Instructions for Authors

Editor Ken Trotman
University of New South Wales, Australia

Editorial Philosophy

The purpose of this journal is to contribute to improving the practice and theory of auditing.  The term “auditing” is to be interpreted broadly to encompass various types of attestation activities.  Auditing does not take place in a vacuum, but rather in a complex economic and institutional environment.  Thus a purpose of the journal is to enhance our understanding of the forces that influence auditing practice.

Papers reporting results of original research concerning auditing theory, practice, methodology, institutions, and linkages with external economic and other influences are the central focus of this journal.  Discussion and analysis of current issues that bear on prospects for developments in auditing practice and research also constitute a significant part of the journal’s contents.  This may include surveys that summarize and evaluate developments in related fields that have an important bearing on auditing.  Practices and developments in auditing in different countries, auditing in corporate or governmental contexts, and uses of auditing in new ways are all appropriate topics.

 An essential objective of the journal is to promote communication between research and practice, which will influence present and future developments in auditing education as well as auditing research and practice.  However, papers focusing on questions related to audit education should be submitted to Issues in Accounting Education, the designated outlet for work related to audit education.

Submission of Manuscripts

Authors should note guidelines for submitting manuscripts:

1. Manuscripts currently under consideration by another journal or other publisher should not be submitted. The author must state that the work is not submitted or published elsewhere.

2. To expedite the process, an electronic submission and review process is employed. To preserve anonymity, put the cover page and the remainder of the document in separate Word files. In the case of manuscripts reporting on field surveys or experiments, the instrument (questionnaire, case, interview plan, or the like) should also be submitted in a separate file, with the identity of the author(s) deleted. Email the cover page, manuscript, and, if applicable, the instrument as attached files to Ken Trotman, Editor for Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory at ajpt@unsw.edu.au.  Contact Ken if compatibility or electronic submission is a problem.

3. The submission fee is $75.00 in U.S. funds, which may be paid by credit card or check. To charge the fee, access the AAA web site at: https://aaahq.org/AAAforms/journals/ajptsubmit.cfm. Alternatively, the submission fee may be paid by check, made payable to the American Accounting Association and mailed to Ken Trotman, Editor, AJPT, School of Accounting, Australian School of Business, University of New South Wales, Sydney 2052 AUSTRALIA.

Manuscript Preparation and Style

Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory’s manuscript preparation guidelines follow closely that used in The Accounting Review, another American Accounting Association publication. These guidelines follow (with slight modification) the B-format of the Chicago Manual of Style (14th ed.; University of Chicago Press). Another helpful guide to usage and style is The Elements of Style, by William Strunk, Jr., and E. B. White (Macmillan). Spelling follows Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary.

Format

1.    All manuscripts should be typed on one side of 8˝ ´ 11" good quality paper and be double-spaced, except for indented quotations.

2.    Manuscripts should be as concise as the subject and research method permit, generally not to exceed 7,000 words.

3.    Margins should be at least one inch on top, bottom, and sides to facilitate editing and duplication.

4.    To assure anonymous review, authors should not identify themselves directly or indirectly in their papers. Single authors should not use the editorial “we.”

5.    A cover page should include the title of the paper, the author’s name, title, affiliation, and any acknowledgments.

6.    All pages, including tables, appendices, and references, should be serially numbered.

7.    Spell out numbers one to ten, except when used in tables and lists, and when used with mathematical, statistical, scientific, or technical units and quantities, such as distances, weights, and measures. For example: three days; 3 kilometers; 30 years. All other numbers are expressed numerically.

8.    In non-technical text use the word percent.

9.   a.  Use a hyphen (-) to join unit modifiers or to clarify usage. For example: a well-
     presented analysis; re-form. See Webster’s for correct usage.

      b.  En dash (–) is used between words indicating duration, such as hourly time or
months or years. No space on either side.

      c.  Em dash (—) is used to indicate an abrupt change in thought, or where a period is
            too strong and a comma too weak. No space on either side.

