Submissions

Author Guidelines

AFRICAN PUBLIC PROCUREMENT LAW JOURNAL STYLE GUIDE

 

Submissions may either be made directly online by registering as a user on the site or submitting via email to aplu@africanprocurementlaw.org. 

 

1            Title, author(s) and abstract

 

1 1         Title

 

1 1         All contributions must be provided with a short, descriptive title.

 

1 1 1      In the case of review articles and case notes the title must be followed by a subtitle in square brackets.

 

Examples

 

[Review article of Public Procurement Regulation in Africa by Geo Quinot & Sue Arrowsmith (Eds.). 2013. Cambridge University Press]

 

[Discussion of Steenkamp NO v Provincial Tender Board, Eastern Cape 2007 (3) SA 121 (CC)]

 

1 1 2       In the case of book reviews, the title is a description of the book in the following format:

 

The Law of Government Procurement in South Africa by Phoebe Bolton. 2007. Durban:LexisNexis. ISBN 9780702176715

 

1 2         Author(s)

 

The following should appear after the title of each contribution in categories:

 

• name of the author
• the author’s academic qualifications (except in the case of members of the judiciary)
• an indication of the author’s present position and institutional affiliation
• if persons are thanked for assistance, or institutional support is recognised, an asterisk must follow directly after the exposition of the institutional affiliation; the asterisk must then be linked to a footnote setting out these details; further footnotes must be automatically numbered and commence with footnote 1

 

Examples

 

Title heading:

 

John Jacobs [or J C Jacobs]

BComm LLB LLM PhD

Professor, University of South Africa*

 

Footnote:

 

*I would like to thank the NRF for financial support to conduct this research. I am further grateful to Jane Smith for valuable comments.

 

 

1 3         Abstract

 

All contributions must have an abstract of no more than 300 words that captures the gist of the contribution.

 

2            Literary style

 

2 1         Abbreviations and punctuation

 

2 1 1      Abbreviations

 

Do not use abbreviations in the main text except if a proper name is used repeatedly. In such a case the first full citation of the proper name should be followed by the abbreviation in brackets, and the abbreviation should be consistently referred to thereafter. Use abbreviations as far as possible in the footnotes.

 

Examples

 

Main text:

 

According to section 6 of the Constitution … [not s 6]

The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) aims to influence government policy in various ways. The TAC has often stated that …

 

 

2 1 2      Avoid using full stops and spaces in abbreviations.

 

2 1 3      Abbreviations which are commonly used in footnotes to legal articles include the following:

 

art – article (unless legislation customarily requires capital A)

arts – articles (unless legislation customarily requires capital A)

ch – chapter

chs – chapters

cl – clause

cls – clauses

ed – editor; edition  ( second edition = 2 ed)

eds – editors; editions

GG – Government Gazette

GN – government notice

n – footnote; note

nn – footnotes; notes

no – number

nos – numbers

OS – original service

para – paragraph

paras – paragraphs

Proc – proclamation

reg – regulation

regs – regulations

RS – revision service

s – section

ss – sections

sch – schedule

schs – schedules

subs – subsections

subss – subsections

vol – volume

vols – volumes

 

2 1 4      Never use abbreviations such as op cit, loc cit, ibid and idem and “p” or “pp” for “page” or “pages”. References to page numbers should thus only include the relevant numerals e.g. 344 – 345.

 

2 1 5      Where reference is made to a particular judge, the surname of the judge followed by his or her abbreviated official title (in capital letters) should be used in both the text and footnotes.

 

Examples

 

J – judge

JA – judge of appeal

CJ – chief justice

JP – judge president

DJP – deputy judge president

AJ – acting judge

AJA – acting judge of appeal

P  – president

 

2 1 6      Where words appear in brackets, punctuation marks (full stops, commas, colons, etc) must always be placed after the final bracket.  However, if a complete sentence within a paragraph appears in brackets, the full stop must be placed in front of the last bracket.

 

Examples

 

… these factors are mistake (error), fraud (dolus), as well as …

 

... domestic public procurement regulation is highly fragmented. (This was also confirmed in the 2002 World Bank CPAR.) Current reforms focus on consolidating ... 

 

2 1 7      As a rule, references to footnotes should appear after punctuation and quotation marks.

