Unique, Informative Title of the Commentary
Open peer commentary on the target article “Title” by Author
Author of commentary • Affiliation • Email Address
Upshot: Summarize in two or three sentences the aim and content of your commentary.
The overall length of the commentary should be between 800 and 2000 words.
Headings are optional. In longer texts they may help to structure your argumentation.
Use with only one level of heading. Capitalize only the first word in headings.
Motivation for writing a commentary
Open Peer Commentaries are responses to target articles. They openly discuss important
aspects of constructivist approaches. In more detail, they
 Introduce current controversial issues;
 Present findings that substantively contradict some well-established aspects of
current research and theory;
 Unify a substantial amount of disparate research;
 Outline interdisciplinary aspects;
 Introduce an innovative methodology or formalism for broader consideration;
 Integrate empirical data;
 Put novel areas of research and theory into a constructivist perspective.
Content
 Provide a concentrated constructive interaction between the author and
commentators on a topic judged to be of broad significance to the constructivist
community.
 Include in your commentary substantive criticism, interpretation, and elaboration as
well as any pertinent complementary or supplementary material, such as
illustrations.
 Indicate at the top of your commentary the name and title of the target article on
which you are commenting.
Note
 Commentaries are subject to review. Their acceptance cannot be guaranteed in
advance.
 The author of the target article may reject the commentary if it contains adhominem arguments, or its content is not scientifically sound.
 Accepted commentaries will be co-published with the target articles and the target
article author’s response to all commentaries.
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 The editors reserve the right to edit and proofread all commentaries accepted for
publication.
 Commentators will be asked to review copy-editing only when changes have been
substantial.
 The paper must be original work and must not have been published elsewhere
 The copyright remains with the author and is licensed under a Creative Commons
License, http://creativecommons.org
Formatting
Layout
Refrain from complicated layouts. Use a simple single-column format. To emphasize,
use italics (rather than bold typeface or underline). All papers should be submitted
electronically in .doc, .rtf, or .html. Do not submit papers in PDF or PostScript.
Text
To emphasize words and expressions, please use italics rather than bold typeface. As a
rule, always use double quotes, never use single quotes, with the sole exception of
quotes within quotes.
Paragraph numbers. Number the paragraphs consecutively (number dot space). Use
headers to group arguments. However, do not number headers, quotes, and references.
The paper must be written in English. If English is a foreign language for you, please
ask a native speaker of English to proofread your article before submitting it to
Constructivist Foundations.
Figures and tables
Each figure should be included in the text and provided in a separate file in EPS, TIFF,
or JPG, or its original graphics format (e.g., Adobe Illustrator, FreeHand, Mathematica
notebook). Photographs should have a resolution of at least 300dpi.
if ›A‹ is…
and if ›B‹ is…
then ›A or B‹ is…
true
true
true
true
false
true
Table 1: This is a table (or figure) caption.
Copyright
The paper must be original work and must not have been published elsewhere. The
copyright remains with the author and is licensed under a Creative Commons License,
http://creativecommons.org. If you use copyrighted material (quotes, photographs,
figures, etc.) you must obtain the permission from the respective copyright holder to
reproduce the material in your paper before submitting the final version of your paper.
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Citing others
Referring to the target article
Make use of the paragraph numbering of the target article when referring to or quoting
from it. Please avoid redundancies such as repeating the content of the target article.
Examples: In §3, the author claims … / He said, “Eppur si muove” (§15).
Citing other publications
References to other publications should be placed in the text rather than in footnotes.
They follow the simple format: Author Year: Pagenumber, and connect with a
corresponding entry in the References section at the end of the paper. Use up to three
authors’ surnames – otherwise the first author’s surname followed by “et al.” – and the
year of publication without comma between author and year. Specifications of pages are
preceded by a colon in both text and reference part.
Short quotes can be embedded in the text; longer quotes (more than three lines) should
be “blocked” as the following example shows (note also the double quotes at the
beginning and the end). In any case the quote has to be accompanied by a precise
citation including author’s name, year of publication, and page. Never use single quotes,
neither for quotes nor for defining or emphasizing a word. Print Titles of Books in italic
type rather than enclosed in quotes.
“The function of cognition is adaptive; it serves the organization of the experiential world, not the
discovery of ontological reality.” (Ernst von Glasersfeld 1995: 18)
Further examples:
 Glasersfeld (2005) argued that …
 “… quoted text.” (O’Regan & Noë 2001: 940).
 Langley et al. (1987: 103) showed that …
References
Example of references are below.
Brook A. (2008) Kant’s view of the mind and consciousness of self. In: Zalta E. N. (ed.)
The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu on
31 July 2008.
Foerster H. von (1984) On constructing a reality. In: Watzlawick P. (ed.) The invented
reality. W. W. Norton, New York: 41–62.
Foerster H. von (2003) Molecular ethology, an immodest proposal for semantic
clarification. In: Foerster H. von, Understanding understanding. Springer: New York:
133–168. Originally published in: Ungar G. (ed.) (1970) Molecular mechanisms in
memory and learning. Plenum Press, New York: 213–248.
Glasersfeld E. von (1995) Radical constructivism. A way of knowing and learning.
Falmer Press, London.
Glasersfeld E. von (2005) Thirty years radical constructivism. Constructivist
Foundations 1(1): 9–12.
Langley P., Simon H., Bradhaw G. L. & Zytkow J. M. (1987) Scientific discovery. MIT
Press, Cambridge MA.
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Maturana H. R. (1978) Biology of language: The epistemology of reality. In: Miller G.
A. & Lenneberg E. (eds.) Psychology and biology of language and thought.
Academic Press, New York: 27–63.
O’Regan J. K. & Noë A. (2001) A sensorimotor account of vision and visual
consciousness. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 24(5): 939–1031.
Piaget J. (1954) The construction of reality in the child. Ballantine, New York.
Originally published in French as: Piaget J. (1937) La construction du réel chez
l’enfant. Délachaux & Niestlé, Neuchâtel.
The author
Biographical sketch of the author(s), about 50 words.
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