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Community Development Practice

Article Types

Community Development Practice publishes four types of articles: peer reviewed articles, policy briefs, editorials, and book reviews.

Original Research Articles

5000-7,500 words

Original research articles should focus much more on the “how” of strategy and implementation, including key ingredients for success and pitfalls to avoid. Community Development Practice submissions should be aligned with the Community Development Society’s Principles of Good Practice (provided) and should clearly document methodology, data-driven results, success stories, resources and/or lessons learned. Citations of research and resources are expected in every manuscript. Successful submissions and published manuscripts should also reference the Community Development Society Principles of Good Practice. We especially welcome submissions focused on innovations in practice. Additional submission details are outlined in the Policies section.

Shorter pieces (less than 5000 words) can be considered. These shorter pieces may present important work-in-progress or elements of a larger project that contribute significantly to our knowledge of community development practice, but are not appropriate for a full-length paper.

Policy Brief

3000 words

Policy briefs should be a concise summary of a particular issues related to the practice of community development and the policy options or potential options to deal with it, along with some recommendations on the best option (supported by research). These publications are typically aimed at government policymakers or those interested in advocacy.

The policy brief should provide enough background based on firm evidence to help, and potentially convince, the reader that a particular problem should be addressed. While policy briefs should be based on evidence, they should not present original research. They should instead focus on the broader body of evidence and relate to the big picture.

Editorial

1000-1,500 words

Editorials or commentary are an expression of opinion, through evidence based background is appreciated. These pieces are designed to act as a forum for debate.

Book Reviews

1000 words

Book reviews provide a summary judgement on books of note to community development practice. All relevant publication information should be included in the review.