Taylor & Francis
Prepare your manuscript for International Journal of Leadership in Education.
Review the checklist, choose your article type, and turn your draft into a cleaner submission package.
Checked 2026-08-01
Article types
Review
Commentary
Research Article
Review Article
Editorial
Clinical Trial
Protocol
Letter
Lectio
Readiness requirements
Review the key details below, or download the complete checklist with every stored source-backed requirement.
Abstract length
- Provide an author-written abstract of no more than 200 words.
- Use a unstructured abstract.
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- Research Article: Use a unstructured abstract.
- Your abstract should focus on what your research is about, what methods have been used, and what you found out.
- The instructions for authors for each journal will give specific guidelines on what’s required here, including whether it should be a structured abstract or graphical abstract, and any word limits.
Keywords
- Provide 3-6 keywords chosen by the author.
Reference style
- Articlo formats your supplied references to the journal's stored style and checks that citations match the reference list; source validity is not verified.
- Research Article: Research articles should be between 5000 and 8000 words in length, excluding references, appendices (if applicable), tables and figures.
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- Practice articles should be between 4000 and 5000 words in length, excluding references, appendices (if applicable), tables and figures.
- Commentary: Commentary articles should be between 3000 and 4000 words in length, excluding references, appendices (if applicable), tables and figures.
- Where applicable, this should include the hyperlink, DOI or other persistent identifier associated with the data set(s).
- Readers should be able to interpret the table without reference to the text.
- Review: In preparation for blind peer-review, the main document should have all identifying information removed (e.g., author(s) name(s), institutional affiliation(s), self-citation(s) or biographical information).
Figure and table rules
- Keep every figure and table numbered, captioned, and cited in the manuscript. Keep figures embedded; Articlo also extracts numbered source files for the package.
- Group figures at the end of the manuscript.
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- Group tables at the end of the manuscript.
- Figures should be high quality (1200 dpi for line art, 600 dpi for grayscale and 300 dpi for colour, at the correct size).
- Tables and figures Show clearly in your article text where the tables and figures should appear, for example, by writing [Table 1 near here].
- Review: Appendices (as appropriate); table(s) with caption(s) (on individual pages); figures and figure captions (as a list), should be provided in separate files for review.
- Appendices (as appropriate); table(s) with caption(s) (on individual pages); figures; figure captions (as a list) should be provided in separate files.
- Figures should be saved separately from the text.
- Tables should present new information rather than duplicating what is in the text.
- It’s very important that you have been given permission to use any tables or figures you are reproducing from another source before you submit.
- Figures should be supplied in one of our preferred file formats: PS, JPEG, TIFF, or Microsoft Word (DOC or DOCX) files are acceptable for figures that have been drawn in Word.
- Check the instructions for authors to see how you should supply tables and figures, whether at the end of the text or in separate files, and follow any guidance given on the submission system.
Funding statement
- You should declare only the acquired funds and grants that are directly relevant to the work reported in your article; for example, This work was supported by the [Funding Agency #1] under Grant [number xxxx]; [Funding Agency #2] under Grant [number xxxx]; and [Funding Agency #3] under Grant [number xxxx].
Competing interests
- Include or confirm the competing interests required by the journal. Articlo checks this item and flags anything that still needs author input.
Data availability statement
- Include or confirm the data availability statement required by the journal. Articlo checks this item and flags anything that still needs author input.
Ethics statement
- Include or confirm the ethics statement required by the journal. Articlo checks this item and flags anything that still needs author input.
Blinded manuscript
- Review: Remove author names, affiliations, acknowledgements, and other direct identifiers from the blinded manuscript file.
Cover letter
- Using Third-Party Material You must obtain the necessary permission to reuse third-party material in your article.
- Review: The use of short extracts of text and some other types of material is usually permitted, on a limited basis, for the purposes of criticism and review without securing formal permission.
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- If you wish to include any material in your paper for which you do not hold copyright, and which is not covered by this informal agreement, you will need to obtain written permission from the copyright owner prior to submission.
