Working Paper Series

The Working Paper Series publishes and promotes the work of our researchers for dissemination purposes and promotes the development of research outputs for further publication in academic journals.

The aim of the Working Paper Series is to disseminate preliminary research results, technical reports, and conference proceedings/presentations to enable researchers to communicate the findings of their work to a wider audience in a timely way.

The advantages of the WSA Working Paper Series are that it will:

• offer a fast-track to dissemination of research results
• communicate preliminary results to external academic and non-academic audiences
• raise awareness of research conducted at WSA
• receive internal and external feedback on work in progress
• instil a research culture at WSA
• automatic inclusion of the School’s research on the British Library database.

Referee and editing procedure

Papers need to be submitted to the editorial team at poortingaw@cardiff.ac.uk and will be independently peer reviewed by other academic members of the School (in certain cases external reviewers may be asked). If a paper is of sufficiently high quality it will be included in the WSA Working Paper Series and published on the WSA website.

Note that papers cannot be considered for publication in the WSA Working Paper Series if they have been published elsewhere, are accepted for publication, or are under review. However, submitted papers may subsequently be presented, published or submitted for publication in other appropriate outlets, such as peer-reviewed journals, books (chapters), or conference proceedings.

The decision to publish a paper as part of the WSA Working Paper Series is based upon:

• the quality of writing and the presentation of data and research findings
• the completeness of the paper in terms of presentation of the objectives, literature review, research methods, findings, and implications for further academic research, policy and/or practice.

Submission guidelines

Papers can be submitted to the editorial team at poortingaw@cardiff.ac.uk and reviewed on a rolling basis as they are submitted. The accepted working papers will be published on the WSA website and a copy will be submitted to the British Library.

• The manuscript (title page, abstract, main text, figures, tables, references, and appendices) must be submitted as a single document in Word format.
• The manuscript text (excluding abstract, references, figures, tables, and appendices) is expected to be between 3,000 and 6,000 words, although longer and shorter texts will also be considered on an occasional basis.
• All submissions must use the WSA Working Paper template.
• The title page should consist of a title (and where appropriate a subtitle). The title page should also include the name(s) of the author(s).
• The abstract should be no longer than 200 words.
• Up to seven key words may be used to describe the research.
• Any text structure may be used. However, the text needs to be formatted according to the Working Paper template/guidelines; you are requested to use no more than four heading levels, and the contents page needs to be linked automatically to the text.
• All figures and tables should be embedded in the text in the location that they should appear.
• Footnotes should be kept to a minimum. If they are included, they should be indicated in the text by superscript figures and collected at the end of the text (before the references). The footnotes should be comprehensible without reading the text.
• A parenthetical referencing style must be used throughout (e.g. Harvard). The referencing style has to be consistent throughout. The author(s) should pay particular attention to the accuracy and correct presentation of the references.
• All sources of assistance must be acknowledged in the manuscript. Include the project number for externally funded research projects.
• All formatting and editing needs to be done by the author(s).
• The copyright is retained by the author(s) and all opinions expressed in the working paper are those of the author(s) alone and should not be regarded as the views of the Welsh School of Architecture or Cardiff University.

Seminars

The WSA Working Paper Series will be accompanied by a seminar series. It is expected that the authors will present their work to the School and address issues raised in the published papers. Dates and topics are published and publicised when a paper is accepted.

Working papers