10.  The following will be Roman in all cases: i.e., e.g., ibid., et al., op. cit.

11.  Initials: A. B. Smith (space between); Countries: U.S., U.K. (no space between).

12.  When using “Big 4,” “Big 5,” “Big 6,” or “Big 8,” use Arabic figures (don’t spell
  out).

13.  Ellipsis should be used, not periods, example … not….

14.  Use “SAS No. #” not “SAS #.”

15.  Use only one space after periods, colons, exclamation points, question marks, and quotation marks—any punctuation that separates two sentences.

16.  a.  Use real quotation marks—never use inch marks: use “ and ” not " and ".

      b.  Use real apostrophes, not the footmarks: use ’ not '.

17.  Punctuation used with quote marks:

      a.  Commas and periods are always placed inside the quotation marks.

      b.  Colons and semicolons go outside the quotation marks.

      c.  Question marks and exclamation points go in or out, depending on whether they belong to the material inside the quote. If they belong to the quoted material, they go inside the quote marks, and vice versa.

18.  Punctuation and parentheses: Sentence punctuation goes after the closing parentheses if what is inside the parentheses is part of the sentence (as is this phrase). This also applies to commas, semicolons, and colons. If what is inside the parentheses is an entire statement if its own, the ending punctuation should also be inside the parentheses.

19.  Headings should be arranged so that major headings are centered, bold, and capitalized. Second level headings should be flush left, bold, and both upper and lowercase. Third level headings should be flush left, bold, italic, and both upper and lower case. Fourth level headings should be paragraph indent, bold, and lower case. Headings and subheadings should not be numbered. For example:

A CENTERED, BOLD, ALL CAPITALIZED, FIRST LEVEL HEADING

A Flush Left, Bold, Upper and Lower Case, Second Level Heading

A Flush Left, Bold, Italic, Upper and Lower Case, Third Level Heading

A paragraph indent, bold, lower case, fourth level heading. Text starts.…

Summary

A summary, not exceeding 150 words, should be on a separate page immediately preceding the text. The summary should be nonmathematical, easily readable, and should emphasize the significant findings and implications for practice and theory. The intent is to enable both practitioners and academics to determine the relevance of the article to their own interests. Thus, the language should be less formal than that used in the article itself, and discussion of method should be brief, unless that is the main focus of the article. The page should include the title of the article, but should exclude author’s name or other identification designations.

Key Words

Include up to six key words on the summary page.

Data Availability

A statement indicating whether the author would be willing to share data must be included on the summary page.

Tables and Figures

The author should note the following general requirements.

1.     Each table and figure (graphic) should appear on a separate page and should be placed at the end of the text. Each should bear an Arabic number and a complete title indicating the exact contents of the table or figure.

2.     A reference to each table or figure should be made in the text.

3.     The author should indicate by marginal notation where each table or figure should be inserted in the text, e.g., (Insert Table X here).

4.     Tables or figures should be reasonably interpreted without reference to the text.

5.     Source lines and notes should be included as necessary.

6.     When information is not available, use “NA” capitalized with no slash between.

7.     Figures must be prepared in a form suitable for printing.

Mathematical Notation

Mathematical notation should be employed only where its rigor and precision are necessary, and in such circumstances authors should explain in the narrative format the principal operations performed. Notation should be avoided in footnotes. Unusual symbols, particularly if handwritten, should be identified in the margin when they appear. Displayed material should clearly indicate the alignment, superscripts and subscripts. Equations should be numbered in parentheses flush with the right-hand margin.

Documentation

Citations: Work cited should use the “author-date system” keyed to a list of works in the reference list (see below). Authors should make an effort to include the relevant page numbers in the cited works.