 

Examples

 

.¹  ,²  ;³   )⁴   .”⁵    and not  ‑¹.  ²,  ³,  ⁴) .⁵”

 

 

2 2         Quotations and quotation marks

 

2 2 1      Quotations should be used sparingly (preferably only as a striking example) and should be as brief as possible.

 

2 2 2      When a complete sentence is quoted (or when a portion of a complete sentence is quoted as a separate sentence), the quotation should be preceded by a colon and must appear as a separate paragraph with a left indent.

 

2 2 3      Quotations correspond exactly to the original (ie as regards the use of capital letters, punctuation marks, etc). If a quotation contains a reference to a footnote, it is preferable to indicate that the footnote is omitted, or to insert the content of the footnote in square brackets in the main text.

 

Examples

 

Main text: 

 

According to Harms JA:

 

”The effect of a non-variation clause has been the subject of two judgments of this Court, namely Shifren and, latterly, Brisley v Drotsky.”¹²³

 

Footnote:

 

123                      Telcordia Technologies Inc v Telkom SA Ltd 2007 (3) SA 266 (SCA) para 12 (footnotes omitted).

 

or

 

Main text: 

 

According to Harms JA:

 

“The effect of a non-variation clause has been the subject of two judgments of this Court, namely Shifren [SA Sentrale Ko-op Graanmaatskappy Bpk v Shifren 1964 (4) SA 760 (A)] and, latterly, Brisley v Drotsky [2002 4 SA 1 (SCA)]”. ¹²³

 

Footnote:

 

123                      Telcordia Technologies Inc v Telkom SA Ltd 2007 (3) SA 266 (SCA) para 12.

 

2 2 4      As far as possible, avoid additions to or omissions from quotations. Additions should be placed in square brackets and omissions should be indicated by an ellipse (…). Quotations should not start with an ellipse but may end with one. Upper and lower case letters may be adapted with the aid of square brackets.

 

Examples

 

According to Innes CJ:

 

“[T]here can be no ratification of a contract … which is prohibited … by statute. Counsel [for the appellants] did not argue this point ...”

 

2 2 5      Double quotation marks (“…”) should be used for all quotations and single quotation marks for a quote within a quotation (“…‘…’…”). As a rule, quotation marks at the end of a quotation should be placed after the last punctuation mark (full stop, comma, etc) within the quotation if the quotation consists of a full sentence. Where the quotation consists of part of a sentence only, the quotation marks should be placed before the last punctuation mark (full stop, comma, etc). As a rule, do not use straight quotation marks ("...").

 

Examples

 

Bolton argues:

 

“The state cannot be equated with a private party who engages in 'private contracting'; it must always act in the public interest."¹²⁴

 

 

2 3         Underlining and Italics

 

2 3 1      Underlining is not allowed, especially not as an alternative to italics.

 

2 3 2      Quotations should not be typed in italics, except and in so far as the original quotation is italicised, and subject to 2 3 4 below.

 

2 3 3      Words from any language other than that in which the contribution is written should be typed in italics and should not be placed in quotation marks.

 

2 3 4      Italics may be used to emphasise words, clauses or sentences. If used for this purpose in quotations, the change must be clearly indicated at the end of the quotations by expressions such as “emphasis added” or “own italics”.

 

 

2 4         Capital letters

 

2 4 1      The use of capital letters should be limited to proper names, full titles or designations.  Lower case letters are used in general designations.

 

Examples

 

Capitals:

 

Chief Justice Langa

the Constitutional Court

the Supreme Court of Appeal

Parliament

the Department of Trade and Industry

the Minister of Justice

the South African Government

the Magistrates’ Court Act

 

 

Lower case:

 

a judge or magistrate should decide

the president or a minister is entitled to

the parliaments of Europe

government control over

 

2 4 2      In headings, a capital letter should only be used for the first letter of the first word, except where the further use of capital letters in the heading is an orthographic requirement (for example for place-names and surnames).

 

2 4 3      All footnotes should begin with a capital letter and end with a full stop.

 

 

2 5         Headings, numbers and bullets

 

2 5 1      Contributions must be subdivided into logical units, each with its own numbered heading.

 

2 5 2      The following style should be used for numbering headings (omitting stops between numerals).