Title page and author information
- All authors of a manuscript should include their full name and affiliation on the cover page of the manuscript.
- One author will need to be identified as the corresponding author, with their email address normally displayed in the article PDF (depending on the journal) and the online article.
Article structure and word limits
- Margins Margins should be at least 2.5cm (1 inch).
- Review: These instructions will ensure we have everything required so your paper can move through peer review, production and publication smoothly.
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- Your research funder or your institution may require you to publish your article open access.
- Use our APC finder to view the APC for this journal.
- Additionally, articles must be based on sound methodological approaches, qualitative, quantitative or mixed, consistent with the study aims and questions.
- Before you submit your article, make sure you’ve checked the instructions for authors for your chosen journal, so you are aware of everything required.
- Most journals create image descriptions during the production process, but a minority may require authors to provide image descriptions.
- Review: Running heads and received dates These aren’t required when submitting a manuscript for review.
- Please use SI units (non-italicized).
- Special characters If you are preparing your manuscript in Microsoft Word and your article contains special characters, accents, or diacritics, we recommend you follow these steps: European accents (Greek, Hebrew, or Cyrillic letters, or phonetic symbols): choose Times New Roman font from the dropdown menu in the “Insert symbol” window and insert the character you require.
- Special characters If you are preparing your manuscript in Microsoft Word and your article contains special characters, accents, or diacritics, we recommend you follow these steps: Asian languages (such as Sanskrit, Korean, Chinese, or Japanese): choose Arial Unicode font from the dropdown menu in the “Insert symbol” window and insert the character you require.
- If you haven't submitted a paper to this journal before, you will need to create an account in ScholarOne.
- If you are at the early stage of your research, you may also need to read how to start writing a journal manuscript.
Preprints and prior publication
- If you have shared an earlier version of your Author’s Original Manuscript on a preprint server, please be aware that anonymity cannot be guaranteed.
Artificial intelligence disclosure
- Add or confirm the author-written Artificial intelligence statement; Articlo flags it if author input is still needed.
- Please include a statement disclosing whether and how generative AI has been used in the research and manuscript preparation process.
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- Please read our guidance on using AI tools in your research and manuscript preparatio n to understand scenarios where their use may be permissible, and the required information that must be disclosed.
Article type and manuscript length
- Preparing Your Paper In general, your paper should consider the following elements: title page with an unstructured abstract (200 words), keywords (3-6) and word count.
- Research Article: Research articles should be written with the following elements in the following order: Title page including an unstructured abstract (200 words), keywords (3-6) and word count.
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- Practice articles should be written with the following elements in the following order: Title page including an unstructured abstract (200 words), keywords (3-6) and word count.
- Commentary: Commentary articles should be written with the following elements in the following order: title page including keywords (3-6) and word count; Main text consisting of introduction, key argument(s), conclusion and implications, acknowledgments, declaration of interest statement, references.
Language and text style
- Please use American spelling style consistently throughout your manuscript.
- Please use single quotation marks, except where ‘a quotation is “within” a quotation’.
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- Please note that long quotations should be indented without quotation marks.
- Headings This will show you the different levels of the heading section in your article: Fourth-level headings should be in bold italics, at the beginning of a paragraph.
- Headings This will show you the different levels of the heading section in your article: Fifth-level headings should be in italics, at the beginning of a paragraph.
- Letter: Headings This will show you the different levels of the heading section in your article: Second-level headings should be in bold italics, with an initial capital letter for any proper nouns.
- Letter: Headings This will show you the different levels of the heading section in your article: Third-level headings should be in italics, with an initial capital letter for any proper nouns.
Manuscript structure
- Letter: Headings This will show you the different levels of the heading section in your article: First-level headings (e.g. Introduction, Conclusion) should be in bold, with an initial capital letter for any proper nouns.
What your package checks
Abstract: 200 words
Paper: 8,000 words
Keywords: 3-6 keywords
Declarations: Artificial intelligence
Format: Times New Roman
Source transparency
This preparation guide uses published journal-specific author requirements. Journal instructions can change, so authors should complete a final review before submission.
Open official guideline source