Encyclopedia of Law Enforcement


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Style Sheet

1. Unless otherwise stated, encyclopedia entries should follow the recommendations of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 4th or 5th ed. Acronyms, abbreviations, and jargon should be defined, unless they are well known (such as FBI) or in the dictionary or APA manual.
2. Quotes should include an in-text citation (with page numbers) to the original source. Where appropriate, statistics should also contain an in-text citation.
3. Your entry should not include footnotes or endnotes.
4. Avoid sex-specific terminology and the use of "man" or "men" as the generic for human being.
5. Avoid male or female pronouns to describe individuals or people in general and use third person plural (e.g., their) whenever possible.
6. Please give an individual's full name (including initials) on first usage. Thereafter, refer to both men and women by their last name.
7. Double-spacing should be used.
8. No automatic hyphenation.
9. Spelling should be in American English (we recommend Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary).
10. For the “further readings and references” list, use this format:
11. For the “further readings and references” list, use this format:
  • Journal entry: Smith, J. R. (2001). Reference style guidelines. Journal of Guidelines, 4, 2-7.
  • Book: Smith, J. R. (2001). Reference style guidelines. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
  • Book (two authors): Cone, J. D., & Foster, S. L. (1993). Dissertations and theses from start to finish: Psychology and related fields. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
  • Chapter in a book: Smith, J. R. (2001). Be sure your disk matches the hard copy. In R. Brown (Ed.), Reference style guidelines (pp. 55-62). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
  • Editor of a book: Smith, J. R. (Ed.). (2001). Reference style guidelines. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
  • Dissertation (unpublished): Smith, J. R. (2001). Reference style guidelines. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles.
  • Paper presented at a symposium or annual meeting: Smith, J. R. (2001, January). A citation for every reference, and a reference for every citation. Paper Presented at the annual meeting of the Reference Guidelines Association, St. Louis, MO.
  • Online: Smith, J. R. (2001, January). Quotes of 40 or more words will be block quotes. Reference style guidelines [Online]. Available: http://www.sagepub.com
  • Miscellaneous: please provide translations for non-English titles in references, page ranges for entries and for book chapters, and all authors’/editors’ names (not “et al.,” unless it appears that way in the publication). Don’t forget to alphabetize the further readings list by author.

12. Please avoid the following: special pleading or bias (generally, an encyclopedia is not the place to put forward novel theories), the overuse of bulleted lists, ending the entry with a summary (this should come first), numerous quotations, in-text citations (see above), entries dramatically longer or shorter than their assigned lengths, rhetorical questions, use of the first and second person in your entry, and generalities and digressions.