 

 

1 First heading (bold)

1 1 Second sub-heading (bold, italics)

1 1 1 Third sub-heading (italics)

1 1 1 1 Fourth sub-heading

 

2 5 3      Bullets may be used to separate entries in non-numbered lists.

 

2 6         Numerals

 

Numbers below 20 should be written in full, except in the case of page-references or when used with a % sign; numbers of 20 or more should be expressed as numerals.

 

2 7         General

 

Avoid expressions like “the learned judge”, “respectfully” and “with respect”.

 

Gender-neutral language is encouraged. This can be promoted by using the plural or by avoiding use of a gender-specific pronoun.  If this is not appropriate, use either “he” or “she”, but then do not alternate within a single piece of text, or use “he or she”. Do not use  “he/she” or “(s)he”.

 

 

 

3            References

 

3 1       Secondary sources

 

References to sources must be provided in footnotes using the basic Harvard reference style, i.e. in the format: Author Surname year of publication:page number, but without use of brackets. No endnotes or in-text references are used. Every contribution must be followed by a complete bibliography.

 

3 2       Legislation

 

When citing legislation in the text, provide the name of the piece of legislation and any reference numbers (such as year) in the text. It is only required to indicate the jurisdiction if it is not obvious from the context of the reference from which country the legislation originates.

 Examples:

Main text: 

South African courts would need to work out several questions, including the nature of this statutory claim, but have some experience on similar issues under the Competition Act 89 of 1998 and the Prevention of Organised Crime Act 121 of 1998.

 

 

Main text: 

 

Examples of recent statutory reforms in public procurement in Southern African countries include the Public Procurement Act 15 of 2015 (Namibia) and the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Act 5 of 2017 [Chapter 22:23] (Zimbabwe).

 

 

3 3       Case law

 

When citing case law in the text, provide the case name without any referencing numbers in the main text in italics and add a footnote with referencing to one law report in a footnote. Alternatively, the full reference can be provided in the footnote. For subsequent references to the same case, an abbreviated reference to the case name can be used in the text only without the need to provide the full details of the law report reference. Always include the pinpoint reference to the relevant page/paragraph number from the case in a footnote.

Example:

Main text: 

 

This form of interpretation was further confirmed by the court in Natal Joint Municipal Pension Fund v Endumeni Municipality³⁷ that statutes are to be interpreted contextually and in line with constitutional principles. Furthermore, the court held in Endumeni that where both an unconstitutional and constitutional interpretation could be given to a statute, the constitutional interpretation should naturally be preferred.³⁸

 

Footnotes:

 

37          2012 (4) SA 593 (SCA) para 12.

38          Para 13.

 

3 4         Bibliography

               

Authors are encouraged to make use of the free software referencing tool Zotero, available at http://www.zotero.org, to ensure consistent referencing. A full guide to the Harvard referencing style is available on the University Library site of Anglia Ruskin University at http://libweb.anglia.ac.uk/referencing/harvard.htm. A few basic examples are provided below.

 

Source	Footnote reference	Bibliography reference
Book (one author)	Bolton 2007:54	Bolton, P. 2007. The Law of Government Procurement in South Africa. Durban: LexisNexis.
Book (two authors)	Williams & Smith 2009:66	Williams, G.P. & Smith, H.P. 2009. International Procurement Law. Cape Town: Law Publishers.
Book (more than two authors)	Duncan et al 2008:77	Duncan, P., Smith, H. & Roux, D. 2008. Law of State Contracting. Lagos: NN University Press.
Article	Quinot 2011:198	Quinot, G. 2011. Enforcement of Procurement Law from a South African Perspective. Public Procurement Law Review 20:193–206.
Contribution in edited collection	Williams-Elegbe 2013:338	Williams-Elegbe, S. 2013. A perspective on corruption and public procurement in Africa. In Quinot, G. & Arrowsmith, S. (Eds.). Public Procurement Regulation in Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Case law	Steenkamp NO v Provincial Tender Board, Eastern Cape 2007 (3) SA 121 (CC) para 34	Steenkamp NO v Provincial Tender Board, Eastern Cape 2007 (3) SA 121 (CC) [NOTE: Adopt the style commonly used in the particular jurisdiction and only cite one law report]
Legislation	Public Procurement Act 15 of 2015 (Namibia) s 14.	Public Procurement Act 15 of 2015 (Namibia)

 

 

 

 

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