Tampere University Press - Submit your book proposal

The manuscript you submit to TUP must be as polished as you can make it. By carefully planning your writing and finalising your manuscript prior to submission, you can save time further down the line and help to convince referees of the merits of your work. You should not wait until your manuscript has been accepted for publication before polishing your work. The version of the manuscript you submit to TUP must be a stylistically consistent and coherent piece of writing. You should also set aside time for proofreading and editing your text before submission. Follow TUP’s instructions for authors when editing your manuscript (see section 2 in this document).

Editors’ role in creating an edited volume

Editors have an important role in coordinating and finalising an edited volume. The editing process often takes a great deal of time. An edited volume must form a coherent whole, but the individual articles or chapters must also be able to stand alone. The purpose of a book is to delve deeply into a topic from multiple perspectives retaining coherence and consistency, but readers will often download and read only some of the articles online. This means that each article must be a stand-alone piece of writing that is understandable even when read on its own.

When referees assess edited volumes, their criticism typically focuses on a lack of consistency in terms of structure, themes and references. Editors should take steps to ensure consistency in advance, for example, by selecting the referencing style that authors must use. Editors can also improve consistency by informing authors of the recommended length of articles, whether articles should start with an introduction or an abstract and be written in an active voice or a passive voice, whether authors are allowed to use stock photos or quotations, how they should formulate titles and headings, and so on. 

Editors:

• define the objectives and target audience of an edited volume;
• are responsible for the correctness and lawfulness of content (such as obtaining permission to use third-party content);
• maintain the thematic and structural consistency of the volume and make sure the articles form a coherent whole;
• write the introduction and possibly a conclusion;
• advise authors on the schedule and progress of the publishing process and provide them with technical writing instructions;   
• check that authors have adhered to the technical writing instructions (such as the selected referencing style);
• serve as a liaison between authors and the publisher.

Recommendation concerning research data

TUP has created its own data management policy to promote the use of good practices in the management of research data. We recommend drawing up a data management plan (DMP), keeping it up to date throughout the project, and delivering the latest version to the publisher alongside the manuscript sent for peer-review. The reliability of peer-review can be improved by allowing referees to assess the data sets associated with the manuscript. Publications should include a link to appropriately stored research data if at least the related metadata records are publicly available. Our policy is available on Trepo.

Ethical review

To comply with the principles of good scientific practice, researchers working in Finland must adhere to the ethical standards for research involving human participants and, if necessary, request a statement from an ethics committee before commencing research. Authors and editors who submit manuscripts to TUP have a duty to ensure that an ethical review is appropriately carried out, if necessary, before starting the research project associated with their manuscript.

Licenses

The Open Access books of Tampere University Press are published under a Creative Commons (CC) 4.0 license. Our authors select a license from the CC 4.0 suite to share their work with the public and allow others to reuse their work subject to the terms of that license. The CC license requires that others who use your work in any way must give you credit the way you request. Read more about CC licenses.

Citations and copyrighted images

Citing the works of others in research publications is allowed to the extent necessary. The original authors must always be given credit for their work.

You must make sure you do not infringe on someone else’s copyright by including citations, images or translations created by others in your manuscript. If you include long direct quotations or, for example, copyrighted images in your manuscript, you must obtain permission from the copyright holder to publish them both in the printed book and the open access book (published under a CC license). You are also responsible for paying any fees set by the copyright holder.

When citing a work of fiction, you must use the official translated version of the book as the source. If there is no official translation available, you must include a notice that you translated the passage yourself.

Manuscripts containing previously published sections

As a rule, TUP only publishes original works that have not been previously published. If the work overlaps with a previous publication, it must have a significant amount of new text, a different viewpoint, or other major differences in order to be considered a new standalone publication.

Translated works and works that have already been published may only be approved for a specific reason. This is also provided that the author holds the copyright, or that it is possible to obtain permission for making the publication openly accessible under a CC license.

If parts of your manuscript have been previously published, it is important to say so when you first contact the publisher. TUP may require the removal of such parts. We use Turnitin to check the originality of the text. The anti-plagiarism check is performed before the manuscript is submitted for peer-review.

After revising your manuscript in accordance with the referees’ comments, you need to resubmit your final manuscript before the deadline you agreed with TUP. Authors/editors are responsible for having their texts proofread. We will go over the author report that outlines the changes made to the original manuscript and give the manuscript a final once-over. If the manuscript still needs work, we will return it to the authors.

After the manuscript has been sent to the layout designer, the content can no longer be changed, so it is important to carefully proofread the final version of the manuscript.

Tips for polishing your text:

• Check that the headings match the table of contents.
• Turn spell check on in your word processing software but remember that it cannot find every error. Read the text or ask someone else to do it one more time!
• Only use the default formatting styles and fonts in Word. Do not adjust the styles manually. Use the same formats and styles consistently throughout the manuscript.
• Make sure you saved the final version of each chapter!
• Check the numbering of images, figures and tables. Check that the images, figures and tables are in their correct positions in the manuscript. You must also save them in separate files which you send to the layout designer (see the accepted file formats below).  
• If you use the track changes feature in Word while putting the finishing touches on your manuscript, accept all changes before sending the file to the layout designer.

Figures, tables and images

Figures and tables are submitted as separate files in an editable format (for example, figures as Excel files that include a model image and the numbers in a separate table and tables as Word files). As the layout designer usually needs to redesign the figures to achieve print-quality resolution, it is important that the texts can be copied from the original files. The Arial Narrow font should be used in all figures and tables. Graphics content can also be submitted in a vector graphic format as an EPS or AI file.

Images must be submitted in TIFF or JPG formats. The minimum acceptable image resolution is 300 dpi (avoid screenshots and images that are captured online that generally do not print well). For illustrations, the acceptable resolution is 1,200 dpi. Images must be scanned and delivered to TUP preferably in their final size. TUP will agree with you on the size of the book before the materials are submitted. The layout designer will be consulted before deciding on the preferred image size.

Schedule for layout design

After a manuscript has been sent to the layout designer, major changes can no longer be made to the text. Designing the layout will take about 2–4 weeks, but longer if the text has not been carefully polished and proof-read in advance. Designing the layout of a book with a large number of tables and figures will take longer than a book that mostly contains only text.

The authors/editors of the book are entitled and obligated to check the final version before publishing. At this stage, it is only possible to correct typos or other minor errors. The corrections should not affect the pagination of the book. When checking the proof, pay special attention to the tables and figures, special characters, hyphenation, paragraph breaks and possible in-text citations. 

Accessibility

In addition to a wide range of other document types, the EU Web Accessibility Directive also applies to eBooks. As the majority of the accessibility requirements are technical in nature, the necessary adjustments will be made at the layout design stage.

However, authors and editors are responsible for providing alternative text descriptions (alt text) for all images and charts that convey the meaning of content that is displayed visually. The alternative text descriptions are submitted in a separate file alongside the final version of the manuscript. Please contact Tampere University Press with questions about writing alternative text.