Author Guidelines

Kindly check that your manuscript has been prepared in accordance to the step-by-step instructions provided before submitting a manuscript to our online submission system.

Manuscript Format

Your manuscript should be in MS Word format. All manuscripts must be written in clear, comprehensible English. Both British and American English are accepted. Usage of non-English words should be kept to a minimum and all must be italicized with the exception of "e.g.", "i.e." and "etc." If you have concerns about the level of English in your submission, please ensure that it is proofread before submission by a native English speaker or a scientific editing service.

Cover Letter

All submissions should include a cover letter as a separate file. A cover letter should contain a brief explanation of what was previously known, the conceptual advancement with the findings and its significance to broad readership. The cover letter is confidential and will be read only by the editors. It will not be seen by reviewers.

Title

The title should capture the conceptual significance for a broad audience. The title should not be more than 50 words and should be able to give readers an overall view of the paper's significance. Titles should avoid using uncommon jargons, abbreviations and punctuation.

List of Authors

The names of authors must be spelled out rather than set in initials along with their affiliations. Authors should be listed according to the extent of their contribution, with the major contributor listed first. All corresponding authors should be identified with an asterisk. Affiliations should contain the following core information: department, institution, city, state, postal code, and country. For contact purposes, email address of at least one corresponding author must be included. Please note that all authors must see and approve the final version of the manuscript before submitting.

Abstract

Articles must include an abstract containing a maximum of 200 words. The purpose of the abstract is to provide sufficient information for a reader to determine whether to proceed to the full text of the article. After the abstract, please provide 5-8 key words, avoiding the same words already used in the title.

Text

The text of the manuscript should be in Microsoft Word. The length of the manuscript cannot be more than 50,000 characters (inclusive of spaces) or approximately 7,000 words.

Section Headings

Please number the section headings (e.g. 1234, etc.) in boldface. Likewise, use boldface to identify subheadings too but please distinguish it from major headings using numbers (e.g. 1.11.22.12.2, etc.) Further subsections of subheadings should be differentiated with the numbers 1.1.11.1.22.1.12.1.2, etc.

Introduction

The introduction should provide a background that gives the broad readership an overall outlook of the field and the research performed. It pinpoints a problem and states its importance regarding the significance of the study. The introduction can conclude with a brief statement of the aim of the work and a comment about whether that aim was achieved.

Materials and Methods

This section provides the general experimental design and methodologies used. The aim is to provide enough details for other investigators to fully replicate your results. It is also required to facilitate better understanding of the results obtained. Protocols and procedures for new methods must be included in detail to reproduce the experiments.

Results

This section can be divided into subheadings. This section focuses on the results of the experiments performed.

Discussion

This section should provide the significance of the results and identify the impact of the research in a broader context. It should not be redundant or similar to the content of the results section.

Conclusion

Please use the conclusion section for interpretation only, and not to summarize information already presented in the text or abstract.

Conflict of Interest

All authors are required to declare all activities that have the potential to be deemed as a source of competing interest in relations to their submitted manuscript. Examples of such activities could include personal or work-related relationships, events, etc. Authors who have nothing to declare are encouraged to add "No conflict of interest was reported by all authors" in this section.

Funding and Acknowledgments

Authors should declare all financial and non-financial support that have the potential to be deemed as a source of competing interest in relations to their submitted manuscript in this section. Financial supports are generally in the form of grants, royalties, consulting fees and more. Examples of non-financial support could include the following: externally-supplied equipment/biological sources, writing assistance, administrative support, contributions from non-authors etc.

Appendix

This section is optional and is for all materials (e.g. advanced technical details) that has been excluded from the main text but remain essential to readers in understanding the manuscripts. This section is not for supplementary figures. Authors are advised to refer to the section on 'Supplementary Figures' for such submissions.

Figures

Authors should include all figures into the manuscript and submit it as one file in the OJS system. Reference to the "Instructions for Typesetting Manuscript" is strongly encouraged. Figures include photographs, scanned images, graphs, charts and schematic diagrams. Figures submitted should avoid unnecessary decorative effects (e.g. 3D graphs) as well as be minimally processed (e.g. changes in brightness and contrast applied uniformly for the entire figure). It should also be set against a white background. Please remember to label all figures (e.g. axis etc.) and number them (e.g. Figure 1Figure 2, etc.) in boldface. Please also add in captions (below the figure) as required and number them (e.g. Figure 1Figure 2, etc.) in boldface. The caption should describe the entire figure without citing specific panels, followed by a legend defined as description of each panel. Please identify each panel with uppercase letters in parenthesis (e.g. (A), (B), (C), etc.)

The preferred file formats for any separately submitted figure(s) are TIFF or JPEG. All figures should be legible in print form and of optimal resolution. Optimal resolutions preferred are 300 dots per inch for RBG colored, 600 dots per inch for greyscale and 1200 dots per inch for line art. Although there are no file size limitation imposed, authors are highly encouraged to compress their figures to an ideal size without unduly affecting legibility and resolution of figures. This will also speed up the process of uploading in the submission system if necessary.

The Editor-in-Chief and Publisher reserve the right to request from author(s) the high-resolution files and unprocessed data and metadata files should the need arise at any point after manuscript submission for reasons such as production, evaluation or other purposes. The file name should allow for ease in identifying the associated manuscript submitted.

Tables, Lists and Equations

Tables created using Microsoft Word table function are preferred. The tables should include a title at the top. Titles and footnotes/legends should be concise. These must be submitted together with the manuscript. Likewise, lists and equations should be properly aligned and its meaning clear to readers. For listing things within the main body of the manuscript, please use roman numbers in parenthesis (e.g. (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), etc.)