1.     In the text, works are cited as follows: author’s last name and date, without comma, in parentheses; for example, (Jones 1987); with two authors: (Jones and Freeman 1973); with more than two: (Jones et al. 1985); with more than one source cited together (Jones 1987; Freeman 1986); with two or more works by one author: (Jones 1985, 1987).

2.     Unless confusion would result, do not use “p.” or “pp.” before page numbers: for example, (Jones 1987, 115).

3.     When the reference list contains more than one work of an author published in the same year, the suffix a, b, etc. follows the date in the text citation: for example, (Jones 1987a) or (Jones 1987a, Freeman 1985b).

4.     If an author’s name is mentioned in the text, it need not be repeated in the citation; for example, “Jones (1987, 115) says….”

5.     Citations to institutional works should use acronyms or short titles where practicable: for example, (AAA ASOBAT 1966); (AICPA Cohen Commission Report 1977). Where brief, the full title of an institutional work might be shown in a citation: for example, (ICAEW The Corporate Report 1975).

6.     If the manuscript refers to statutes, legal treatises or court cases, citations acceptable in law reviews should be used.

Reference List: Every manuscript must include a list of references containing only those works cited. Each entry should contain all data necessary for unambiguous identification. With the author-date system, use the following format recommended by the Chicago Manual:

1.     Arrange citations in alphabetical order according to surname of the first author or the name of the institution responsible for the citation.

2.     Use the author’s initials instead of proper names.

3.     In listing more than one name in references (Rayburn, L., and B. Harrelson) there should always be a comma before “and.”

4.     Dates of publication should be placed immediately after authors’ names.

5.     Titles of journals should not be abbreviated.

6.     Multiple works by the same author(s) should be listed in chronological order of publication. Two or more works by the same author(s) in the same year are distinguished by letters after the date.

Sample entries are as follows:

American Accounting Association, Committee on Concepts and Standards for External Financial Reports. 1977. Statement on Accounting Theory and Theory Acceptance. Sarasota, FL: AAA.

Bell, T., and W. R. Knechel. 1994. Empirical analysis of errors discovered in audits of property and casualty insurers. Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory 13 (Spring): 84–100.

Johnson, N. 1977. A pattern-unit model of word identification. In Basic Processing in Reading: Perception and Comprehension, edited by D. LaBerge, and S. J. Samuels, 91–125. Hillsdale, NJ: Earlbaum.

Weber, R. 1982. Auditing: Conceptual Foundations and Practice. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Wright, A., and R. H. Ashton. 1989. Identifying audit adjustments with attention-directing procedures. The Accounting Review (October): 710–728.

———, and S. Wright. 1992. Waived audit adjustments and financial reporting risk. Working paper, Boston College.

Footnotes: Footnotes are not to be used for documentation. Textual footnotes should be used only for extensions and useful excursions of information that if included in the body of the text might disrupt its continuity. Footnotes should be numbered consecutively throughout the manuscript with superscript Arabic numerals.  The footnote material should appear on the same page as the footnote number (i.e., do not use Endnotes).

Copyright Information

Authors of papers accepted for publication are required to complete a standard journal publishing agreement and to obtain written permission to use material from other sources in a publication.

Policy on Reproduction

The object of Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory is to promote the wide dissemination of the results of research and other scholarly inquiries into the field of auditing. Permission is hereby granted to reproduce any of the contents of this journal for use in courses of instruction, as long as the source and American Accounting Association copyright are indicated in any such reproduction.

Written application must be made to the American Accounting Association, 5717 Bessie Drive, Sarasota, FL 34233-2399, for permission to reproduce any of the contents for use in other than courses of instruction, such as inclusion in books of readings or in other publications intended for general distribution. In consideration for the grant of permission in such instances, the applicant must notify the author(s) in writing of the intended use to be made of each reproduction.

Except where otherwise noted on the first page of each article, the copyright interest has been transferred to the American Accounting Association. Where the copyright has not been transferred to the Association, applicants must seek permission to reproduce (for all purposes) directly from the author(s).