions.  For review or discussion articles, identify the main themes and conclusions and reflect them in a balanced fashion; if sources are important (for example, previous research), include these.  For other types of articles, including replies to other authors' articles or case histories, refer briefly to the main themes and conclusions and cross-reference if necessary.  Abstracts should be nonevaluative in tone, and should include as much information as possible within the constraints of space.

KEY WORDS

Articles should include two to five key words, listed after the abstract, which will be printed in the Journal and used by abstracting services for indexing the article.  This is unnecessary for book reviews and letters to the editor.

FOOTNOTES AND ENDNOTES

An introductory footnote may contain simple statements of the authors' institutional titles and affiliations, and acknowledgment or credit for assistance and research support.  Other footnotes are strongly discouraged.  References should be incorporated into the text whenever possible instead of using endnotes.  Examples: "Among suicide attempters, NDE reports are more frequent among those who did not come close to death (Greyson, 1981b)"; "Zurcher (1959) characterized Hui-yuan's disciples as young artistic gentry literati."

REFERENCES

should be listed in alphabetical order (and chronologically for each author) at the end of the article, and referred to in the text by author(s) and year of publication.  Only items cited in the text should be listed as references.  Personal communications (e.g., K. Ring, personal communication, June 6, 1997) and Internet websites (e.g., www.iands.org) may be cited in the text, but should not be included in the list of references.  Include all authors in references with multiple authors.  Do not abbreviate journal titles.  Capitalize principal words in journal titles, but only the first word in a book title or subtitle.  Examples:

Book:

Ring, K. (1980).  Life at death: A scientific investigation of the near-death experience.  New York, NY: Coward, McCann and Geoghegan.

Article:

Furn, B. G. (1987).  Adjustment and the near-death experience: A conceptual and therapeutic model.  Journal of Near-Death Studies, 6, 4-19.

Chapter in collection:

Ivey, A. (1981).  Counseling and psychotherapy: Toward a new perspective.  In A. J. Marsella and P. B. Petersen (Eds.), Cross-cultural counseling and psychotherapy (pp. 198-223).  New York, NY: Pergamon.

ILLUSTRATIONS

should be self-explanatory and used very sparingly.  Tables and figures must be in camera-ready condition and include captions.

NUMBERS AND NUMERALS

When referring to statistics or a person's age, use numerals ("55 percent"; "4 of 42 cases"; "55 years old").  In other circumstances, spell out single digit numbers and use numerals for larger numbers ("the three questionnaires each contained 24 questions").  The word "percent" should be spelled out, as one word.  The symbol "%" is acceptable in tables.

TENSE

In reviewing the literature, use the past tense for occurrences at a definite time in the past ("Smith reported similar results") or present perfect tense for occurrences beginning in the past and continuing ("Many researchers have used this instrument").  In describing results of your study, use the past tense ("the subjects performed as predicted").  In presenting conclusions from your data, use the present tense ("these data confirm our hypothesis").

ABBREVIATIONS

Use "NDE," "NDEs" (not "NDE's"), "NDEr" (not "NDEer"); "OBE" (not "OOBE"), "OBEs" (not "OBE's"), "OBEr" (not "OBEer").  Define each abbreviation or acronym the first time it is used.  Example: "Near-death experiences (NDEs) often produce aftereffects that are rare following close brushes with death that do not include NDEs."

QUOTATIONS

Longer quotations should be indented and separated from the text by extra spacing.  Please double space quotations, however, to leave room for editing.  All direct quotes, regardless of length, must have proper reference to their original source, including page number for published sources or date for personal communications.

COMMAS

Separate the final two items in a series with a comma ("Ring, Moody, and Sabom").

PERSONAL NAMES

When referring to a person, regardless of the persons's degree, title, or gender, use his or her full name in the first reference and last name only in subsequent references.  Example: "In this book, Michael Sabom, a cardiologist, brings a medical perspective to the study of NDEs.  Sabom himself was roused to question his scientific dogmas . . . ."  Honorifics ("Mr. Smith," "Ms. Jones," "Dr. Moody") and academic degrees ("Kenneth Ring, Ph.D.," "Michael Sabom, M.D.") are not used in the text of the article, but are used in the author's byline and in bibliographical and acknowledgment footnotes.

FIRST PERSON

Use "I" or "we" (only for more than one person; do not use the editorial plural for a single author) rather than the passive construction "it was noted," etc.

OTHER TERMS

Use "near-death experiencer," not "near-death experient"; "out-of-body experience," not "out-of-the-body experience."  Use "data" as a plural noun.  experience," not "out-of-the-body experience."  Use "data" as a plural noun.

For help with any other questions of style, see a recent issue of the Journal of Near-Death Studies, or the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association.