Supplementary Information

This section is optional and contains all materials and figures that have been excluded from the entire manuscript. These materials are relevant to the manuscript but remain non-essential to readers' understanding of the manuscript's main content. All supplementary information should be submitted as a separate file in Step 4 during submission. Please ensure the names of such files contain 'suppl. info'. Videos may be included in this section.

In-text Citations

Reference citations in the text should be done using the author-date method in which the author's surname and the year published are included in the text. If the reference has no known year of publication, use 'n.d.' (without the quotation marks). The citation style depends on the number of authors for the reference.

One author

  • Niemi (2011) illustrated some scenarios to prove this.
  • The theory governs civil society (Niemi, 2011) and social behaviour.
  • In 2011 Niemi described the theory in detail.

Two authors (Always use both names)

  • Chandler and Tsai (2001) analysed data from several reports.
  • This theory was further supported by Chandler and Tsai (2001).
  • In 2001 Chandra and Tsai proposed a possible mitigation measure.

Three or more authors (Use first author's name, followed by italicized et al.)

  • Dickson et al. (2014) brought up some points to support such an argument.
  • This was further emphasized (Dickson et al, 2014) and subsequently widely accepted.
  • In 2014 Dickson et al. noted that such initiatives have far-bearing effects.

Personal communications and unpublished works can only be used in the main text of the submission and are not to be placed in the Reference section. Authors are advised to limit such usage to the minimum. They should also be easily identifiable by stating the authors and year of such unpublished works or personal communications and the word 'Unpublished' in parenthesis.

E.g. (Smith J, 2000, Unpublished)

References

This section is compulsory and should be placed at the end of all manuscripts. Do not use footnotes or endnotes as a substitute for a reference list. The list of references should only include works that are cited in the text and that have been published or accepted for publication. Personal communications and unpublished works should be excluded from this section.

The references in reference list are arranged in alphabetical order of the first author's surname. Authors referenced are listed with their surname followed by their initials. All references should also appear as an in-text citation. References should follow the following pattern: Author(s) followed by year of publication, title of publication, full journal name in italics, volume number, issue number in parenthesis and lastly, page range. If the referred article has more than three authors, list only the first three authors and abbreviate the remaining authors to italicized 'et al.' (meaning: "and others"). If the DOI is available, please include it after the page range.

Journal

Journal article (print) with one to three authors

  • Younger P. (2004). Using the internet to conduct a literature search. Nursing Standard, vol.19(6): 45-51.
  • Journal article (print) with more than three authors
  • Gamelin F X, Baquet G, Berthoin S, et al. (2009). Effect of high intensity intermittent training on heart rate variability in prepubescent children. European Journal of Applied Physiology,105: 731-738.

Journal article (online) with one to three authors

  • Jackson D, Firtko A and Edenborough M. (2007). Personal resilience as a strategy for surviving and thriving in the face of workplace adversity: A literature review. Journal of Advanced Nursing, vol.60(1): 1-9. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2648.2007.04412.x.

Journal article (online) with more than three authors

  • Hargreave M, Jensen A, Nielsen T S S,et al. (2015). Maternal use of fertility drugs and risk of cancer in children—A nationwide population-based cohort study in Denmark. International Journal of Cancer, vol.136(8): 1931-1939. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ijc.29235.

Book

Book with one to three authors

  • Schneider Z, Whitehead D and Elliott D. (2007).Nursing and Midwifery Research: Methods and Appraisal for Evidence-based Practice, 3rd edn. Marrickville, NSW: Elsevier Australia.

Book with more than three authors

  • Davis M, Charles L, Curry M J, et al. (2003). Challenging Spatial Norms, London: Routledge.

Chapter or Article in Book

  • Conway K M. (2014). Critical quantitative study of immigrant students. In F K Stage and R S Wells (Eds.)*, New Scholarship in Critical Quantitative Research— Part 1 (pp. 51-64). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

*Note that the editor's name is not inverted.

Others

Proceedings of meetings and symposiums, conference papers

  • S S Chang, L Liaw and J Ruppenhofer J (Eds.) (2000). Proceedings of the 25thAnnual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: General session and parasession on loan word phenomena. Berkeley, February 12-15, 1999. Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society.

Conference proceedings (from electronic database)

  • Bukowski R M. (2009). Prognostic factors for survival in metastatic renal cell carcinoma: Proceedings of the Third Cambridge Conference, Cambridge, June 27-28, 2009. Cancer, vol.115(10): 2273-2281. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/cncr.24226

Online Document with author names

  • Este J, Warren C, Connor L, et al. (2008). Life in the clickstream: The future of journalism. Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance. Retrieved from http://www.alliance.org.au/documents/ foj_report_final.pdf

Online Document without author name

  • Princeton Writing Program. (n.d.). Developing an argument. Retrieved from http://web.princeton.edu/ sites/ writing/Writing_Center/WCWritingResources.htm

Thesis/Dissertation

  • Gale L. (2000). The relationship between leadership and employee empowerment for successful total quality management(Thesis). University of Western Sydney. Retrieved from Australasian Digital Thesis database.

Standards

  • Standards Australia Online. (2006), Glass in buildings: Selection and installation. AS 1288-2006, amended January 31, 2008. Retrieved from SAI Global database.

Government Report

  • National Commission of Audit. (1996). Report to the Commonwealth Government, Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service.

Government report (online)

Patent

  • Rencher W F. (1995). Bioadhesive pharmaceutical car- rier. US Patent 5462749 A.

No author

  • Guide to agricultural meteorological practices, 2nd (1981). Secretariat of the World Meteorological Organization, Geneva.

Note: When referencing an entry from a dictionary or an encyclopedia with no author there is no requirement to include the source in the reference list. In these cases, only cite the title and year of the source in-text. For an authored dictionary/encyclopedia, treat the source as an authored book